Building a Future Together

Sometime after our third child was born in 1991, Martha and I sat down and created 50-year vision of our future. We imagined our three children going to college and each of them pursing their interests and work that they love. We envisioned traveling overseas and even talked about living in a foreign country at […]

The Emotional Ecology of Marriage

In his research with over 2000 couples, John Gottman (1994) studied the patterns of interaction and the emotional ‘ecology’ of marital relationships. He discovered that, in stable and healthy marriages, couples engaged in approximately five positive interactions to every one negative interaction. He called this finding the ‘magic ratio’ and found it to be predictive […]

Creating a Vision Statement

This is an exercise that will help you and your partner to create a very succinct statement about what is important to your relationship. This exercise was adapted from the work of Harrold (2001). Step 1: In this part of the exercise, consider the following questions together. Simply have a conversation as you consider the […]

Why I Never See the Laundry

This blog could also be entitled “Why My Wife Never Sees the Trash.”  Let me explain. One of the choices I made almost thirty-five years ago in my relationship with my wife, Martha, was that I would be responsible for taking out the trash. I like to take out the trash. I do it regularly […]

Healthy Marriage and Business Profitability

Turvey and Olson (2006) build the case that corporate executives have consistently underestimated importance of marriage and family wellness in affecting the financial success of their businesses. Their research shows that employees with healthy marriages can increase the long-term profitability of a company and that employees with failing marriages can do just the reverse. Their […]

Communicating with Compassion

Marshall Rosenberg (2005) examined the role that language plays in helping people to be compassionate with each other when communicating their needs, wants and requests of each other.  He says that when human beings are communicating from the heart and connecting authentically with each other they are communicating with compassion. He is interested in how […]

Participating in my Partners in Living Courses

I develop workshops that are designed for couples who are interested in expanding passion, play and partnership in their marriage. In my courses, called Partners in Living, couples work on areas of their life where they want to experience greater alignment, freedom and power. Through facilitated activities and fun exercises, couples envision a future for […]

The Power of Alignment

Webster’s dictionary defines alignment as “the act of bringing into close cooperation, to ally with, to associate with, or to side with.” Couples who see themselves as partners in life together tend to be aligned on their values, in their lifestyle, and in their vision for their relationship and their future. When something in their […]

Calling a ‘Do Over’

You know those times in your marriage when everything is hunky dory and one of you starts a simple little conversation about something that is a little prickly. You are about to do something together like go out to dinner or go play tennis or visit friends and one of you says, “Our checking account […]

Having Rules for Fighting Fair

Because having arguments and conflicts are natural occurrences in marriage, working out rules for “fair fighting” can be very important. Fighting fair means that both individuals have a mutual commitment to care for each other and their relationship when arguments arise. Emotions might get heated, differing viewpoints might get expressed and the conversation at hand […]