Why The Past Keeps Interfering With The Present

One item that will come up from time to time in therapy for couples is that one of them claims the other is always bringing up things from the past.  Inevitably one person always questions the purpose of rehashing things and/or why can’t he or she just let it go?  I carefully explain to my clients that the solution is simple but the execution is difficult.  I like to refer my clients to Stephen Covey’s 5th Habit from his world famous The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  It is learning to Seek First to Understand, Then Be Understood.   I believe the point Covey was trying to make was when we are listening to understand as opposed to responding; we can learn to hear differently what the real issue or issues are.

This is also another way you can acknowledge and validate the other person’s feelings, which I believe will help you and your partner leave the past behind.  When you really master the habit, you will be able to repeat back to your partner what you just understood them to say in words better than they could have explained them to you.  And there in lies the rub, i.e. the execution – because if you allow your emotions to be provoked then the listening stops and the reacting begins.

So if you want to leave the past where it belongs, then remind yourself when you are faced with it in a conversation from someone whom you care deeply for that they are looking for your understanding and not your defense of the situation.

For more information or to work with me please visit SexHealthDoc.com.

Trying to fit a square peg into a round hole

One of the most frustrating things couples experience, and ultimately come to therapy for, is when they feel their relationship has moved into the “living with my best friend” and they are no longer intimate anymore.  I need to jump up on my soapbox for just a sentence or two to emphatically state that there is a real human need to provide relationship classes in our primary education years and beyond.  Either adjust the three R’s to include relationships or add a fourth R, enough said!  

Many couples struggle with sustaining what each considers a happy, healthy and satisfying sexual relationship.  It shouldn’t surprise anyone [although it does] that this would become an issue in long-term relationships when there has never been any kind of formal or informal ways of addressing sexual matters and concerns.  One reason is that many people feel completely uncomfortable talking about what they consider to be of an extremely [possibly embarrassing] personal nature.

So if you are not talking to anyone other than your partner about what “a normal sexual relationship” is supposed to be like then where did you get your information?  Zilbergeld [The New Male Sexuality – Revised Edition] wrote about a Fantasy Model of sexuality and described how many people define sex as intercourse making it all about performance, thus limiting your view of sexuality.  I liked his sports car analogy to sex – the only way you can really enjoy this car [i.e. sex] is to drive [i.e. intercourse] 90 mph around really windy roads.

If you have limited your view of sex to intercourse [my Round Hole title – no pun intended] then you are missing out on so much pleasure, fun and intimacy.  In other words, you and your partner need and should define sex on your terms.  Rethinking frequency with satisfaction – make your square peg fit into your square opening!