Relationship Advice

Forks Pointing Up – A Love Story

Guest Post from Author Jon Cohen

Last night I decided to be a hero and load the dishwasher.  It was late, and I was tired, but I felt I owed something extra to my partner.  After all, she’d cooked dinner, and before that picked up my suit at the cleaners on her way home from work.

Forks in Dishwasher

So even though it was late, and I was tired, I set to work scraping the gunk off the dishes and silverware, scouring the bottoms of coffee cups, making everything fit.

“Come here, sweetheart, look what I did,” I said when I was finished.  I was expecting a beaming look of admiration, or some sort of special commendation, maybe a merit badge.

Instead, all I got was a grimace. “I told you, I like the forks pointing up,” she said.

Now, as I sit at my desk, remembering last night, I think of that exact moment, and how I handled it, as the turning point in what became a lovely evening.

I could have said, “You’re welcome!” in a loud, sarcastic voice. Or “Who cares which way the forks are pointing,” or “Do you know what kind of petty, piddly stupidity I had to endure today to earn a living and pay your bills, and now you stand there and bitch me out over some forking forks?”

Years ago, when I was unhappily married, those are the kinds of things I’d say. And then we’d go to bed angry and sometimes not even talk to each other for days.

But now I’m grownup, wiser, and living with someone I love. So what I said was, “Sure thing, sweetheart. Any way you like it.” And I spent thirty more seconds to turn the forks pointing up.

Not such a big deal, you might think. And you’d be right. But the way that we manage situations like this, no matter how silly and small they might seem, can be huge in determining if we go to bed angry or happy.

As I remember last night, I think I have arrived at a new rule for relationships: if it doesn’t matter to you, but it does matter to your partner, then by all means pay attention and extend some grace. This will cost you nothing, and just might get you that merit badge.

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Your Partner Is Amazing

In this post, I want to provide a path for you to see your partner as someone more wonderful than you’ve experienced before.  I am using wonderful in all its strictest interpretations: excellent; great; marvelous; of a sort that causes or arouses wonder; amazing; astonishing.
For most of us, it’s difficult to imagine a partner of 20, 10, 5, even 2 years as “astonishing.”  How can we be astonished and amazed by someone we’ve known for that long… unless our partner is Oprah, Bill Gates, Bono, Nelson Mandela, someone who is doing amazing things day in and day out?
What those celebrities have is realized potential. But every one of us has that same potential – not necessarily in the same areas, but just as much.
You and I and your partner have 99% the same DNA as everybody else. Our existence on this planet together is nothing less than a miracle.
I have a nephew who has bone cancer. Now, before he had cancer, he was a terrific athlete – the kind that scores more than half the points of his entire team, at virtually any sport. But he wasn’t what you would have thought of as a remarkable human being. He was a teenager, with all the annoying trimmings that come with most teenagers.
It wasn’t until he got cancer that we were able to see how remarkable he truly is. The way he bucked up about having to have a prosthetic limb, ending his athletic endeavors. The way he took care of other stricken families at St. Jude’s. I could write endlessly on how he’s inspired people, but you’ve already heard this story. It happens at every age. Someone gets some a serious illness and transforms into a super human being. Happens every day. You probably know more than one example.
My point is this.  Your partner is an ordinary person and an extraordinary person. At some point, as is the drift, you’ve probably positioned him or her in some pigeon hole.  What will it take before you recognize your partner as wonderful – to be filled with wonder in your partner’s presence? You could wait until he or she gets cancer.  Or, you could be the environment in which your partner’s brilliance occurs. Your partner is already amazing. Being filled with wonder is up to you.

In this post, I want to provide a path for you to see your partner as someone more wonderful than you’ve experienced before.  I am using wonderful in all its strictest interpretations: excellent; great; marvelous; of a sort that causes or arouses wonder; amazing; astonishing.

For most of us, it’s difficult to imagine a partner of 20, 10, 5, even 2 years as “astonishing.”  How can we be astonished and amazed by someone we’ve known for that long… unless our partner is Oprah, Bill Gates, Bono, Nelson Mandela, someone who is doing amazing things day in and day out?

What those celebrities have is realized potential. You and I and your partner have 99% the same DNA as everybody else. Every one of us has that same potential – not necessarily in the same areas, but just as much.

I have a nephew who has bone cancer. Now, before he had cancer, he was a terrific athlete – the kind that scores more than half the points of his entire team in virtually every sport. But he wasn’t what you would have thought of as a remarkable human being. He was a teenager, with all the annoying, self-centered, hormone-induced trimmings that come with teenagers.

