Why, you may ask? Because, after the frenetic activities of the holidays, the lack of partners’ focus on each other, and the tendency to put each other on the back burner due to other activities going on, intimate relationships in January tend to feel depleted and partners may question their bond and their feelings for one another. Love relationships suffer at this time because the holidays may have brought a lot of excitement and newness with travelling; celebrating with friends and family, gift giving and holiday cheers, and now all this is gone. So, if you and your partner feel down, facing the relational doldrums of everyday life with little excitement and not much to look forward to, you are not alone

It is easy to displace frustrations and lack of enjoyment from the loss of sensational and extraordinary activities in our lives to lack of excitement in our primary relationship. While you may feel disappointed about what’s gone, however, you need to turn the situation around by creating renewed freshness and enthusiasm about each other again.

It is quite possible that you may want you partner to be emotionally and physically available to you, with a positive, caring and responsive attitude and a willingness to respond to your demands and needs, but perhaps your partner wants and needs the same from you and neither of you is getting what you want and need. Typically, when this happens each partner will do one of two things: he or she will either become louder in asking for what’s needed, or shut down and disconnect. Though understandable, it goes without saying that neither of these reactions produces healthy results, because neither provides what one partner is looking for from the other.

So, make sure you devote the time, attention and care to your loved one by setting up New Year’s resolutions for your relationship. By the way, had you ever heard of New Year’s Resolutions for couples? If not, you are not the only one, as most of people’s New Year’s resolutions tend to be about individual goals – losing those extra pounds; plan to exercise more and more regularly; take care of what you have been ignoring or procrastinating; create more balance in your life, and so on – but what about setting up a New Year’s resolution about your relationship with your life partner? Being in a healthy intimate relationship is a very foundational part of being happy. So, taking care of what’s going on with your partner is a very important task.

Think about your own love relationship and see if you can see where more attention and care are needed at this time. Write a list of things you are willing to do in areas where you would like to see improvement, and begin to be more aware of what you may be doing to contribute to the current situation – you being part of the problem – as well as to improve it – you being part of the solution.

In the next blog I will list some specific ways in which you can begin to feed your relationship and get it out of the current sad state it is in and into a more exciting and healthy one. So, stay tuned!

Susan and I worked like two little ants for months and months to get our book, “Couples at the Crossroads. Five Steps to Finding Your Way Back to Love” ready for you. Then, when we finally thought it was ready, we “snuck” it in and, voila, here it is, on Amazon.com.

How do we feel about it? Almost like we had to let go of a dear friend who had been with us for years. We knew all along that one day we would have to let go of this friend; that we would have to push our feelings of wanting to be together forever aside and support his move toward independence, but it was difficult nonetheless to say goodbye. With letting go of the book, it was difficult to stop our tendency to make one more revision, one more comment, one little correction here or there, one more clarification; one more idea… Once the book was finished, we knew we had to let go, and we finally did.

It also feels a little scary, as you and everybody else can now buy our book, read it and make comments on what we said, how we said it; what we left out and what we said more than once.

But, above all, we feel excited and very, very happy. We truly believe our book can provide help for couples like you who struggle in their relationships and are desperate to understand how they got where they are; how they can find a clear path to follow and acquire the necessary tools to move out of the pain. We know the book will be helpful to you because it contains a lot of the same things we speak of in our clinical sessions with couples. And we see how these couples, slowly but surely, begin to move from their place of pain to a place of gradual openness, as they become more hopeful. We see them when they begin to look at each other with different eyes; reverse the previous patterns of mutual hostility and disconnection, and find love for one another again.

What do you think? Interested? Do you want to check our book out? Click on the link below and the book will open in a new window or tab. Just open the first page and scroll through its Table of Contents, Preface and Introduction. This brief preview will make you want to know more…

Couples at the Crossroads: Five Steps to Finding Your Way Back to Love – Preview

Because I want to remember this date by offering something that hopefully can shed further light on some of the repercussions of the fateful events of ten years ago.

As a psychotherapist, I am deeply aware of the importance of traumatic events that occur unpredictably and seemingly without any logical reason, such as the events of 9/11 ten years ago. These events affected each of us individually as well as collectively.

We know that the goal of terrorism isn’t only or even primarily to cause physical destruction, but mainly and more subtlety to cause psychological damage to the people targeted by these heinous and random acts.

