Passion 101 » Communication

What Do Women Want?

drsheck — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 21:51:32 +0000

Over a year ago, I wrote a blogpost entitled, “What Men Want In Relationships?” and it got the most comments of anything I’ve ever written on the Passion 101 blogsite. It sparked a strong reaction, both in women that loved it and women that hated it. No one was on the fence.

And interestingly enough, there was only one male response. In that post, I promised a sequel, speaking about what women want, and after long contemplation I have finally written it.

You might ask, who am I to say what women want, being a man and all? I’ve worked with many a women over my last twenty years as a psychotherapist (statistically, about 80% of psychotherapy patients ARE indeed women). My private practice these days is about 50% couples and the rest are clients mainly with relationship issues. So, I’ve heard both sides of this story for a very long time.

So I feel somewhat competent and qualified to share my perspective on what women want from their PARTNER in a relationship. Most of my clinical experience is with heterosexual women, though I have worked with a few dozen lesbian couples over the years.

And what women want in a relationship seems pretty consistent, across the board. I originally started writing this article by talking about the qualities a women wants in a partner, but changed my focus as it has been written about ad nauseum already (women want safety, security, a partner they can trust, yada, yada, yada …).

Instead, my belief about what a woman wants in a relationship is: CONNECTION. Connection is what makes a woman FEEL safe and secure, what makes her feel important and special, cherished and adored, and especially LOVED.

Women want to feel INCLUDED in their relationship. Included in decision-making, included in the shared vision that they create with their partner, included in their partner’s heart, included in the lovemaking. Women in general want to be made love WITH, not made love TO!

Women want to be accepted by their partner. Accepted for who they ARE and accepted for who they are NOT. We all have enough insecurities without our partner adding to the list. And this, after all (at least to me) is the ultimate definition of LOVE: to be accepted for who you are and who you are not.

And we can take that even one step further if we really want to go the distance! We can not only accept our partners for who and what they are and are not, we can CHERISH our partners for these qualities. We can APPRECIATE them for these qualities. We can even ADORE them for these qualities.

Oh yes, there is this one caveat though. Unfortunately (for most men, at least), connection with a woman often begins with the “T” word: TALKING! And therein lies a big dilemma. Which I will have to write about another time

So ladies (and gentlemen) what is your reaction to what I’m saying, to what I calling “what women want” ? Does it make sense? Do you agree? Do you believe I’m full of it? Please let me know.

Thank you so much,

Dr. Adam Sheck

Get Your Man To Share His Feelings

drsheck — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 16:32:35 +0000

During my August “Ask Adam” Teleseminar, one of the questions I was asked was “How can I get my guy to open up about his feelings?” It’s a frustrating question that I am asked many times in my psychotherapy practice by singles and in couples counseling.

Let me share a few tips that might help make this happen. For anyone (and especially a man) to open up about their emotions, there definitely needs to be trust and safety in the relationship. This may take time and “baby step” experiences of opening up to develop. And, if there is any history of betrayal from the past, including early childhood issues, this may be even more challenging .

That being said, the likelihood this actually happening can be improved by taking the following steps:

1. Don’t push for feelings! This usually gets the opposite result in men and they will dig in even deeper. Just create an environment of what IS shared. This will create safety.

2. Positive reinforcement is the key. Like training a dog (which is perhaps a good metaphor here), you need to give us rewards for those baby steps in opening up and sharing.

3. Be interested and curious about what your partner has to share. Don’t have an agenda about what subjects are to be shared or communicated. Let it flow organically.

4. Express appreciation and gratitude for what IS shared. We all want to be admired for stretching beyond our comfort zone and need the kudos. Again, this is positive reinforcement.

5. Be sensitive in how you respond to what is shared. Any feeling of judgment or negative reaction, any defensiveness, will most likely shut him down in these early stages of sharing. Remember, you ASKED for it, so be prepared, in case you hear things that you don’t necessarily enjoy hearing.

6. Finally, initiate these conversations with a “soft startup.” This is a term defined by Dr. John Gottman, a well-respected relationship researcher. One of the major indicators of a successful relationship is beginning a conversation with kindness, acceptance, compassion and caring.

In general, women are much better at the “soft startup” than men, so if you want the conversation to go in a positive direction, be aware of this and take responsibility for creating it. Keep in mind that discussions in general end on a similar emotional tone as the tone they begin on.

This is also a great tip for conflict resolution with your partner, as men are much more likely to share their feelings when there is conflict going on. Gottman’s research indicates that 96% of the time that a communication involves a “soft start” it ends with a positive resolution. Pretty good odds, don’t you think?

