Getting Your Needs Met in Your Marriage (Part 2)

Offering Tools for Lasting and Positive Change in Personal, Professional and Romantic Relationships…

Tools for Clarity and Effective Communication in Your Whole Heart Marriage

If you are having problems in your relationship, I propose that you try to do whatever you can do IN your relationship before you think about leaving it. The first step is to acknowledge your part. Take responsibility for your part in the problems. You’re the one who has needs that aren’t being met. You’re the one I’m talking to; the only one you can change! You actually owe it to yourself and to your partner to speak up in your marriage. You are doing the best thing you can do to save your marriage by taking responsibility for getting your needs met. I believe that we’re really only having one relationship our whole life, with different people in different bodies along the way. So you might as well get it with person you’re with. Maybe you already have children with this person. You definitely have invested time and emotion so why not at least try? Learn what you attracted this person into your life to learn and who knows? You might even work it out and move forward together. At least, if you do learn what you came together to learn, if you don’t go forward together, you won’t recreate the same relationship issues with another person. How do you get your needs met? I found in my own life that being heard was really a challenge for me. I would like to offer you some really powerful tools for improving your communication in all areas, especially the area of your needs.

The beginning point is to make time to talk every day. If you don’t schedule it, it will most likely not happen. When my husband and I were first married, we were both very involved in our careers. We had a baby very early in the marriage and my husband already had children. So we had a lot going on! I wanted at least one of us to be with our son as much as possible so he wouldn’t have to be in daycare. Consequently, we worked sort of opposite hours. My husband worked a lot of nights and weekends and I worked 7am to 3pm. I used to joke that our son must have thought he really just had one parent that looked different on different days. In fact, one time, I went to pick him up from daycare (he did go a few times a week when we just couldn’t make it work, and it was really actually fun for him!) and the woman who took care of him was surprised to see me because usually my husband picked him up. She was so surprised that she said she didn’t know he had a mom! Ouch!

Yes, we were that busy. Of course, what eventually happened was that we just became like roommates, ships passing in the night. By the time we got home at night, we were so exhausted; we just did what we needed to do and went to bed. We did this for so long that it became a really bad habit.

Finally we had to get honest about what we had become. The romance and passion were gone. That’s when we had to take stock of our relationship, our marriage and take some specific actions in the right direction, which was the direction of our togetherness, renewing and even deepening our connection. One of those actions was to begin talking EVERY DAY! We talk about everything but timing is crucial. It’s not advisable to talk about your “hot topics” before bed. Those are better discussed in the morning or some time during the day. That’s the first step; take time EVERY DAY to talk!

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I Was Never Going to get Married

I was never going to get married

 I set out on a quest in my early twenties to discover why people get married.  I could not understand and did not see most people having a good time of it.  My quest, over the next 10 or so years took me to therapy, books, questioning friends and professionals in various fields, such as psychology, education all the way to my mom, and the divine, and deep into my soul.

 

As I sit here and write today, 25 years later, over 21 years into a very challenging and rewarding marriage, challenging not because of my husband, but challenging because of who I am and how I live my life as a conscious, awake, aware person; I finally have an answer to the question, “Why get married?”

 

I feel my eyes well up with tears, becoming clear about how important it is for me to finally share my experience.  I have explored many topics, all around healthy relationships.  I did extensive research on the relationship between chronic illness in women and the devaluations of the feminine.  I discovered that, we as women devalue the feminine aspect of ourselves as we try to fit into the masculine world and make it work.  We devalue, deny, and even abandon our feminine aspects.  And as a result, we allow ourselves to remain way too long in unhealthy relationships with others.   As a result, we experience chronic illnesses which occur more often in women.  After this research, I focused on learning how to function in the linear, masculine, left- brain world in which I was living.  I wrote a book about the holistic approach to time management, balancing the right and left-brain experience of life.

 

And finally, my husband and I together, wrote a book called Yoga Heart Meditative Movement, a book about finding the heart in all things, the journey back to the heart.  All these books have been leading to my current work and research. 

 

I can practically feel my body vibrating off the couch with excitement as clarity comes to me about my message.  Who knew that when I set out on my quest to discover why people get married, I would be writing about my own experience 25 years later?