The main psychological damage of the 9/11 events is that it forever changed the sense of security each of had prior to that day.

Feeling safe is an important need that all humans have. We seek security from birth on, by developing attachment bonds to people we believe will protect us and take care of us, thus creating and preserving a sense of security and emotional and physical safety that we all need. As we grow up, we continue to maintain this need for safety and achieve it by creating relationships and environments around us that keep dangers at bay. In this way, we can keep fear and anxiety under control.

Prior to 9/11 most of the people living in his country felt safe. Though aware of dangers in the world, in fact, most of us in this country nonetheless felt we had a level of safety that allowed us to pursue our goals and interests. After September 11, however, this sense of safety disappeared and our views of life and the world changed forever.

So, what happens when this feeling of security disappears?

Social psychologists tell us that we tend to react to the loss of perceived security in two ways: by feeling “moral outrage” and a need for “moral cleansing.”
Moral outrage is triggered by ANGER, which pushes us to seek vengeance, to direct our feelings toward the people whom we believe responsible for the terrorist attacks, or to people who are close to them (like people of the same ethnic background, of the same religion, similar political views, and so on.)
More cleansing is triggered by FEAR, which pushes us to adopt those behaviors that tend to reduce our fear by recreating a belief in fundamental goodness and in positive values (offering help, volunteering, getting closer to family, friends, community and people directly affected by the attack.) If we look back at the last ten years, we can see examples of both.

Ten years on, what can we do with what we have learned from this horrific tragedy?

If I were to summarize in a few words the biggest lesson of 9/11, this is what I would say: We learned that we need to acknowledge both our fears and our anger, and channel these legitimate feelings in behaviors and public policies that acknowledge our emotions and express them in healthy, balanced and constructive ways by reinforcing physical and emotional security. We also learned that we need to keep the memories of that day fresh in everybody’s mind, so that we strengthen and reinforce the ties that were built on the loss of many lives and the pain of those left behind.

This attitude is often due to a temporary suspension of clear thinking these people experience when in the throw of intense desires. This suspension of judgment prevents them from reflecting on the meaning and consequences of their actions. In these cases, they act as though they were above all social and moral conventions. They may believe, unrealistically, that they can get away with what they are doing without any negative repercussions, as they tend to minimize their actions and overvalue their abilities to keep them hidden from others. When caught, they show bravado, even hubris, in justifying their actions

Yes, it is true that powerful alpha males may have more propensities for lusty conquests, as Dr. Fisher stated. They also have more resources available, which makes it easier for them to create opportunities for sexual enjoyment. The long list of politicians caught in illicit affairs and sexual activities seems to confirm this view. Add to this the fact that the media, who in the past protected these kind of “private’ activities in public people, now seem to have no qualms in exposing and sensationalizing them. This makes all of us more aware of the extent of these dysfunctional activities and of how people respond to getting exposed. The recent case of the congressman caught sexting is a case in point.

While there doesn’t seem to be any doubt that voracious sexual appetites and acting out on them may be elements associated with power, drive, success and inflated self confidence, the challenge to restrain from acting on their urges is not theirs alone. All people, at one point or another, have fought with their urges, caught on the one hand with what they want to do and, on the other, with doing the ‘right’ thing. To explain the actions of high testosterone people as purely physiological and to a great extent out of their control is too superficial and simplistic. Furthermore, this explanation seems to provide an easy justification for these people as not being able to help themselves.

The conception of manhood in the Western tradition historically emphasized the ability to control and restrain one’s sexual desires and sexual acting out through the use of willpower and the intellect as being the measure of a man. So, we may ask, how is masculinity conceptualized and viewed in our society today?

In the next blog we will address this question and discuss whether or not this concept of manhood is still relevant in today’s society.

Please stay with us and contribute to the discussion with your experiences and viewpoints.

According to Helen Fisher, an anthropologist who has been studying the role of hormones in human behaviors, people who have high testosterone levels are most likely to find this technology appealing and use it, at times inappropriately, because when the desire strikes, they don’t think but act impulsively. And since, according to Dr. Fisher, high sex drive and ambition go hand in hand, it is understandable why some men whose moral, social and political stature, one would think should provide a deterrent for these actions, are in fact particularly attracted to it. Other scientists, likewise, point out that throughout history successful and ambitious men had huge sexual appetites and expressed them openly. So, this seems to be something to be expected, not surprising.