Some tips for the “soft startup” are:

• Select a relatively stress-free time in the day.

• Start off the discussion with a positive statement.

• Use “I” statements to avoid the feeling of blame.

• Show appreciation for your partner if any progress is made. Again, positive reinforcement is crucial.

• If either of you becomes too triggered, consider a time-out to cool down and continue the discussion later.

To clarify this last statement, while it’s good to vent, it is better to vent to a friend or a therapist. To be even more precise, it’s good for YOU to vent, but venting about your partner TO your partner is NOT very good for your relationship!

I’ve presented a lot of information here and I hope that it will be helpful. Test it out and please post your comments on how it works for you. And please SHARE this with your friends as well.

Thank you so much,

Dr. Adam Sheck

Relationship Tip: ME Before WE

drsheck — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 19:13:45 +0000

This might be a controversial perspective and I’m going to share it anyway. One of the big “Relationship Killers” is the enmeshed relationship where we don’t know where one partner ends and the other begins. Where we really believe that we know the other so well that there are no longer any original thoughts and we can complete each other’s sentences.

While for some this is an ideal, this is the dream relationship, psychologically, it’s not very healthy. And, it’s not very interesting! Where are the surprises? Where is the spontaneity? We might get along well, but where has the PASSION gone?

So, the antidote for this type of relationship is to balance it out with some CONSCIOUS SELFISHNESS! I’m not saying to be disrespectful or break the rules or boundaries you’ve set in your relationship, just that you need to take care of yourself and create an independent life AS WELL as a shared life of partnership.

For some of the time, it is good and healthy to put ME before WE! You’ll hear this on every airplane during the first minutes of flight – “If there is a problem and the oxygen masks activate, strap yours on FIRST before helping anyone else.” And those familiar with twelve step programs will also have heard that recovery is a “selfish” program.

There was a book in the 80’s (I’ve been doing this for a long time!) called “Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?” I can’t remember a whole lot about the book, but the title was memorable and PRICELESS!

You NEED to be YOU so that you can LOVE others. And so that when others love YOU, you know whom they are loving! I can’t overemphasize this enough.

And for those of you that protest this, please remember that it’s all about balance. There are also couples that are more emotionally cutoff that need a different solution than this. Yet many will benefit from this advice as well. You know who you are!

Remember: ME before WE! And then the WE has the potential to be so much stronger, more loving and more passionate!

As always, I welcome your comments and appreciate your sharing this post with your friends and colleagues.

Thank you so much,

Dr. Adam Sheck

Relationship Recipe

drsheck — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:46:51 +0000

I am so happy to have created this short, two minute video for you! It details a really simple recipe for having a successful relationship.

Just click on the screen below to watch it right now! And turn up the volume, the music is GREAT!

It applies whether the relationship is with an intimate partner, a family member, a friend, a coworker or anyone else! Just click below and enjoy! I’m especially proud of the music selection!

Thank you so much,

Dr. Adam Sheck

How Do You Deal With Conflict?

drsheck — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 23:41:36 +0000

Couples come in all shapes and sizes. Yet there seem to be three basic interactional styles. There are three basic ways that couples manage conflict. Let’s find out which one you might be!

In no particular order, the three styles of managing conflict are:

1. Volatile: This is the high conflict, in-your-face, argumentative couple that fight all the time. They have higher energy, higher volume and higher passion in their expression.

2. Avoider: This couple will minimize conflict as much as possible. They will interact, just not about any subject that could prove to be contentious. They don’t believe in being openly angry.

3. Validator: I jokingly call this, the “therapized couple” which are the kind that newly licensed couples therapist seem to think are the “best” kind of couple to work with. They remain calm, listen, make sure that both sides are heard and appreciated in the conflict. They tend to search for the compromise.

So, which style of couple are you: Volatile, Avoider or Validator? And does it even matter?

The TRUTH according to the research of highly respected couples pioneer, John Gottman, Ph.D. is NO, it doesn’t matter! Gottman’s research indicates that couples of all three styles of conflict resolution are equally stable across time, provided that the couple has a ratio of positive to negative interactions of 5:1.

I can certainly vouch for this, as one of my daughter’s best friend’s parents have spent the last twenty years screaming at each other, getting out their frustrations and passions and have successfully raised three children and are still going strong.

What do you think about this? Please comment and let me know.

Thanks so much,

Dr. Adam Sheck

Do You Want More Intimacy?

drsheck — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 02:53:50 +0000

Are you interested in having more intimacy in your life? It’s certainly one of the issues that many of my couples and singles want to work on when they see me for private counseling sessions. The first thing I like to do is to define our terms. When some people talk about intimacy, they sometimes mean emotional intimacy. Some people mean sexual intimacy when they raise the issue. And some refer to both the emotional and physical aspects of intimacy.