It wasn’t until he got cancer that we were able to see how remarkable he truly is. The way he bucked up about having to have a prosthetic limb, ending his athletic endeavors. The way he took care of other stricken families at St. Jude’s. I could write endlessly on how he’s inspired people, but you’ve already heard this story, from people of all ages.  Someone gets a serious malady and transforms into a super human being. Happens every day. You probably know more than one example personally.

My point is this.  Your partner is an ordinary person and an extraordinary person. At some point, as is the drift, you’ve probably positioned him or her in some pigeon hole.  What will it take before you recognize your partner as wonderful – to be filled with wonder in your partner’s presence? You could wait until he or she gets cancer.  Or, you could be the environment in which your partner’s brilliance occurs. Your partner is already amazing. Being filled with wonder is up to you.

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.
-George Santayana

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It Takes Three Days to Have Sex

Roughly 50% of marriages in the U.S. result in divorce. For the other 50%, maybe half are satisfied in their relationships, probably a lot less. I’d like to be part of the solution, and your input will help. My thanks to everyone who’s written to me already.

There are a number of factors that lead to unhappy relationships. One less discussed reason is dissatisfaction with sex and/or intimacy.

Typically, the wife complains that there isn’t enough intimacy. The husband complains that there isn’t enough sex. Sometimes it’s reversed, but let’s use this case as our example. In either case, there is an obvious connection between sex and intimacy.

Generally, it doesn’t take much to get a man in the mood. With women, you want to be thinking three days. I am not kidding. If you yell at your partner in the morning, or simply ignore her, or don’t allow her to feel attractive, or don’t really get her when she’s communicating something that’s important to her, you probably aren’t getting any tonight.

Don’t get me wrong. On balance, women love sex as much as men. But it needs to be from a state of intimacy. Most women need this. Most men don’t.  Most women need you to show and/or tell them you love them in the morning, a few times during the day, every day, and in the evening. If you want sex, the time to start is three days out. If you do this all the time, chances are you can have sex whenever you want it. Easily two-three times per week. If you don’t, you’ll be lucky to get lucky once a fortnight.

If I appear to be callous or crude, I don’t mean to be. Sex is not a sin. Even the most puritanical of us would have to agree that two key elements of a healthy union are sex and intimacy.

Here is some essential advice for men.

  • Make sure your partner has an orgasm virtually every time. If your sexual energy drops dramatically after you orgasm (as it does for most of us), then you better make sure she orgasms before you do.
  • If you’ve never been educated on the female anatomy, bone up. You wouldn’t try to drive a car without knowing a few things about how it works. If your woman is having mad orgasms every time you have sex, chances are she’ll be the one initiating it more often than not.
  • Not all women like the same thing. If you don’t know what she likes, find a way to communicate. It could be that you ask, and she tells you. Or it could be that you set it up that you’ll explore around, and she’ll give you louder moans the more you’re turning her on.
  • Most women expect you to cuddle with them after sex. Hopping out of bed sends the wrong signal.
  • How often do you tell your partner you love her? Some may say, “But what if I’m not feeling it – isn’t that somewhat dishonest?” It’s not. Telling someone you love them is a declaration. It’s a creation-based statement meant to pull you into a feeling, not an assertion of fact. If you have integrity, that is, if you honor your words, then, by declaring love, feelings will come automatically.  Try it. It really works.
  • Don’t make crude jokes about sex, or your partner, before, during or after sex. That is, ever.
  • Never make fun of your partner, or put her down, in front of other people. (Or, ideally, ever.)
  • Don’t let a day go by without kissing her – and not as a prelude to sex.
  • Practice gratitude – regarding your relationship, every day think of five things for which you are grateful. Ideally you would communicate these to your partner.

The fallout of adopting this behavior may astound you. Besides having a lot more sex, you may actually find yourself falling deeper and deeper in love with your partner. And this, I can tell you, is the one thing I’m aware of which is truly better than sex.

And that’s really the point of this article. Great sex is a product of having a great relationship, not the other way around. These really aren’t meant to be “tricks” to get your partner to have sex with you; they are foundational principles to having a great relationship. And great sex is simply one of the byproducts of having a great relationship.

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Feeling Your Feelings

I urge you to read this remarkable lecture Importance of Experiencing All Feelings from a highly revered, deeply spiritual and psychological teacher. It speaks to where many people find themselves, upset and paralyzed by fear. It’s a little dense, so you have to force yourself to read it slowly.  But it is dead on.

