Happy New Year
So, what about your New Year’s resolutions? About 40% of us resolve to do (or stop doing) something in the new year: save money, get organized, lose weight, quit smoking or some other bad habit, get in shape. (Local gyms are swamped for a few weeks every January.) Resolutions are great, but we all know that most don’t last. In fact, research says that 88% of us will give up on our New Year’s resolutions by the second Friday in January. This year, “Quitter’s Day” will be January 10. Yes, “Quitter’s Day” really is a thing. The reasons we quit are many. Some of us aim too high and set unrealistic goals. Some of us let others drag us down. Some of us simply don’t feel an urgency about our resolution. In other words, it just isn’t worth what reaching our goal will require: the time, effort, expense and so on. At the end of the day, the chances of you sticking to your resolutions depend most on how much reaching your goals matters to you.
You have to ask yourself, “How much is it worth to me?”
Some New Year’s resolutions are more pressing than others, and more worthwhile.
How about resolving to improve your marriage?
How much is that worth to you?
A Truly Worthwhile Resolution
What more worthwhile goal could any of us set, given what we know about the value of healthy intimate relationships? Indeed, few things could be more important or better for us. We know that people in healthy relationships generally enjoy better emotional and physical health, tend to live longer, suffer less anxiety and depression, less addiction and, when they do get sick, tend to heal faster. They tend to enjoy more stable relationships across the board. They tend to advance further in their careers and make more money over the course of a lifetime. They even tend to enjoy more and better sex.
In short, a healthy love relationship pays off in all kinds of ways. It’s a goal well worth pursuing and prioritizing.
And it’s a great New Year’s resolution.
A Resolution That Lasts
But, how can we help you survive “Quitter’s Day?” How can we ensure that this New Year’s resolution lasts much longer than two weeks?
That’s where a Hold Me Tight®️ couples retreat comes in. Hold Me Tight®️ is a two day couples workshop with the best track record in the business. It’s based on attachment science and the tenets of Emotionally Focused Therapy. But, Hold Me Tight®️ is not therapy. It’s a low key group experience where couples learn to connect more deeply than ever before—and do it safely and without pressure. No one is put on the spot. Couples go at their own pace.
And, after decades of Hold Me Tight®️ success the world over, 70% of couples who attend not only report excellent results, they say that they are still doing well two years afterward. (That’s two years…not two weeks!)
If any goal is truly worthwhile, improving your love relationship is surely at the top of the list! And the best part of all that is that our next Hold Me Tight®️ couples retreat is next month. It’s the perfect New Year’s resolution. Get in now on something that can truly bring lasting change to the most important relationship in your life.
Sign up today. Space is limited.
- Sign up for our contact list.
- Learn more about Mark and Vicki.
- Prepare for a transformational experience.
Have a Safety Plan
On June 5, 2002, 14 year old Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped in a suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah. Her captors, a mentally ill religious zealot and his wife, did not flee to another continent or a foreign country. Instead, they stayed right in Salt Lake City. They actually went out in public. They made Elizabeth wear a headscarf and a veil, but they visited stores, restaurants, the public library and so forth. Ultimately, after 8 months and a relentless nationwide search, authorities found her only 18 miles from where she was abducted. Elizabeth Smart’s abductors hid her in plain sight. Stories like that are more common than we think. It happens a lot that what we most want to find turns out to be right in front of us—hiding…or hidden…in plain sight right under our noses.
I’ve been counseling couples and leading couples workshops for quite a few years now. Without a doubt, from my experience, Hold Me Tight®️ couples workshops are more powerful and bring faster real, lasting change than any other experience couples can share. Vicki and I lead them at least four times a year because we believe in Hold Me Tight®️ and we know what it can do. We’ve seen couples transform in just two short days. Something is especially powerful about being in a group with other couples on the same journey, sometimes feeling equally stuck or overwhelmed, struggling with the same frustrating patterns, emotions, wishes and mistakes. Couples can empathize, encourage and understand one another at Hold Me Tight®️. Realizing that we’re not alone (and not as messed up as we think) is uniquely comforting.
Like over 90% of Americans, I own a smartphone. It’s definitely a love/hate relationship. My phone frequently notifies me of a software update. It’s pretty easy to update my phone, and even more important. But, why update the software? I asked Google and here’s what it told me: “Smartphone software updates are crucial for enhancing security by patching vulnerabilities, improving stability by fixing bugs and glitches, and optimizing performance for a smoother experience.” Sounds good to me. All I know is: updates matter. They keep my phone working well. They are as beneficial as they are necessary. But, it occurs to me that not just smartphones need updates. Smart relationships do too.
