Monthly Archives: June 2016

What Do You Remember?

Posted in Apathy, Appreciation, Choice, Commitment, Effort, Happiness, Hope, Life, Love, Marriage, Relationship Help by

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The first time I experienced death, it was the passing of my Grandfather.

My phone rang late at night/early in the morning, and my brother give me the news.  My Grandfather hadn’t been well, but it still came as a shock to me.  My brother lived close at the time, so he picked me up we went to my Grandparents house to be with the family.

I remember seeing my Grandmother when I came in, and not really knowing what to say.  I just gave her a hug and told her I was sorry.

It’s been over 20 years, but I still remember a lot of details of that night.  And it’s not just that night, I also remember other details of that time in my life.

For example I remember what music I was listening to at that time in my life, and there is a song from that time that I have come to associate with his passing.  Whenever I hear that song now, I think of my Grandfather.

 

Remembering Experiences

Memory is an interesting thing.  When I look back on my life there are all sorts of moments that stand out in some way.  I remember a lot of “firsts”, and other significant occasions.

Like my Grandfathers death, they aren’t all happy moments.  Some are happy, some are sad, fun, or silly.  Hell, some are moments that I wish I could forget.

The one thing these moments have in common is that they all had an impact on me in one way or another.

 

Now, contrast this with the things we don’t remember.

What are those?

That’s a trick question I guess, asking you to think of the things you don’t remember.  But what we don’t remember is the mundane.  I mean, can you tell me what you had for dinner a month ago today?  I doubt it – unless a month ago today was a special day like a birthday or an anniversary (and even then I doubt it).

We don’t remember cleaning the house, grocery shopping, doing the laundry or putting gas in the car.  These things are important and need to be done; but they don’t impact us.

The routine moments of life tend to blur one into the next, and during those moments we’re kind of on autopilot.

That’s not to say these impactful moments are necessarily any better, or more important than the routine moments of our lives.  But they stay with us when the other moments don’t.

 

“Firsts”

Why is this important?

It’s important because memories and experiences matter.

When a couple meets, they share all sorts of firsts.  Their first date, their first kiss, meeting each other’s families and friends for the first time, the first time they have sex, the birth of a child, etc.

All of these moments matter, and as a couple builds a life together they are also building shared experience.

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Over time though many couples find themselves in a rut, where life has become nothing more than routine.  Routine is important, and necessary; but when this happens it can make it seem like all they have left is shared history; and memories of the time when things were better and happier.

(Interestingly memory can be faulty, and our brain can rewrite our past in order to justify our present – but that’s another post for another day)

Often a big part of the problem is they have stopped sharing these impactful moments.  Life becomes all about nothing more work, kids, and maintaining a household.

With all these competing needs and limited time, they stop nurturing and growing the relationship.  After all, they already have each other right?  They’re already committed to each other, so why MAKE time for the relationship when there is another event to bring the kids to, or another load of laundry to be done.

But when the relationship stops being a focus, they stop building meaningful moments “as a couple” together.

Somewhere along the way, what started as comfortable familiarity turns into apathy, and eventually a recognition that the spark has been lost.  This realization that the spark is gone is a painful one, and can lead to questioning what it means to the relationship.

 

Pulling Away

Failing relationships are often characterized by two people who still love each other, but no longer know how to connect with each other on a deeper level.

And when couples find themselves in this rut, they often make a big mistake.  They each desperately crave the connection they “used to have” with each other.  But they don’t know how to get it back, and that hurts.  So in response to that pain, they shut down and withdraw.

They stop building meaningful moments together, because they have stopped engaging each other.  And without continuing to grow their relationship, all that is left is memory of “when times were better”.  And without effort, they are virtually guaranteeing the relationship will not succeed.

 

Building in Experience

I think this notion of remembering experiences is important to keeping your relationship alive.  And these moments don’t have to be big, elaborate or expensive.  We remember “firsts”, so add some novelty.  Take a class together, try something you’ve never tried.  Whether you like it or end up hating it, it’s still an experience you are sharing together.