Marriage is the Greatest Seminar You Will Ever Experience

Marriage is the best seminar you will ever attend.  It offers opportunities for growth that no other relationship can offer, that is, if you are both in it, playing “full out”.  If you are not both in it, it can be the loneliest, saddest place you will ever be.

 

For most of my younger life, I thought I had made a conscious decision that I was never going to get married or have children.  I just never imagined I would find a man that I would want to spend the rest of my life with.  And I definitely didn’t want a “husband” based on the role models I saw growing up like the “husband” in “Father Knows Best” or “Leave it to Beaver”.  22 years ago, I found myself meeting a man without whom I could not imagine not spending the rest of my life.  Imagine that!  So here we were, getting ready to get married, me, having never been or even really wanting to be married before this point, not knowing that I didn’t know the first thing about marriage; him, having been married twice before, knowing more about what he didn’t want a marriage to be than what he did want it to be.

 

The past 20 years have been such a rich journey of learning about marriage, from actually being married, to creating personalized ceremonies and officiating at marriage ceremonies, to doing pre-marital coaching and workshops for couples, to doing marriage enrichment workshops and marriage counseling.   I have learned some very important things about marriage.  I have learned, “Why get married?”  I have learned what makes a healthy, happy “Whole Heart” marriage.  I have learned that there is a difference between “Till death do us part” and “Till the end of our forever”.  I understand the statement “Till death do us part, as long as it’s working for both of us”. And I have learned that we must re-choose our partner and our marriage many times throughout our lives because if we are really changing and growing our relationship is constantly evolving.  I have learned these things through my own experiences as well as the experiences of hundreds of couples with whom I have worked and the research from experts I have studied.

 

One of the most important things I have come to believe is that as we process through relationships on our path toward finding the one we choose to marry, we pick up one relationship right where we left the last one.  It’s like we’re really having one relationship our whole lives with different people in different bodies.  And the truth is that the one relationship, the biggy is with ourselves.  Each person that we interact with mirrors aspects of ourselves.  We are multi-faceted individuals, with many different parts and sides, just like a prism.  As each person touches us, they ignite something in us, cause us to glow in a certain way, glow, sparkle and shine.  And sometimes they block our light or the block the light from us.   That’s when you know something is wrong; when your light is no longer shining.

When Your Light in your Marriage Isn't Shining Anymore

First you want to discover why your light isn’t shining.  Are you blocking yourself or is it the other person blocking your light?  I believe you might as well figure out your part with the person you’re with before you move on, learn what you came together with this person to learn.   Because if you leave before you learn what your part is, you will just re-create the same relationship issues with the next person and the next and the next until you get it!

 

Have you ever heard the phrase, “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts?”  In other words 1+1 is greater than 2 in the world of physics.  The synergy that two people create by bringing their energies together can be amazing.  It can be greater than anything either one of them could have accomplished on their own or with any other person.  It can be great for both people and it can bring both people to a higher place than they could have come to on their own.  This is a powerful union.  If both people are willing, they can cause each other to grow tremendously.

 

The problems occur when one person is not willing to grow or is not as committed as the other.  They can work at it for a while, but at some point the one who is not as committed to their personal growth will feel pushed and pressured and the other one will feel frustrated and both may feel resentful.  Hopefully there is ebb and flow to the relationship, just as there is an ebb and flow to the ocean, in fact, to everything in life.  The two people may not always be growing at the same pace or in the same direction but hopefully, there is some sort of rhythm to it, and eventually they catch up for periods of time.   And at those times, the connection, the joy is great.

 

This is how we cause each other to grow.  One person experiences new awareness, insights  and discoveries, shares with the other and inspires, challenges or causes them to change and expand, first unconsciously, then in consciousness and then in actions.

 

The thing is that we cannot expect the other person to change and grow.   In order for there to be a safe environment for both people in the relationship, a level of acceptance must exist.  Each person must accept the other exactly as they are if the couple has any hope of growing together.  

 

One person in the relationship may be so overpowering or controlling, actually full of fear that they cause the other person’s light to shine dimly or not at all.  This is when it is time to seek help.  I suggest seeking help rather than leaving because it is important for each person to know what their part is in the problem.  How are you allowing your light to be diminished by the other person?  How is the other person causing your light to diminish?  How are you participating in diminishing their light?