Creating a Partnership Collage

You and your partner can create a vision of your partnership in a fun and creative way by creating a picture collage. It takes an hour or two to accomplish this together. Here are the instructions: 1. First, to create a collage, all you need is a piece of large poster board, scissors, a glue […]

Having your Marriage be a Top Priority

Couples live in a world today that is individualistic, consumer-oriented, media-saturated and work-oriented which often leaves them with less spark, less connection, less intimacy and less focus on the quality of their marriage or committed relationship. Here are some of what competes for a couple’s attention: • Couples are too busy to put a priority […]

Expressing Appreciation

Lynn Twist (2003) in her book, The Soul of Money, writes, “What you appreciate, appreciates.” When a couple appreciates each other and their marriage or committed relationship, their relationship appreciates. Appreciation can be thought of the antidote to taking each other for granted.  You can express appreciation through recognizing and sharing the gifts you see […]

Being Aware of Unwitting Perspectives

In a committed relationship, couples unwittingly adopt joint perspectives or ways of seeing their world together that have great impact on the quality of their relationship. Some couples view their lives together through a joint perspective that they are sharing an exciting adventure. There are couples that view their relationship as hard work requiring much […]

Visualizing your Future

A great way you and your partner co-create your lives is through inventing a future for your partnership. To create the future, first anchor yourselves in what you value and the vision you have for your relationship. Then, visualize and share with each other your dreams for your future, irrespective of time. As you share […]

100% – 100% Responsibility

Many couples early in their relationship set up a model of responsibility that could be called 50% – 50%. If each person in the partnership does their 50%, then all 100% of what needs to be done gets accomplished and presumably both partners will be happy and satisfied. The 50% – 50% model is an […]

A Vision for Partnership

Couples have an extraordinary opportunity to share their dreams of a happy life together when they create a vision for the quality of their lives and their relationship. A vision conveys what a couple wants to express as the fulfillment of their partnership. It is not just the achievement of life goals or objectives. A […]

The Tao of Partnership

The “Tao” is Chinese for “the way.” For committed couples, there is a natural flow in which effective action tends to move. Two partners come together and plan an activity, create an idea, invent a vision or design a project. After co-creating some aspect of their lives, they move into action. They participate together, they […]

The Heart and Soul of “Couple-ness”

The foundation of a partnership rests on a set of shared values that guide your choices and actions in life together. The values you share with your partner can be seen as intrinsic to your “couple-ness.” Your values reflect the very heart and soul of your relationship or your “us-ness.” Some couples value mutual understanding, […]

A Partnership Requires “You and Me”

To create partnership in your marriage or your committed relationship, adopt the perspective that for your relationship to work, it must work for both of you. A relationship can only be a partnership when it is collaborative and a “win” for you, for your partner and for your relationship. A partnership by its very nature […]