Life can’t be just about work, kids, domestic chores (with some time taken out to watch TV).  Sure that stuff matters, but for the health of your relationship, you need to spend time on it.  And if you’re too busy, you need to make time

I’ve said before you can have anything, just not everything.  There are limits to the amount of time, energy and money we have.  We can’t have everything, so we need to focus our priorities on what’s truly important.  If we want our relationships to last, that should be reflected in the amount of energy we put into them.

If the relationships is always taking the hit because other stuff gets in the way, it should be no surprise when it starts to struggle.  As the saying goes, garbage in garbage out.  What you get out of something is directly correlated to what you put into it.

So show that.  Don’t let your relationship become nothing more than a memory of better times.  Make your relationship a priority.  Take time out each day to let all the distractions and busyness of life fade away, and focus on each other.

And never stop building experiences together.

 

 

What if Life had a Rewind Button?

Posted in Achievement, Belief, Choice, Happiness, Hope, Learned Helplessness, Life, Love, Relationship Help, Self-Improvement by

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A few weeks ago I sold a car.

I’ve never sold anything worth more than a couple of dollars before, so the experience was actually a little bit intimidating.

To get the car ready to sell we needed to bring it to a shop for a safety check, and then address any issues that came from that (thankfully there’s weren’t many).  Once that was done and the car was cleaned up inside and out it was time to put it up for sale.

All that was left was the little question of price.

What was an appropriate price?  Truthfully, I had no idea.  So it was time to do some research.  I looked up other ads for the same model and year, talked to an insurance company for an estimated value, and checked a website with estimated values for cars.

I took all these numbers, factored in the condition of the car, and made a judgement call on what seemed “right”.

I posted the ad on Friday morning, hoping that the car would go within a few weeks…

…and then my phone started to ring.

I had a number of people interested in coming to take a look at it, and when I got home from work I had two people show up at my place right away.  Both were interested in the car, and I ended up selling it for exactly what I asked.  No bargaining, no haggling.

Pretty good, right?

In most ways, yeah.  But the response also makes me think I could and probably should have charged more.

I kind of wished I could have gone back in time 24 hours and added another $500 to what I was asking.  I mean, I could definitely use the money and I’m (now) pretty sure I would have got it.

Thing is, I can’t.  There is no rewind button.

Pricing the car was based on a decision that seemed like the right one at the time.  And that was all I could do.

 

 

That’s pretty much how life goes.  We are constantly making decisions, both big and small.  And when we make them, they are the decisions that appeared right to us in that moment.

Why?

Who knows.

Maybe our choice was based on careful deliberation or maybe it was an impulsive action.  Maybe we did something because we thought it was the altruistic thing to do, or maybe we were only thinking about ourselves (basically being a selfish asshole).

In some ways, our “intent” doesn’t matter as much as the result does.  Was that decision actually a good one?  And more importantly, if presented with the same choice in the future would we make the same decision?

Even if we later realize that the decision was a terrible one, we can’t change it.  Life doesn’t come with a rewind button.

Once we’ve made choice, it’s happened – and it’s up to us to own our decisions and live with the consequences – good or bad.

 

In psychology, rumination is a term used to describe being:

compulsively focused attention on the symptoms of one’s distress, and on its possible causes and consequences, as opposed to its solution

– Wikipedia

 

Generally speaking, rumination is a BAD thing.  Getting caught up in would’ve, could’ve, should’ve and what if? can trap you in the past.  Sometimes people spend so much time and energy worrying about the things they’ve done and how they should or could have done them differently that they are unable to move forward in life.

The way I see it, time spent in rumination is nothing but wasted time.

No matter how much we may wish life came with a rewind button we can’t change it.  It doesn’t matter if you would do something differently with what you know now, you didn’t.