Let’s being with the emotional aspects of intimacy. A long time ago, I heard a clever definition of intimacy by re-languaging it as Into-Me-I See. This defines intimacy first as an inner process of self-discovery and of self-knowledge.

Now let’s apply this lens in the context of an intimate partnership. So in this partnership, we begin to discover new parts of ourselves. Or perhaps we uncover parts that are gradually revealed to us in reaction to our partner and the relationship. And then, we can begin to share these discoveries, these insights with our partner. It can be a very exciting process, this sharing of ourselves.

To me, being in partnership provides the environment, the soil for me to grow, for me to discover parts of myself that I wouldn’t know otherwise. This comes from the safety and the trust that builds over time that allows me to become more open and more vulnerable.

So my partner is the stimulus to me, allowing me to uncover parts of myself that I would never have discovered on my own. Some of these are the so-called good parts; some are what we label the bad parts. If we take away the labels and judgments, they are all parts of myself, parts that need to be revealed and illuminated, so that I can make choices about which parts I want to feed and water and nourish and which parts I want to let hibernate, and go dormant.

And in a loving, accepting partnership, I can allow those parts to come out as they are stimulated and I can share them with myself and my partner. That is true intimacy to me. Discovering parts of myself I didn’t know I had and sharing them with someone. That is true growth. That is how I view emotional intimacy.

Sometimes we use the term “intimacy” as a polite way of speaking of sexuality and physical connection with a partner. The sexual act, and sexual connection CAN be an extremely intimate connection. It isn’t necessarily, yet it CAN be. And in the context of a loving partnership, the emotional intimacy can fuel the sexual intimacy. And the sexual intimacy can fuel the emotional intimacy. And they can feed upon each other to create an expansion and growth to the relationship.

We know the old saying that women need love to connect to their sexuality and men need sex to connect to their love? While I avoid generalizations, there is some truth to this statement. Perhaps you have experienced this in some of your relationships.

I’ve spoken before about the two styles of connecting to sexuality: the autogenic, which is more typically masculine, which is more the direct physical connection, and the psychogenic, which is more typically feminine, which is the mental, emotional connection. For some, desire creates arousal. For some, arousal creates desire. Both are true when they are true. Both work. Both are valid.

To bring more sexual intimacy to your relationship, I think it is good to take both routes. Sometimes it is good to surrender to the physical and let the pure arousal take you over. Sometimes it is good to create desire, and build up to that arousal.

Again, sexual intimacy, like emotional intimacy is about discovering new parts of yourself and sharing them with your partner. So stretch and try on new attitudes, new ways of being together sexually.

I’m a believer in what I’ve called “all day foreplay.” Start in the morning by telling your partner how you feel about them, and what you’d like to be doing with them when you come home from work. Perhaps leave them a little note with more of your thoughts. Maybe later, send them a text or even a picture! Sexting (sexy texting) can be a VERY effective form of foreplay. Next, maybe an email or a sexy telephone message. Stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone here, maybe just a little bit.

And when you get home, set the stage even more, whether it’s with the traditional flowers and candy or an erotic gift (or toy) or maybe another card or an original poem. Building the anticipation and tension is always so nice, especially when you know you’ll be relieving that tension later on.

I write more about “all day foreplay” and related ideas in my eBook “101 Ways To Bring Back The Passion!” which is available on this website. Hopefully this article has given you a good start though. Just to let you know though, I’ll also be conducting a four week teleseries on “bringing back the passion” for couples and if you’re on my Passion 101 mailing list, I’ll be sending you information about the preview call to that teleseries. You can get on the list and subscribe to my monthly Passion 101 Newsletter on this website as well.

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback.

Thank you so much,

Dr. Adam Sheck

Has this article been interesting or thought-provoking for you? Please click below to share it with a friend! Or click on the buttons at the top of the post to share it on Facebook or Twitter!

Can’t Buy Me Love: How Do Finances Affect Your Relationship?

drsheck — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 18:41:23 +0000

As a couples counselor for the past twenty years, I can safely say that the “Big Three” issues that couples see me about are: Money, Sex and Communication.

It’s doubtful that any of you are surprised about this. PayPal conducted their “Can’t Buy Me Love” international survey about the role of money in relationships and the results are pretty interesting.

The survey was conducted focusing around love and money in Australia, Canada, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. What was most surprising to me, is that the issue of money seems to be the biggest one for couples across all nations. Perhaps this is because of the challenging economic times we are facing right now.