The physiological explanation on the role of hormones may help understand why some men are more attracted to and may be more likely users of this technology than others. However, it leaves out other elements that play an important role in either mitigating or reinforcing these kinds of behaviors. I am referring to the different emotional, social, cultural and religious influences in a person’s life. The way a child is raised; the modeling from his parents and his community at large; the exposure and influence of religious/moral teachings and, later in his life, the cultural expectations about what constitutes being a man, all mold his views of how to be in intimate relationships and affect his attitudes and behaviors about sex.

How people use sexting can give us a glimpse into their minds so, in the next blogs we will go further into this discussion, and explore some general traits that apply to regular users of sexting.

Please stay with us and contribute to the discussion with your experiences and viewpoints.

There are two myths about this practice that need to be challenged:

1. Only teenagers do it. Not true. According to a recent survey, “The Internet and American Life Project” by the Pew Research Center, the practice of sexting is most common not among teenagers, but among the 18-29 age bracket population. And, even though it is not as frequent, it is also popular with the 30-49 year old crowd.

2. It is not that common. Again, not true. In the 18-29 age bracket, 1/3 of people interviewed admitted to receiving sexually explicit/suggestive photos, and 13% sent them. In the 30-49 age bracket, 17% have received photos and 5% had sent them. Among teenagers, 15% received pictures, and 5% had sent them. And, as this practice becomes more popular, one should expect these numbers to climb.

Increasing use of texting in couples is replacing phone calls in most age brackets with the exception of older adults. Texting has become the way in which intimate partners stay in touch, argue and, yes, are sexually playful with one another.

While texting is faster than a phone call, it is also more anonymous, and this can create room for expressing thoughts and desires that one may not express in person, or even on the phone. The additional use of the camera adds to the attraction of this digital device, making the jump from texting to sexting easily achievable, not only between intimate partners but also between strangers.

Although this way of communicating sexually may be appropriate within the context of a relationship, it can lend itself to unhealthy situations, if used inappropriately and with strangers. Because of the anonymity, in fact, and because this means of communication does not involve physical contact, some users who are committed to intimate relationships and reach out to other sexual partners via sexting may downplay the importance of their actions. They may, in fact, see sexting as not constituting infidelity. Sexting, therefore, can be insidious, creating, as it does, a pseudo ‘safe’ avenue for some people to channel their sexual desires and urges without addressing them IN their primary relationship. Reaching out to strangers in a sexually explicit way, additionally, has a whole set of dangers in and by itself, as can be the case with other digital ways of connecting.

Even though texting is a fairly new phenomenon – its name has been in existence only since 2005 – the underlying motivations are as old as humankind. So, we ask, why are people attracted to this form of sexual communication and who are the people most likely to use it?

While there is no single answer that explains why people are attracted to sexting, nor is there a single profile that applies to every user, there are nonetheless some elements in conjunctions with sexters that are interesting to discuss.

In the next two blogs, some of the explanations people have come up with for the popularity of this practice will be discussed, as well as the underlying causes for the existence, popularity and use of this technology.

In a third blog, the role of this practice in intimate relationships will be discussed.

I don’t think there is a simple yes/no answer, as technology can BOTH enrich and deplete real relationships. We stay in touch with people who live far way through Facebook, phone, e-mail or skype. We can communicate instantly with anybody, just at the touch of a finger. Yet, this same technology can prevent us from being face-to-face with people, as one phone call can just do it. We can “defriend” people we no longer want to associate with just by pressing a key on our keyboard. No second thoughts. No guilt. No embarrassment. We don’t even have to provide long explanations for our decisions. We can maintain more superficial contacts, avoiding getting too personal.

The most important consequence of being hooked on technology, however, is the fragmentation of our time. We cannot go through a meal without checking our Blackberries; we cannot go through a whole conversation without being distracted by our phone ringing, or by texting. Often our attention is spread between more than one focus. This is what I mean by fragmentation. We function in bits: one moment here, one moment there, and back to the first focus, and so on. Children complain their parents don’t give them full attention, as they listen to their days in school while checking their e-mails or texting. The reality is that most of us cannot do more than one thing at a time WELL. When we jump back and forth between different areas, we end up by being fully nowhere. Children, when they notice their parents not paying them full attention as they talk, may believe it’s their fault. Perhaps they are disappointing to the parents, or not interesting enough, or parents don’t love them, they may wonder. Sooner or later they will disconnect as well, creating a rift that won’t be repaired as they grow older. Eventually they, too, will get hooked to technology s they saw their parents do, and fragment their attention between different areas, people and activities.