In the conclusion, the author says the following, and my experience has shown it to be valid:

All the many temptations that beckon you to follow paths which imply that it is possible to find the spiritual reality of yourself without going through these gateways are wishful thinking. There is no way around what has accumulated in you and has poisoned your whole system — your spiritual, your psychological, and often also your physical system. This poison can be eliminated only by feeling what you hoped you could avoid feeling.

To summarize and simplify:

  1. Take any emotion – one that you think you’re feeling (usually
    it’s fear, could be frustration, anger, etc.).
  2. Under that is the fear of that emotion.
  3. Under that is shame (we counteract shame with pride).
  4. Under that is inadequacy (as every child feels that they are the
    cause of whatever is happening in their world –  as in: whatever is
    happening is because “I’m inadequate”).
  5. Under that is the thing you really need to get to – which is “the brokenhearted child” (the bottom line is that the child is bereft, alone and shattered).
  6. Then you can get to your true “light,” your true beauty of what you really are.
  7. With that comes a release of stagnation, energy, and a sense of peace and well being.

Recommended Actions

  1. Take anything you’re experiencing and write and write about it (journal) and meditate on it.
  2. Start at the top layer.  (You could have pages on each layer.)
  3. Get to the brokenheartedness.
  4. On the other side of that is relief and energy.

P.S. You cannot do this alone.

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Commitment Manifesto

AGREEMENT

This agreement is non-binding in any legal sense, and is purely meant to support the bonds in our relationship.

Whereas I [your name] (hereinafter “I”) intend to declare my commitment to [your partner’s name] (hereinafter “You” or “Your”) I commit to the following:

General

I promise to love and adore you and only you as my cherished partner in life.  I promise to be your full partner, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.  I promise to be responsible for loving you, and for doing everything in my power to have you feel loved by me.

No Shopping

During the term of this commitment, I will not shop around for other potential partners (lovers). Should I be approached by others wishing to engage in any kind of romantic or sexual relationship, I will tell them I am not interested and insist that they discontinue to pursue me.

No Sex

During the term of this commitment, I will not have sex with any other person.  Sex is described as any romantic interchange (no touching of genitals, breasts, thighs, etc.) hugging in a sensual manner, or kissing (other than a peck on the cheek).

No Mental Intrigue

During the term of this commitment, I will not engage in Mental Intrigue.  Mental Intrigue is defined as romantically perseverating (habitually thinking about over and over again) about another partner in any sexual or romantic context.  This is not to say that I might not find other persons attractive (we are all human, with innate attractions to others), just that I’ll manage my thoughts so that I do not fanaticize about any kind of a romantic relationship with such persons. I will let those thoughts go as soon as I realize I’ve having them, and I’ll turn my thoughts to other things.

Working on Our Relationship

All relationships go through ups and downs, and some couples handle the downs better than others.  My commitment is that if our downs are prolonged such that you feel that we need outside assistance, I will agree to relationship coaching, couples therapy, religious counseling, or some other such program that can assist us is getting through the difficult times and back harmoniously in love with each other.

Open and Honest Communication

I will strive to be as open and honest as I can be, and to withhold neither my love for you nor any upsets, recognizing that non-communicated upsets tend to fester, and the sooner they are discussed, the sooner they can disappear or begin to heal.

Gratitude

I will practice gratitude on a regular (daily or weekly) basis and always look for and remind myself of your many positive qualities – those qualities that made me fall in love with you, or which have me be more in love with you as time goes on.  Likewise, rather than pigeonhole you in any particular way, I will always hold you as a human being with infinite possibility – and always look for what is magical about you.

Working on Myself

I understand that as human beings we are always expanding or contracting. Moreover, I understand that relationships follow the same pattern. Further, I recognize that the best way I can work on our relationship is to work on myself – increasing my own awareness of myself, my surroundings, and my interactions with myself, others and my environment.  As such, I commit to, in one form or another, always working on myself.  This may take the form of a spiritual practice, reading, participating in transformational courses, therapy, coaching, and so on.  This is not to say that I’ll be doing something every single day in this regard, just that in general I’ll be moving in that direction and always open to further evolution.

Being a Space, Support and Cheerleader for Your Personal Work

I will always be a space for you to do your personal work, be it spiritual, transformational, psychological or other.  I will support you in whatever manner you feel would support you best. I will be your cheerleader – someone who is always in your corner.  This is not to say that I’ll be an annoying “Fix It” person or always simply agree with everything you say. Rather, I realize that no one knows you better than you do, and I won’t demean you by thinking I know you better than you do.  That said, I trust that if you want my help or advice, you’ll ask for it, and then I’ll be delighted to fulfill your requests.

