In every marriage - happy or otherwise, a little rain must fall. It can be rather unnerving unless you have a map that will help you predict inclement weather.

    Amazingly, it so happens that there are five predictable issues that every marriage confronts, often from its genesis. Interestingly, one or two of these problems become themes in one's marriage.

    Once you understand the concept that there absolutely no such thing as perfection in life, nor in marriage, you begin to feel more confident that you can manage your relationship as the storms emerge from time to time.

    Here are the Big Five:

IN-LAWS

SEX

MONEY

CLOSENESS/DISTANCE

TIME TOGETHER/TIME APART

IN-LAWS:

Whether you like it or not the chances are excellent that your partner was born into a family, or had been connected to another family prior to having you in their life - as is in the case of divorce, and that some of these family members are alive.

     These in-laws are like baggage or gifts depending on your point of view, and cannot be removed. If your husband has a mother, a sister, an ex-wife or a daughter, you can be sure that there will be times when their presence in your life will create a problem for you, and a conflict between the two of you.

     What to do? Deal with it, accept it, learn to love them, don't get in the middle between them and your partner, nor get in the middle between your partner and them. For a comprehensive explanation of getting in the middle, or MONKEY IN THE MIDDLE, or Triangles, take a look at the article on my website at: www.RitaCanHelp.com

SEX:

Whatever your physical intimacy was like before you were married, it's a certainty that it will change. Will it get better? Or worse?

     Several factors contribute to the weather in your sexual relationship - the most potent is the quality of your emotional connection and the sense of feeling safe and trusting of each other in your marriage.

     When sex is good than it's never an issue, and rarely comes up in discussion. But all too often, when sex is lacking in quality or frequency it becomes an issue that often dwarfs all others.

     What to do? Recognize that it is understandable that sex will change as you become each other's family, and that if you want a better sex life, than deal with your relationship.

     Don't be surprised if one or both of you are unwilling to accept the connection between mind and body. If your mind is in turmoil about your relationship, your body will not be open to the vulnerability that sex requires of us.

More to come...

 All the best,

Dr. Rita

     Most of us have to make daily decisions that take us on one path or another, and unless we are incredibly helpless and lack a huge sense of who we are, we muddle through. Some of the decisions we regularly make without too much difficulty are: what to eat, what to wear, how to speak about an issue to someone, when to stop or start a project, what to buy and save, and so forth. 

     Apart from daily decisions we also occasionally throughout our lifetime have to make quality of life decisions that put us on a new track from the one we had been on. These are more difficult because they are momentous and impact our life in ways we cannot usually predict, such as: whether and whom to marry, which job to take, when to retire, where to live, and so forth.

     The two parts of our elegant brain that are responsible for decision-making are the right/emotional brain and the left/cognitive brain. Being decisive is not only about rational choices, but includes the emotional intuitive ones that are often under the surface.

     I always like to make pro and con lists when a difficult quality of life decision needs to be made. I find the process illuminating, and it harnesses my anxiety about living with uncertainty, although it usually doesn't bring my sense of uncertainty to a comfortable closure. Have you noticed how uncomfortable we are with uncertainty? I think that the more comfortable you can learn to be with not knowing, the more risk you take, and the more excitement and interesting twists and turns will your life be able to take. It's always less worrysome to stay in place, and keep doing the same thing. That's why change is both so stressful and yet so life-enhancing.

     Somewhere I trust my gut, for you it may be your heart, which is actualy our right brain, to get in on the process and make a behind-the-scene calibration which manifests itself quite miraculously, after days or weeks of torturous indecision, with a light-bulb-clarity of, "oh of course, this makes so much sense, I'll go with that.

     Isn't it amazing how once that occurs, we have this 20/20 hindsight that proves we made the right decision, and ultimately we are glad we took advantage of our capacity to make a change because our life is enriched by change. One of our basic needs is to have excitement in our lives, and change provides that in a healthy way.

     So the next time I have to make a difficult decision I hope I remember to give myself the time it takes for my beautiful brain to weigh and measure all the data I've provided and then open the curtain to certainty with a ta-da!