What makes couples fall in love? Is it looks, sexual chemistry, personality? Is it the car you drive? (Kidding). Attachment science says it’s connection…a safe emotional connection. Connection is the key. By that, we mean that when we feel seen, heard, valued, as if we matter, we feel safe. We feel understood and trusted and cared for; that’s called safe attachment. And we fall in love. On the other hand, when and why do couples fail? What's missing? It’s the same word—connection. Specifically, it’s the lack of it. A thousand things can pull couples apart over time. Stress from jobs, money, children, family demands, depression, addictions, the challenges and changes life throws at us can all put the pressure on. But, problems alone need not destroy a relationship. It’s when we don’t “turn toward” one another to manage those problems. When we distance and disconnect; that’s when we end up alone, even in the same household, living parallel lives. How do we reconnect?
Benjamin Franklin famously said, “An ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure.” I think he was right. Preventing heart disease, for example (with exercise and a healthy diet) beats cardiac bypass surgery by a mile. An oil change on your car is way better than an engine rebuild. Prevention is easier, faster and cheaper almost every time. It’s true in relationships too. Love is meant to last a lifetime. But a relationship left unattended will eventually wear out—and many do. Repairing it in couples therapy is often expensive, difficult and time consuming. Instead, a little attention along the way can help you avoid those costly repairs.
In my last blog post, we said that the most vital skill for any strong relationship is empathy. (If you haven’t seen that blog, check out “The One Skill Your Relationship Can’t Do Without”.) Empathy is vital in love. But, empathy is not the only important skill. That hit record has a flip side. What is it? It’s vulnerability. Close connection in love demands vulnerability, almost by definition. Vulnerability: the willingness to open up, to show and share the deep stuff: wishes, needs, fears, uncertainties, insecurities, the things about us that we often prefer to hide. In any healthy relationship, vulnerability and empathy go hand in hand. Each makes the other possible. Without them, couples live at arm’s length, “hiding in plain sight,” like intimate strangers. They might be together…might even be married, but they aren’t close. Maybe you know this all too well. Maybe you live it everyday.
Lots of things make for a healthy relationship: affirmation, trust, sacrifice, forgiveness, commitment. But, maybe the most important skill, the one no healthy relationship can do without…is empathy. Empathy is the ability to recognize and convey not only your emotions, but your partner’s emotions as well. Humans are bonding mammals and emotions are how we bond. Emotional connection is the lifeblood of any relationship. Your partner needs to know that you “get them,” that you understand their world, that you support and believe in them, that you are there for them. Empathy gets all that across.
My wife and I bought a car recently. Not a new car, just new to us. We spent a small fortune on it and I’m determined to take good care of it. I vacuum it religiously. I check the fluids, tire pressure, mileage. I keep it clean, inside and out. I wash it at least once a week and am careful not to track a lot of dirt inside it. I’ve watched You Tube videos on simple maintenance such as oil changes, tire rotation and so forth. I’m no master mechanic, but I like to do the little things any shade tree mechanic might. We keep it out of direct sun when we can and drive as carefully as possible.
I had a strange experience recently. I was out of town (in Texas, actually) and absentmindedly left my phone in a WalMart restroom (big mistake, but I know I’m not the first). I realized what I’d done less than 20 minutes later and headed back for my phone. Too late…it was gone. Now, if you found a lost cell phone, what would you do? You’d probably try to contact the owner or at least leave it with someone responsible. You’d make a good faith effort. Most people would. But, not all. With my wife’s phone, I called my number and, sure enough, someone answered. He indeed had picked up my phone. I was relieved…for a second. Then, the guy told me he’d happily return the phone to me…for $200, via Cash App. I don’t know who was dumber: me for leaving my phone behind or him for thinking I’d give him a dime to get it back. We both knew one thing: whether I paid him or not, I’d never see that phone again. It was a sad lesson in broken trust as my faith in humanity slipped a few notches. Chalk one up for the school of hard knocks.
What is the first step to changing our station in life, changing a situation or a relationship? I suggest it starts with changing how we view things, how we look at the problem or the person. Do we see burden or a blessing…obligation or opportunity? Often, when we’re stuck, say, in a difficult relationship, we see our partner as an opponent. He or she is the problem. We may even go find a therapist whom we hope will “fix” our partner. We focus on the other’s weakness, faults and failures, how they let us down and miss the mark. If that is your focus, then the more you look, the more you will see. Most couples who come to me for therapy are so focused on their partner’s problems that they can’t see anything else. They are often stuck in blame and negativity. And what we see informs what we believe. If we see only the bad in our partner, it’s easy to believe that he or she doesn’t love us or that the relationship is hopeless. That’s when couples don’t call me; they call lawyers.