Other

Enter in any show-stopping issues you might have.  Here are some suggestions of things you may choose to include:

  • Children.  Will you have them? Who will shoulder most of the work of raising them when they are small? Will that change one or both of our work schedules? How will the other person pitch in? How will having children affect how we treat each other as a priority?
  • Living Together. If we’re going to live together, what agreements can we make about cleanliness and orderliness? How often does housework and lawn care need to be done and who will do which chores?
  • Friends.  Are there any friends (e.g., ex-girl/boyfriends; friends with loose morals) who should be out of bounds?  Are we both generally aligned with the type and kind of friends we’ll share, and the amount of time we will/won’t spend with them.
  • Religion. Will we share a religion and/or belong to a place of worship? How often will we attend services together or not?  Will we respect each other’s religious/spiritual choices and rituals, even if these change over time?
  • Evolving careers and avocations.  Will we be supportive (or at least neutral) about what each other is up to in our lives?  Are we comfortable with each other’s level of ambition?
  • Money.  Will we share finances? How much is each person expected to earn and contribute to everyday expenses and retirement?  How will we budget spending?
  • Time together. How much time will each of us spend at work, and during what hours? How much time will we spend together? How much alone time will we each have?  How will we spend time off and vacations?
  • Boundaries with in-laws.  How often do we visit family? If we invite family/friends from out of town, how much time is reasonable to have them? Would we take in a family member if they needed a place to live and/or needed extended medical attention (e.g., end-of-life care)?
  • What level of expressions are unacceptable (e.g., anger, passive-aggressiveness, hostility and violence)?
  • What commitments do we have regarding participation with addictive activities including smoking tobacco, marijuana, drinking alcohol, and other legal and illegal drugs?
  • Where do we see ourselves in 10, 20, 30, 40 years?
  • How comfortable are we with being separated for extended periods of time, e.g., if one of us took an assignment in a foreign country for a year?
  • Is each of us accepting of each other’s approach to health? Does one have habits or tendencies that exacerbate the relationship (e.g., smoking, excessive dieting, poor diet)?

Term and Termination

The term of this commitment is (choose one):

[] Until death us do part

[] For one year, renewable at that time at both partners’ option

[] Other __________________________________________________

I may terminate this agreement if any of the following conditions occur [delete any that are not relevant]:

  1. You have sex with another (as described in No Sexabove)
  2. You engage in Mental Intrigue with another  (as described in Mental Intrigue above)
  3. You find yourself out of balance and do not continue to work on yourself – that is, you let yourself go in such a way that you are constantly bitter, depressed, angry, upset, etc., for ____  months or more.
  4. You hit me.
  5. You get dramatically out of shape – e.g., you allow yourself to weigh more than ___ pounds.
  6. You become intolerant with members of my family with whom I am close without attempting to resolve such intolerance.
  7. You stop having sex with me at least ___ times per month on average.
  8. You continually cease to support me emotionally – e.g., you criticize me constantly, put me down in front of other people on a continual basis, etc.
  9. You stop loving me.

Conditions ___ [fill in numbers] are grounds for immediate termination.

If conditions  ___ [fill in numbers] occur, you have ____ month(s) to either resolve the issue or clearly be on a path to resolving the issue.

Intending to be emotionally bound, I do swear the above to be true.

_____________________    ____________

Name                                              Date

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What Is Commitment in a Relationship?

It is increasingly clear to me that when romantic partners talk about having a “committed relationship” often neither one has any clue what the other one means by a committed relationship. To what, specifically, has each person committed, and for how long? Don’t you think it’s time we had some clarity about this?

Example 1

Setting: Oprah show

Situation: Two 15-year-olds talking about planning on having sex together

Celebrity Relationship Coach: How long do you plan on being together?

Boy: Um, we’re in high school, so, like, maybe, six months?

Girl: (frowning) Ummm. Really? Because I was thinking, like, forever? Six months? No way I’m having sex with you if that’s what you’re thinking!