At least 10 percent of couples surveyed say they have ended a relationship due at least in part to financial issues. The United States and Mexico ranked the highest at 14 percent stating this.

Other interesting results included:

• Around the world, well over half of all couples are keeping separate bank accounts.
• American couples typically bring the largest levels of debt into relationships (51 percent) while most couples in Italy and the Netherlands say they have no debt.
• Money is the number one cause of arguments among U.S. couples (31 percent) followed by household chores (28 percent), in-laws (22 percent) and sex (15 percent).

You can read the original PayPal Survey results by clicking here.

So tell me YOUR experiences of money and love. How have you been challenged? How have you navigated the challenge? How can I help YOU and other couples in this area? Would you like me to write more about this? I NEED your input. Help ME to help YOU!

Thanks so much,

Dr. Adam Sheck

Has this article been interesting or thought-provoking for you? Please click below to share it with a friend!

3 P’s of Relationship Dynamics: Pick, Provoke & Project

drsheck — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 23:20:47 +0000

I’ve posted a number of articles and videos on the psychology of how we come together to form relationships and the stages of relationship: the honeymoon stage, the power struggle stage and the conscious relationship stage. Now I’d like to go a little deeper into the psychological processes that occur in these stages.

Let me remind you first about what is called the “Imago Match” which is a key concept of Imago Relationship Therapy, which I’m certified in. Imago is Latin for “image” and it means the internal, psychological representation of that idealized partner we have stored deep in our unconscious.

The Imago embodies all of the positive AND negative qualities of our primary childhood caregivers. Usually these are qualities of our parents, yet they could also include other caregivers, extended family, teachers, friends, television and movie figures, etc.

So, we have this Imago in our psyche and when we meet someone who is potential partner material, we begin to do an unconscious search to assess how good a match to these qualities. We then begin to engage in three separate, although sometimes simultaneous processes.

These three partner selection processes are the “3 P’s of Relationship Dynamics” and are:

1. Pick

2. Provoke

3. Project

Let’s look at them first in the context of the honeymoon stage of relationship. In this stage, we are flooded with the “love hormones” such as PEA and oxytocin which are like speed and heroin respectively. Consequently, what we see in our potential partner are all of the good, positive qualities of our primary caregivers. We’re feeling so good, so euphoric that we ignore or minimize the negative qualities.

We “picked” this partner because we recognized that they had enough of these positive qualities to begin this potential dance of intimacy. At the same time, we will also be on our best behavior and “provoke” or inspire them to treat us in the best way that they are capable of treating us. It’s kind of like when a politician is running for office and presents their best face and makes all of the right campaign promises. Sound familiar?

And, we will also tend to “project” these positive qualities upon them as well, whether they truly have them or not. We will see the in them in the best possible light, give them the benefit of the doubt and possibly even stretch the facts a little bit to squeeze them into the mold that we are looking for.

Now, the honeymoon phase generally lasts only so long, as the “love drugs” circulating through our system have a finite lifespan and we build a tolerance to them. We now enter the power struggle phase of relationship. In this phase, we quite clearly see the negative qualities of our primary caregivers in our potential partner – loud and clear!

And, our wise unconscious has “picked” someone that has those qualities, even though we didn’t see them at first or we ignored them. It continues to amaze me how incredibly astute our unconscious “radar” is at finding a person with these traits. Has this happened to you?

And if they don’t express enough of these negative traits, we will “provoke” them into expressing them. Yes, incredible as it sounds, we will unconsciously manipulate them into treating us poorly. And if they are unable or “unwilling” to do so, or they’ve done too much personal growth work and don’t fall for our setups, we will “project” these negative traits onto them! Have you ever thought to yourself, “You sound just like my mother!” or “That’s something my father would do!”

These are the “tools” our unconscious uses in the first two stages of relationship: pick, provoke and project. And it’s not a bad thing or a negative thing. My belief (and the belief of the Imago theory) is that we come together in relationship to heal those wounds of childhood, to heal ourselves and our partners, and to become whole. So this process needs to happen. It ultimately is a very good thing.

What many couples require however, is the support of a good couples counselor to help them navigate through the power struggle phase into the conscious relationship phase. It is here that we become more aware of the 3 P’s and begin to own our projections and manipulations. It is here that we begin to see who our partner really is and begin to see who WE really are. It is here that we can have a rich, deep, even more passionate relationship. That is my goal as a couples therapist.

What are YOUR thoughts about the 3 P’s? Have you had a similar experience? I would LOVE to hear from you.

Thank you so much,

Dr. Adam Sheck

Has this article been interesting or thought-provoking for you? Please click below to share it with a friend!