All the best,

Dr. Rita

     So far we've talked about labeling feelings of the challenging and difficult variety. The type of feelings most of us tend to want to reject, get rid of, in short - not feel. Here is a list of positive feelings that most people want to hold onto:

ATTRACTIVE: pretty, vital, vivacious, sympathetic, fair, beautiful, wonderful, desirable, good, comely, sexy, helpful, lovely   
HAPPY: cheerful, loving, nice, affectionate, contented, delight, enjoyment, glad, cheerful, joyous, free, open, released
INSPIRED: proud, rapturous, rewarded, reverent, lively, impressed, high, awed, charmed, animated, captivated, eager, ecstatic, electrified, loving, enchanted, excited, fascinated, honored, kind   

TRANQUIL: full, relaxed, sated, satisfied,serene, settled, sure, blissful, calm, agreeable, refreshed, contented, pleasant, pleased, easy, adequate, gratified, full, heavenly, solemn 
COMPETENT: capable, clever, groovy, keen, effective, proficient, fit, able, skilled, suitable 
AGGRESSIVE: strong, competitive, bold, challenged, enterprising, tenacious, brave, determined, opposed, energetic, powerful, deserving, entitled, assertive, dynamic

     Are you surprised to see that aggression is a positive emotion? I just want you to know that ALL feelings are constructive and healthy. Of course, recognizing and labeling them is always the first step.

     What we do with our feelings can be either healthy or destructive.
Aside from the effect that smoking, drinking, food and exercise has on cholesterol levels and our general health and well-being, there is a great deal of research to support how denying negative emotions raises cholesterol levels, cortisol levels and in general increases the amount of unrelenting stress that leads to a multitude of physical and emotional problems. Individuals who allow themselves to be aware of ALL feelings without judgement have fairly low cholesterol levels and blood pressure according to recent studies. Those who "repress" (tend to put on a happy face and have trouble admitting their difficult emotions) averaged an astonishing 40 points higher and attained more dangerous cholesterol levels, and heart rate during stressful events. Additionally, if you don't let yourself have the bad feelings, the good ones cannot surface.
     For the sake of your body and your emotional well-being it is vital that you permit yourself to recognize what you are feeling, identify its source and decide what steps can be taken to make yourself feel better and to rectify the situation that gave rise to those emotions in the first place - be it stimulated by past or present circumstances. For the sake of all of your relationships it is essential that you recognize the consequence of feeling mnagement. It is only through opening your heart to yourself that you can do so with others. 

     What I mean by this is that your wellness is a pathway to happiness and love. Allowing all of what you experience in the moment makes you a more balanced, happy and healthy individual.      

All the best,

Dr. Rita

     One of the most interesting things that I have learned in my thirty years of working as a psychotherapist, and in my 43 years of marriages is that it cannot always be a smooth ride. In every life, as in every marriage, there are challenges and low times. The most important way to get the most of what life we have is to accept the inevitability of death, and to make life "burn" as Jane Fonda used to say on her video workout tapes. 
     It's all about expectations and reality. Tibet meditation teachers say that first and foremost, accept reality in this moment, and take it from here. What that means to me in terms of marriage is that wherever we are, there we are. Marriage has its ups and downs and in-betweens and that's a good thing. We can enjoy both the good and the not-so-good of marriage.

     It's in those less connected times that we have the opportunity to connect to ourselves, and that's a very good thing because the individual MUST have a relationship with his or herself in order to survive. Too much closeness causes fusion, which is a kind of crazy glue affair that will never last too long because when one plus one equals one, there are two people who are lost, and one or both of them will eventually rebel. because of the individuality survival mechanism that is physiologically and psyhologically quite potent.  

     The first reality of marriage is that the "we" are made up of two "I"s and each needs to have a full and meaningful life, where each "I" is responsible for him or her self, and both are also equally responsible to the marriage, to the "we."
     The second reality of marriage is that we sometimes get into a pain cycle that's hard to escape. This is true both individually and as a couple. In marriage, this can happen on the heels of the first child when the system is at its most vulnerable because the "we" has to accommodate another "I" that of the child, where a second "we" is created.  

     Developmentally speaking, every time there is a gain or a loss in a family system, a crisis ensues and needs to be resolved in order for the family balance to continue. Some couples find it difficult to switch-hit, from the two-some "we" that they'd had, to the new "we" which STILL includes the original "we." All too often the couple "we" gets lost when the new "we" with the child(ren) is created. This is a big mistake and often leads to great unhappiness, and often divorce.

     The simplest advice I can offer is to optimally shoot for three to five years of marriage in whcih the marital "we" can establish itself, before introducing a child. Of course, if a couple waits too long before having a child, the system can have a greater challenge because the "we" is often concretized to the point that it cannot shift easily enough to make room for the third "I" the baby. I've seen situations where one member of the couple was the designated baby and was not able to step up to the plate of parenthood in a way that opened up the system to having two adults taking care of one child.

     When a marital pain cycle goes on for too long, it's time to roll up your sleeves and examine your expectations. This might be a good time to call in a third party such as myself to assist in helping you to recreate the homeostasis that your marriage must have enjoyed at one time. With a little help it can happen again.

All the best,

Dr. Rita