Another insidious aspect of technology is that it is always available, and responds to our commands without complaining, without throwing a tantrum or disliking us, unlike real people who may do all these things and more. We get used giving commands and be immediately and consistently obeyed. We thus become more impatient with our partners in real life, and expect them to respond to us just like our technological devices do. Some of us may seek refuge in technology altogether, limiting human contact and deluding ourselves that we are “connected” through the use of social media and phone and e-mail interactions.

What can we do to maintain a healthy balance between technology and real life and relationships? The answer is:  MAINTAIN HEALTHY BOUNDARIES. Turn your phone off when your child comes home from school, or when you are having a meal with your spouse, family or a friend. Give the person in front of you your FULL attention when they talk, rather than moving back and forth between the person and the machine that is demanding your attention. Disconnect when you are outside, taking a walk, watering your flowers and, in general, being in contact with nature, or whenever you need a space to think, reflect and enjoy your solitude in order to feel replenished and restored.

Gone seem to be the times when people retired and stayed home, played bingo, and gradually reduced their activities as their physical conditions deteriorated and their energy waned. Up until as recently as twenty to thirty years ago, when people retired they were OLD, often sick with multiple ailments, not interested in travelling and developing new interests and lifestyles. Often they lived close to family, their main activity being involvement with grandchildren and partaking of family life. A few of them, the adventurous and those who could afford it, moved to states like Arizona and Florida to live in retirement communities. These, however, were the exception, not the norm.

The idea of retirement today is quite different. A whole new industry has sprung out to cater to this growing segment of the population. A lot of people, at retirement, are still vibrant, healthy and full of energy, so this new industry is busy offering new housing facilities, new amenities, new opportunities to explore and be active in, and new medical care.

The new retirees tend to regard retirement as the time when they finally can do all the things they had to put aside when they were too busy working at their jobs and raising a family. It’s not surprising, therefore, that the ideas, plans and expectations of retirement are now quite different than what they used to be.

Because of all these differences – and because people live longer, hence they have more retirement years ahead of them – planning for retirement is an extremely important part of reaching this stage in life.

In most studies that address what makes people happy two elements are constantly reported as fundamental: having a purpose and being connected to loved ones. So, whatever you plan for your retirement, these two elements need to play a central role in it.

Having a purpose is an important driving force in selecting what we want to do and how to do it. When we work, whether we are professionals, have a trade or are stay-home parents, we like to feel that our work makes a difference. Perhaps we help people in need, or raise organic vegetables in our garden and sell them to the local farmer’s market. Or, we work in an office, or answer the phones, or clean houses, or do surgery. Or, we choose to raise our kids and spend many years involved in PTOs, immersed in after school activities and teenage angst. Whatever we do, we have a purpose, and this drives us to continue to do what we are doing …or change it, if we feel we don’t contribute enough.

As you plan your retirement, think of what purpose you want your days to have: do you want to learn new skills? Or, do you want to volunteer and give back to your community? Do you want to travel, and share with your local school the slides and experiences from your trips? Do you want to get more involved in your neighborhood? Do you want to do philanthropic work? Whatever you do, think of what purpose your choice will provide in your life and then ask yourself if this is what you want.

Retirement without any planning may lead to boredom, disorganization, and at times isolation and depression.

Being connected to loved ones is another important element that needs to be included in any retirement plan worth exploring. Isolation, particularly as we age, is a very hard thing to tolerate. Loved ones don’t necessarily have to be members of your biological family. They could be good friends, neighbors, fellows in the church or synagogue you attend. They can be people with similar interests to yours, with whom you resonate and feel close. Choosing a community where you can find the kind of neighborhood spirit that makes you feel ‘at home’ is very important, as isolation is dreadful, particularly as we age. Stay involved in their lives. Ask what’s going on with them. Be interested.

If you have planned your retirement right, you will get up each morning looking forward to a new day. You will be active, but not overwhelmingly so. You will feel positive. You will be better able to stay in the present and enjoy it, rather than worrying about what the future will be like for you.