Oprah Winfrey Talk Show Contest

drsheck — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:36:49 +0000

I’m excited to announce that I just submitted a video audition to Oprah’s talk show contest (this is different than the recent audition I did for Oprah’s new television network, OWN. This is a contest and the top five vote-getters will be on a reality show to GET a talk show on Oprah’s network! So please, click on the link or the video below and vote for me! You can vote as many times as you’d like, so vote early, vote often through July 3.

My audition link is:

http://myown.oprah.com/audition/index.html?request=video_details&response_id=9226&promo_id=1

Or you can just click on the video below:

Thanks so much,

Dr. Adam Sheck

Live Together or Get Married?

drsheck — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 13:56:03 +0000

Dr. Sheck
My boyfriend and I have been dating for about a year and he just asked me to move in with him. I am 29 and he is 33. He loves me and says he wants to marry me. However, he was married once before and he says he just wants to “make sure” that we are really compatible first, by living together. I really love him and want our relationship to work. And yet, I’m not sure that this is the right thing for me. What should I do?
-Indecisive

Dear Indecisive,

This is a personal decision, one that you definitely need to take time to contemplate and choose the answer that is best for you. I can certainly give you some “facts” and statistics about co-habitation versus marriage. And I’m also happy to provide you with some guiding questions that might help you find the clarity you need.

My answer is not focused upon morality, value judgments, or religious beliefs. It is focused on the issue of commitment. So, the really critical question I would ask you is, what is your commitment in this relationship? The commitment of “living together” is much different than the commitment of marriage.

The commitment of “living together” is generally speaking really not that much about commitment. It’s about, “let’s see if we can get along together before we make a commitment.” Some refer to it as a “trial marriage.” It really is a much different commitment than marriage for the majority of people. Of course, there are exceptions to this, yet I’m speaking “in general.”

Marriage is about making the commitment to building a life with this person, whether you like them every day or not, whether they are in a good mood every day or not, whether they meet your needs every day or not.

It is about seeing the “big picture,” about remembering why you are together for the long haul, even when the day-to-day ride is bumpy. It is about what you choose to give to the relationship, much more than about what you expect to receive. It is about working through the problems that come up, because you remember that you made a commitment.

And honestly, nothing can prepare you for the commitment of marriage, for the commitment to the long haul, to “forever,” whatever forever means in this world. The concept of the “trial marriage” is statistically proven to be a poor indicator of marriage success.

The majority of cohabitators either breakup or marry within two years. The risk of divorce after living together is 40 to 85% higher than the risk of divorce after not living together. Those who live together before marriage are almost twice as likely to divorce than those who do not live together.

Why is this? There are many theories about it. Personally, I feel there are a few pieces to it. First of all, most of us are not perfect, we have some flaws, we have fears, we have parts of ourselves we hide from the world, parts we are not proud of, that cause us some amount of shame. We have varying degrees of doubt as to our self-worth, our desirability, our “love-ability.” This may be conscious or unconscious.

And often, these deeper issues don’t come up in a living together situation, or if they do, not as strongly as when the commitment to marriage is made. Only then will our psyches feel safe enough to let down our guard, lower our defenses and let our “dark side” come out fully. And often, only then is our partner prepared to face and accept this side of us, without turning and running in the other direction. This is where a strong commitment is needed.

The second piece, I think is the fact that we as humans are truly creatures of habit. And when we live together with someone, we develop certain habits of relating and certain mindsets. Certain habits of communicating, certain habits of being. Often, we develop habits of “me” and “you” and “mine” and “yours.” And we develop habits of “my way.” And we develop mindsets of “I’m right and you’re wrong” and “it’s your fault.” And those are really difficult to change, once we marry and commit to “forever.”

Conversely (and ideally), when we make the commitment to marriage without the habits of living together, we build up habits of “us,” of “the partnership,” of “together forever” and we might work a little harder to sustain these habits. We might look more to ourselves and what we are doing to make our situation better or worse and take more responsibility for it. Each day is spent building this foundation, so that when challenging times come, as they will, we are prepared to meet them from strength, from partnership.

The final piece, which may speak more to the statistics, is that perhaps a percentage of the people who choose to live together, do so, because they are not prepared or capable of making a stronger commitment like that of marriage.

So, “Indecisive,” the ball is in your court. It’s not good or bad to decide to live together or to decide to get married. It is an important decision though. If it becomes too difficult to reach a choice that is consistent with what you want, you might want to consider seeking support from a counselor or therapist.

I wish you the best,

Dr. Adam Sheck

What are YOUR thoughts and experiences on this issue? Have you lived together before or instead of marriage? How did it work? I’d love to hear from you.