It’s happened.

A choice we made, and now all you can do is live with the consequences.

 

That’s not to say the past doesn’t matter.

We are still the owners of our own decisions.  So we need to own them, and be accountable for them.

This is well summed up by the late Muhammad Ali:

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Learning is the key here.  Life doesn’t have a rewind button.  We are always moving forward, whether we like it or not.

 

We should always try to learn from our choices.

I’m not the same me that I was at 20.

I’m not the same me that I was at 30.

And I shouldn’t be.

 

Our past is important because it shapes us.  And it provides considerable value if we look at what we’ve done, what was good, what was bad, and try to be better next time.

But it should never trap us.

We make choices, good and bad.  But we only become trapped in our past when we refuse to use it to grow.

What Does it Mean When “The Love is Gone”?

Posted in Anhedonia, Anxiety, Apathy, couples, Depression, Effort, Happiness, Life, Love, Marriage, Mental Health, Passion, Relationship Doubt, Relationship Help, Relationships by

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Love.

Love is a powerful emotion/feeling, and it can drive us to do incredible (and at times terrible) things.

When people think of “love”, the first thing they think of is usually passion or romance.  Well, sex too – but that’s usually a byproduct of passion.  Either way, it’s often perceived as an intense emotional response.  Butterflies in the stomach, and an overwhelming desire to be with that other person.

Science has shown this “romance” stage of love is just that, a stage.  It has a neurochemical basis, and usually only lasts for more than six months to two years.

When we are younger we often mistake the loss of intense feeling for the loss of love, and use that as an excuse/reason to jump to another “new” relationship where everything is exciting and fresh again.  But eventually most people realize even after the intense feeling has dissipated, strong feelings can remain.  And these new feelings can be even stronger in some ways, because they are a choice and not just a hormonal response.

When we realize this, and still CHOOSE love?  Well, that’s when we have a love that can potentially last.

The thing is, even when we are choosing love and have accepted the feelings aren’t as intense, we still expect there to be feelings.

Love is still love, right?  So shouldn’t we feel something?

We can continue to choose love, but what do we do if the feeling is gone – and there is no sign that it will ever return?

Looking at this another way, if there is only choice but no feeling, do we still have love?

What do we do when we are not in love?

 

What if a Loss of Love is Not About Love?

Personally, I don’t understand “not in love”.  To me love has always been both an emotion and a choice, and this combination allows me to actively love.  To try to show love through my actions, maybe not everyday, but as often as I can.  By showing love, and practicing love I know I won’t allow love to die.

It’s not always that simple though.

In a fantastic article on depression in relationships, John Folk-Williams talks about the impacts depression can have on the ability to “feel” love.  He writes about psychiatrist Peter Kramer, who believes loss of feeling is often a sign of deeper issues:

Kramer often works with clients who are dissatisfied with their relationships. They want to know if leaving is the best thing to do.

When he encounters someone who is convinced that the marriage is dead, he says that he always suspects depression or another mood disorder.

 

Mental Illness and Relationships

Here are two statistics for you:

  • 50% of marriages fail.
  • 25% of people will directly suffer from a mental illness.

 

At first glance these two statistics appear unrelated.  But I wonder, what would the numbers be if you could look at the marriage statistics for people with a mental illness vs. those without?

I’m not sure, but I suspect the failure rates of marriage for those with a mental illness are considerably higher than the norm; simply because they introduce additional pressures and stresses on the relationship.

Mental illness already has a lot of stigma associated with it, and this is by no means an attempt to pile anything further on it.  Rather, this is an attempt to help share some understanding for people who may be having doubts and challenges in their relationships that maybe, just maybe its not the relationship that’s at fault here.

I realize saying “don’t worry, maybe it’s not your relationship – maybe you’re actually dealing with a mental illness” isn’t exactly going to make anyone feel better.  But it is a possibility; and for those who ARE dealing with a mental illness it may be beneficial to understand that your condition may affect your ability to feel love in ways you may not have considered.