Women who hold this position focus on how much busier married women are compared to single women, juggling many roles simultaneously, and often doing it solo or with little help. And, while they acknowledge and appreciate the fact that a larger number of men are getting more involved in child rearing and household chores, they think what men do is still not comparable to what they do.

In a book published in 1982, The Future of Marriage, that author, Jessie Bernard utilizes to the concept of “benefit unbalance” to describe these gender differences in marriage. In fact, for this author, the gender unbalance goes further than claiming an unfair share of responsibilities in marriage, pointing to the various areas where married women are worse off: they have more mental health problems; their labor is unappreciated and taken for granted, and they have many more stresses than single women, having to constantly multi-task and often putting their own personal goals on hold to take care of others’.

In a study conducted in England – http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/oct2006/marriage2.html – one out of three women interviewed felt marriage is no longer relevant in today’s society. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the younger the age of the women interviewed, the more likely they were to think this way. Older women, on the other hand, were more likely to still hold marriage as having an important place in society and in women’s lives and expectations.

In another book, A Little Bit married, author Hanna Seligson argues that the problem with marriage today has to do with the different level of maturity between men and women. Men, she claims, grow up more slowly than in the past and women, becoming increasingly more independent and successful in their own rights, surpass men of same age in maturity and ability to take on responsibilities. Consequently, marriage is not as balanced and equal as they would like, and thus they may not pursue it as much as they did in the past.

In the next and final blog of this series on June brides, I will discuss how these diverging views coexist, and hat they tell us about the state of marriage in today’s society.

As we watch the current media mega hoopla about the upcoming wedding of Prince William of England and Kate Middleton,  there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference between the current anticipation and excitement and what happened when Prince William’s parents – Charles and Diana – got married almost thirty years ago or, indeed, when Queen Elizabeth got married almost seventy years ago.

Kate Middleton was on the cover of Newsweek on 4/11/11. The caption said: “Kate the Great. In a world gone to hell – thank God, a wedding.” The reporter who wrote the story, Allison Pearson, claims that “…this is one royal marriage that simply has to work… (If not) The breakup of Prince Williams and Princess Catherine could herald the end of the monarchy itself.” So, how is this different than what marriages used to be in the past, business arrangements that strengthened families, assures succession and brought peace to quarreling parties? And, at the same time, romantic events young women looked forward to?

Indeed, young women all over the world are tuned into this royal affair and seem to vicariously see their dreams of spring weddings and love forever become reality. Conversations about the wedding gown, the guest list, the wedding menu, the proper etiquette and other topics of relevance to this wedding abound in newspapers and magazines. Several websites are exclusively dedicated to them, with chat rooms and widespread interest. The British prime Minister has declared the day of the wedding, the 29^th of April, a Bank Holiday for the country. This will allow British citizens and tourists alike – one million of them are expected! – to line up the streets and be entertained and awed by the royal procession.

This wedding captures the very essence and allure of spring weddings, today as always. As Kate Middleton herself, a lot of young women may be independent, educated and successful in their own right and free from previously restrictive social and sexual mores that offered very few choices to them. So, one would expect these women to be less in awe about this wedding. And yet getting married with pump and circumstance seems to maintain, for most of them as for young women of previous generations, the attraction it always had.

What these reactions to the upcoming royal wedding seem to tell us is that women today still want to get married, by and large, despite all the societal changes in marriage. They claim marriage provides a level of commitment and security that is not possible in other arrangements. As a psychotherapist I encounter many situations where women insist on getting married while men seem not to totally grasp why this is so important.

Marriage is still an important rite of passage for women more than for men. It is a symbol of shedding the image of being young girls and assuming the role of women. The name change, the wedding band, the ceremony all attest to this changed status. A wedding also legalize reproduction, as marriage, conception and children still seem to be connected in a lot of women’s minds, though less so than in the past. This seems to be true even if many children today are born out of wedlock and this trend is less stigmatized and more accepted than in the past. I was surprised by a friend of mine, in her fifties, who after having lived with her boyfriend for several years, finally was proposed by him. While she announced her marriage to her friends and her community, she was ecstatic, as excited as a young girl, even though little changed in her day to day life after the wedding.

In the next blog I will discuss some of the reasons why this is so. As always, I hope you will want to join the discussion on this topic with your comments and experiences.