Example 2

I was coaching two clients who make a great couple. They both do things that hurt the relationship, but it’s all stuff that’s easily handled, and in a few weeks of my coaching them, they’ve already made the better part of that journey. But she has an issue about his level of commitment. According to her, if they’ve been together for four years, they should stay together forever. But if they really were committed, they would get married (I’m not saying I would or they should, that’s what they expressed to me). So, until they are married, I won’t believe the full commitment is there. He’s waiting for her to be more balanced and for there to be less regularly occurring big upsets before he’s willing to propose. And indeed, if you ask her, she’ll say she’s totally committed… but then the slightest provocation that taps into her primal pain has her questioning whether she wants to be in the relationship at all!

So, with the help of some lawyer friends (some of whom are trained in Collaborative Divorce, I drafted this Commitment Manifesto which you are free to download and use. Of course, one commitment size does not fit all, but at least here is a template from which you can craft your own.

My wise friend, Lou, distinguished that this document is more a way of saying to what kind of relationship are you committed. Many of us might not even make that distinction, but just collapse the two, and I think that’s fine.

Some may prefer to think of the Commitment Manifesto as the “doing” of commitment. Perhaps the “being” of commitment is having a very high level of integrity, and being committed to doing whatever it takes to take care of your relationship. The following short form nicely collapses the being and doing parts:

“I’m committed to staying with you (indefinitely), being faithful (no romance with other partners) and honoring you and our relationship. If I do anything that is apparently outside this commitment, I’m committed to cleaning it up, restoring your trust and doing whatever I have to do to return myself to my commitment.”

I’m anxious to know your thoughts about what constitutes commitment in a relationship.

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Relationships Are Not a Means to an End

This two-minute animation, voiced by philosopher Alan Watts, holds a wonderful life lesson. The point it makes, quite simply yet profoundly, is that we’re not alive to get somewhere, but to fulfill the journey.  Just so, while my teachings suggest using your relationship to evolve your own consciousness – the consciousness, at each moment, is the goal.  Enjoy!

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Mutuality – A Red Herring?

Thanks to Denise for inspiring this post – which is actually a promoted comment response to her thoughtful comment on Embracing Double Standards.

I don’t think I mean to talk about “control” – although I do believe that true control is the giving up of control. I love stories of prisoners who while in prison finally became free – because they accepted their surroundings for the first time in their lives. And yes, it’s worth another reiteration that I’m not talking about bad, controlling behavior.

When JoAnn says “You’re not allowed to yell at me” what she’s really saying is something along the spectrum of “It’s hard for me to handle your disapproval” to “I can’t handle expressions of anger pointed at me from the person I love the most.” And if I do it enough, she won’t stick around for it. And, to be very clear, my “yelling” at JoAnn is raising my voice from a 3-out-of-10 to maybe a 5, and still communicating fairly responsibly.

On to mutuality.

I’m pretty clear that mutuality is a red herring at its best, and one of the most relationship-undermining concepts at its worst. First of all, there’s no way to tally what each partner in a relationship is doing for the other, or to keep track of it over time. Secondly, it maybe misses the point entirely. If I love the thrill I get when I bring JoAnn flowers and she squeals with delight… who is getting the gift here? If I bring her flowers every week and she never gives me flowers, does that mean we’re out of mutuality balance?*

If I love to hold the door for her, hold her chair, etc., and do all those gentlemanly things that can be fun for a person who likes to think of himself as a gentleman, am I to expect her to occasionally hold my chair? **

To each her own, of course. For example, there are people who love to be dominated (sexually and otherwise) and people who enjoy dominating. To them, mutuality is the dominator making demands and the submissive one filling them.

Of course, I believe in fairness. I just think we need to be careful where we look for that fairness. I mostly judge by my emotional bank account. If JoAnn’s making more deposits than withdrawals (and vice versa), we’re generally in great shape.

Contrast this with a prior, painful relationship. My (then) partner and I sapped each others energy; we were not loving, kind and generous with each other. With each of us constantly feeling emotionally overdrawn, things like who is doing more housework, bill paying, yard work, etc. became the only currency we had. And when we got to that low state of existence, “mutuality” (really, tit for tat) took center stage. And, from that state of mind, the other one always felt like s/he was getting the short end of the stick.

* The truth is that I don’t buy her cut flowers – hardly ever, but I would if she liked them!
** I wish I was more like the gentlemanly guy I’m describing. I’ll work on it.

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VIPs! (Very Important Posts)

Relationships Aren’t for Everybody & What are New Earth Relationships?
(A context for what we’re discussing in this blog).

Embracing Double Standards
(The most popular post to date, and my personal favorite)

The Argument that Just Won’t Die
(How to untangle yourself from recurring arguments with your partner)

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