 

Impacts of Anxiety and Depression on Love

The two most common mental illnesses are Depression and Anxiety disorders; and I’ve written in the past about how anxiety disorders can damage feelings of love (for a different account on anxiety’s impacts on love check the article Daniel Smith wrote for CNN, titled Can anxiety kill your ability to love?).

The Folk-Williams article above talks about a symptom of depression called Anhedonia (although anhedonia is thought of primarily as a symptom of depression it is also found in anxiety).

A common misconception about depression is that it’s characterized be people feeling down, sad, or hopeless (for extended periods of time).  This definitely happens, but anhedonia is another characteristic of depression where sufferers often lose interest in things that they used to enjoy – activities, hobbies, spending time with friends, and even sex.

Anhedonia is a state of emotional deadness, where instead of feeling down or sad someone feels nothing.  Anhedonia can cause someone to feel as though the love is dead, or they have fallen out of love.

To those who have never experienced it this seems bizarre, but If you do a simple web search for “anhedonia and love” it’s a bit frightening to see how common this seems to be.

 

An Account of Anhedonia

Folk-Williams describes his own experiences with Anhedonia, and how it can destroy relationships as follows:

there is another dimension of depression that can lead to the idea of escape as the answer.

It’s the one that causes depressed partners to say they’re no longer in love and have never loved their partners. It’s called anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure or interest in anything.

For me, it was a kind of deadness. Rather than an excess of painful emotion, it was the lack of pain, the lack of feeling, that was the undercurrent of all the surface turmoil. I felt no satisfaction in life.

I believed that the relationship was holding me back, that it had become hollow, empty of the intensity I longed for. I was sure that I could only find happiness and passion with someone else. It was the fantasy of the perfectly passionate mate that was a constant lure.

And later he writes:

Anhedonia is the cause of the desire to leave to find a new, more intense life. The depressed partner’s relationship feels loveless because he can hardly feel at all.

The problem is that the unaware depressive has such a high threshold of feeling that it takes extreme arousal to evoke excitement and passion. He can erupt with anger and rage because these are more violent emotions that stir him as little else does.

Kramer says that these clients often believe that they’re perfectly capable of feeling. After all, they can go out and have fun with friends. They can feel passionate with others who likely have no constraining relationships or might be seeking the same kind of escape.

But they feel good precisely because these experiences offer exceptionally high levels of stimulation. They may also turn to addictive habits like recreational drugs, drinking, gambling or pornography for the same reason.

Fantasies of escaping into a life full of new intensity seem like the perfect answer to their inner emptiness.

 

The Loss of Feeling

When someone needs intensely high levels of stimulation just to feel, it’s somewhat understandable that people will be willing to engage in risky and destructive behaviors.

One of the things Folk-Williams alludes to (but doesn’t address directly) is that this lack of feeling makes actual intimacy almost impossible.  So the type of attachment characteristic of close relationships breaks down, and sufferers often can find no arousal or attachment in their partners.  Everything becomes detached and clinical.  They know they “should” feel something, and they know they once did.  But they don’t, and they can’t change that.

However they can still feel the intense emotions of “new love”, so things like affairs are increasingly likely just as a way to feel.  As is sex in casual relationships or one night stands.  Those things can be felt physically, even though there is still usually little or no emotional connection.  As noted above, people may turn to substance abuse as a way of “coping” with this lack of feeling inside.

When anhedonia isn’t understood, it becomes easy to blame external things.  A sufferer is unhappy because of their job, or their weight, or their relationship.

Happiness and hope is replaced by the lure of fantasy.  A belief that things will be better IF they can only find the right thing.  If they can get the right job, get the right body, or find the right partner.

Spoiler alert here – it doesn’t work.  Finding the perfect partner is fantasy, not reality.  They don’t exist, and the people who try often end up destroying a lot of the things in their lives that are “good” in the pursuit of this fantasy.

