Newsletter Volume 1

WHEN LOVE IS NO LONGER BLIND
Michelle Kindt RN, MSS, LCSW, BCD
Devon, PA
610-688-1424

Long-term relationships breed familiarity. The benefit is an increased sense of trust and security. The price is often loss of excitement and romance. The task is to keep both going at the same time---familiarity and romance. It is a task that requires skills that most people do not use in marital relationships.

Romantic love is blind.
In the beginning of our relationships, when we are so engrossed with each other, we don’t see the frailties and annoyances that the other person has. Everybody else sees them, but we don’t. The tragedy is that we decide to marry when we are in this phase of love---when we are blind!

I wonder what would happen if law mandated a two-year waiting period to get a marriage license! You could do anything you wanted in those two years—have sex, live together, live apart. But after two years, I wonder how many people would get married. By then, presumably, the blindness would have evaporated and they would be seeing each other more realistically.

What Kills Romance?

Just what many of us think of as necessary to sustain romance: eternal closeness!

Most of us try to encourage or will our partner into remaining the way you are or were. For romance to be sustained, people need some distance or separation from time to time. Relationships need room for individuality to grow.

The best relationships offer just enough space. How much space in needed is determined by the people themselves?

At the times we need space; we often need to be alone. If our partner needs our presence to reaffirm that they are loved, and we cannot in that moment provide that kind of reassurance, feelings are hurt. On the other hand, if you have a solid and positive sense of yourself as lovable you will know that your partner does not always need to be with you to prove their love for you. Sometimes to achieve more intimacy we need to give each other more space.

If there is too much space, people tend to go their separate ways. The partnership begins to resemble an occasional coming together of roommates. The relationship becomes devoid of passion and interest in each other.

The Best Relationships.

We need to be able to feel excitement in and respect for the growth of the partner. When we become too predictable in our relationship we run the risk of breeding deadly mundaneness or routines.

The best relationships are experienced by people who want to love and be loved. By love I mean thinking, willing and doing good of another. If you are good to someone you can really build something.

“Giving is the highest expression of potency,” writes Erich Fromm in The Art of Loving. “In the very act of giving, I experience my strength, my wealth, my power. This experience of heightened vitality and potency fills me with joy. I experience myself as overflowing, spending, alive, hence as joyous. Giving is more joyous than receiving, not because it is a deprivation, but because in the act of giving lies the expression of my aliveness.”

10 Tips for Staying In Love

1. Do not take the other person for granted.

2. Always communicate the complete truth. Holding back makes it impossible for love to keep flowing.

3. Decide that you would rather love than be right. Make it a point to make up quickly after a fight.

4. Never miss an opportunity to say “I love you.” Telling your partner “I love you” does more than convey information. It creates a channel for love to flow.

5. Never pretend things are fine when they aren’t. Holding negative emotions in will build up resentment toward your partner and you will end up “turning off”.

6. Keep passion alive by communicating about and resolving all suppressed anger and hurt on a daily basis. This is difficult but gets easier with practice. Do not focus on the anger but on what fuels the anger, which is always hurt and fear.

7. Practice resolving conflicts when they are still small. Avoiding little fights eventually causes bigger fights!

8. Give your partner a 20 second kiss three times a day. Just enough to get the sexual tension stirred up. What happens then? Nothing! Go about your day as usual. You will find that you think more about your partner during your day, feel more attracted to them and look forward to the next 20 second kiss!

9. Spend 5 minutes at the end of each day expressing your gratitude with your partner for the day that has just passed. This can consist of merely being grateful for the kiss in the morning, for the help in the kitchen, for the way your partner admired your attire.

10. Be aware of the 4 R’s: resistance, resentment, rejection and repression. These represent the four stages of the death of a relationship

The Four Stages of the Death of a Relationship

RESISTANCE. You notice yourself resisting what your partner is saying, doing, or feeling. You silently criticize and begin to separate emotionally. If you don’t resolve your resistance with your partner, it can turn into ---

RESENTMENT. You begin to dislike and blame your partner. Anger, frustration, annoyance, sharpness and detachment set in. You separate from your partner emotionally. Failure to resolve resentment can lead to –

REJECTION. It has become emotionally impossible to stay connected to your partner. You turn off emotionally and sexually. You don’t want to be with your partner and you fantasize about other people or about having affairs. You may walk out or just shut down and refuse to pay attention. If you don’t tell the truth now, you are inviting –

REPRESSION. You are so tired from resisting, resenting and rejecting that you repress all of your negative emotions to keep the peace or to keep up appearances. Repression is a state of emotional numbness. This numbness spills over into the rest of your life and you lose your passion, enthusiasm and aliveness.

Michelle Kindt, RN, MSS, LCSW, BCD
Surgent Professional Suites at 237 Lancaster Ave. Suite 231. Devon, Pa.

For more information please call Michelle at 610-688-1424.