 

Mourning Love

I write about relationships, and I write about love.  To me love is a powerful and beautiful thing, and the loss of it is always difficult.

Often love is lost and relationships fail because of little things.  We take each other for granted, we focus on the bad instead of the good, we are hurt and we refuse to let go.  All these little things often add up to growing resentment and the breakdown of love.

And when that happens, it’s tragic.

None of that however compares to the loss of love not because love is actually gone, but because someone has lost the capacity to feel it.

THAT seems incomprehensibly cruel.

Especially when the sufferer doesn’t realize what is happening, and instead of seeing it as the symptom of a problem they interpret the loss of love as the problem itself.

 

I don’t know what anhedonia feels like, and I hope I never do.  From descriptions of it and from reading others accounts of it, it seems like a terrible soul destroying thing.

But like many other aspects of mental illness, it’s something that’s not understood, and not discussed.  And I believe many, many relationships and families are needlessly lost as a result.

So if you have thought “I don’t love you anymore” or heard those words said to you, please stop to consider that maybe there’s something else going on.  Especially if you can’t understand or explain why the feeling is gone.

 

To gain a better understanding of  the struggles sufferers face daily check out the following video:

No one wants to talk about or acknowledge mental illness.  And people definitely don’t want to be labelled as having one.  But when it directly affects 25% of the population, it’s at least something to consider.

When you can’t understand something, you can’t address it.  And things can never improve.  So understanding why feelings of love may be gone can be the first step in the road to rebuilding it.

Are You and Your Partner Compatible?

Posted in Achievement, Appreciation, Commitment, Communication, Compatibility, Conflict, couples, Effort, Happiness, Hope, Life, Love, Marriage, Relationship Doubt, Relationship Help, Responsibility, Self-Improvement by

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I’m a big believer in marriage, and I’m pretty sure most people go into marriage with the belief that their marriage will succeed.

Yet roughly 50% or all first marriages fail.

And in the vast majority of divorces is North America (and presumably more of the world), the reason given for the divorce is irreconcilable differences.

So, what exactly are irreconcilable differences?

Yeah, the words tell you this means the couple has differences they can’t figure out, but what does that even mean?

I tried to find a good explanation for irreconcilable differences, and at this site (a divorce law site of course) I found the following:

 

What that this means is that you and your spouse’s basic fundamental differences make it impossible to stay married. For some couples, arguments over child discipline, politics, finances, or religion are severe enough to drive a permanent wedge in the marriage. Other couples may want a divorce because they fight a lot, have personality conflicts, or simply don’t trust each other. Whatever your differences with your spouse, they must be permanent enough that your marriage has become irretrievably broken.

 

So basically, at some point in time a couple comes to a determination that they aren’t compatible, and this incompatibility is significant enough that they can’t handle being together anymore.

 

How Does Compatibility Break Down?

You know, I’ve never gone to a wedding where the couple said things like “I’m looking forward to the start of our next few years together, until we realize our differences are so significant we have to hire lawyers to break down the life we will be building together.”

Guys supposedly aren’t very good at listening though, so that could be on me.

Realistically though, when a couple gets married they believe they are compatible.  I’m pretty sure they know they have differences, but when they stand up there and pledge forever to each other, they believe they have what it takes to make it.

Yet almost 50% of marriages fail.

What the hell are we doing wrong?

How does compatible become irreconcilable?

 

I guess at least part of it is change.

People are constantly growing and evolving, so the couple who stands there and exchanges vows is likely quite a bit different from the couple who later find themselves dealing with divorce lawyers and legal fees.

They changed.

They may have believed they were compatible on the marriage day, but as the years went by they were no longer those same people.

Another problem could be they knew they had differences, but thought they could “get past” them.  On the wedding day they figured those differences weren’t a problem, but over time they were proven wrong.

Thing is, people are different, and people change.  Those two things are among the few constants in life.  So unless we are willing to accept the idea that the institute of marriage is broken (and I’m not willing to accept that), we need to figure out how we can do a better job of accepting change, and find ways to stay happy together in spite of it.

 

Accepting Influence

A little over a year ago I wrote a post called Accepting Influence, and although my thoughts on it have changed a bit in the past year I think accepting influence is probably the most important thing you can do in order to have a successful relationship.

In fact, I think accepting influence is what relationships are really all about.

A marriage isn’t just a way of sharing living expenses, or having someone there to take care of you.  A marriage is not just about having your needs fulfilled.  In fact, it’s not about a “me”, and it’s not about a “you”.

It’s about an “us”.

When two people meet, it’s often some of their shared interests that bring them together.  They have some things in common, and these common interests give them things to talk about and experiences to share.

When talking about compatibility it is often these common interests that are talked about.

Hey, we both like to travel, we both like similar foods, movies, music… whatever it is.

But no matter how similar you are, people also have differences.  AND, they change over time.

 

Accepting influence is all about learning to navigate those differences, and expanding your world so that you start to care about things you normally wouldn’t have – BECAUSE they matter to your partner!

At a superficial level this can be things like activities and hobbies.  You aren’t trying to become your partner, or force yourself into all aspects of their life.  But you ARE trying to understand them, and have more common ground to share with them.  Maybe to be able to hold a conversation with them about one of their passions, even if you don’t share it.

At a deeper level this is something as important as love languages.  Couples don’t always share the same love languages – the things that make one person feel loved and valued don’t necessarily match their partners.  But it’s important to try and understand what matters to your partner and give them what they need to feel loved – even (and perhaps especially) when it doesn’t match your own.

This is a form of accepting influence.  Really, it’s about saying to your partner YOU matter to me.  I care about you.

On the flip side, refusing to accept influence is kind of like saying “Sure I care about you and your needs – as long as they line up with mine”.

Relationships shouldn’t be just about your needs.  You should derive happiness from seeing your partner happy and from contributing to that happiness, even when it doesn’t line up with something you personally need.

What if the happiness of your partner doesn’t matter to you?  Well, if that’s the case you probably shouldn’t be in a relationship.

 

Building Compatibility

The reason given for most divorces is “irreconcilable differences”.  Aka “we weren’t compatible anymore”.

However compatibility doesn’t just happen, it’s something you build into the relationship every day.  Every time you accept influence from your partner by putting their needs at the same level as your own and trying to do things for them, you are building compatibility.

And every time you put me ahead of we, you are building in incompatibility.  I’m not saying you should do everything together or never have time to yourself, as individual time and space is important to the health of a relationship.  But the needs of your partner should always matter.

 

When people cite irreconcilable differences, I think what they are REALLY saying is “I was no longer willing to work with you and try to meet your needs.  I was no longer willing to try and find a solution that works for both of us.”

Personal boundaries are good, and are a healthy part of relationships.  When those personal boundaries collide however, often the inability to find a solution together is more a testament to one or both sides wanting things their way.  To putting me before we.

Sure, they want to get to forever and they want the happy ending.  But they want it on their terms, and aren’t willing to move their position to meet their partner and find a place where both people can be happy.

And if you are in a relationship for you?  Then you’ve already failed.

 

Successful relationships aren’t about you, and they aren’t about me.  In successful relationships there is a recognition that both you and me matter, and the only way to do that is by putting we first.

If requires communication, negotiation, and accepting influence.

I think it’s best summed up by a line in this article:

Compatibility is an achievement of love; it must not be its precondition.

We start with a certain degree of compatibility, but after that it doesn’t just happen on it’s own.  It’s up to us to maintain it, and it’s up to us to build it.

So irreconcilable differences doesn’t mean there was an inherent problem with the couple. A lack of compatibility really means the couple couldn’t, or wouldn’t, build it in.