Avoid mind reading

Don't assume that you know what your partner is thinking and feeling. There's a good chance you could be wrong, and wrong assumptions cause unnecessary conflict.

Imagine this situation. You walk into the living room and there's your husband sitting on his favorite chair glaring at the wall. His lips are tight; his jaw is clenched. Your immediate reaction: fear! "What did I do? Why is he so angry at me?" You tentatively approach him, "What's the matter, David?" you ask, expecting him to pour his wrath upon you. David slowly turns toward you. The tense, angry look begins to melt and he says sadly, "I've been laid off." "Thank God," you almost blurt out, "at least it wasn't me."

In this case, the woman checked out her assumptions and discovered that her husband wasn't upset with her. Yet, how often does it happen that we make the wrong assumptions and just go on believing them without ever discovering if they're true?

It often happens during the process of marital therapy that assumptions, illusions and fantasies are exposed as false or only partially true. For example, the angry, critical husband who supposedly hates his wife might in fact be an insecure man who is convinced that his wife doesn't love him. Perhaps, as in one case that I know of, a distant, rejecting wife turned out to be a very sad woman, grieving the loss of her mother. Don't assume. Check it out.

Patience for the Future

In our world of instant communication, we are no longer used to waiting. In order to succeed in marriage, however, you must have the patience to allow your spouse to change, to grow, and to overcome the obstacles that he or she has been born with. People do change, but it takes years. Marriage is not instant. Changing oneself is not instant. You must learn to have patience with the other person’s foibles and carry them until they can change.

And that is what marriage is about — learning to have patience to allow the other person to become better, and to schlep around their idiosyncrasies until that happens.

Like everything that is worth having, a happy, successful marriage requires work. But there is not a more worthwhile investment in the world. Nothing is as rewarding as a good marriage.

Whether you are a single person -- may God send your soul mate speedily -- a newlywed, or an old hand at marriage, remember that marriage is about giving, about caring enough to criticize respectfully, about willing to forget and to forego -- about willing to make that change from caterpillar to butterfly.

why love starts fading ?

We often tend to have a subconscious wish list of how we’d like our marriages to be: more time spent talking, more sharing of feelings, more compliments, no criticism, more affection, less judging. But to whom is this wish list addressed? Usually, our spouse! How many of us go around thinking: if only I could be more loving, more affectionate, more complimentary and warm toward my spouse?

So we are essentially hoping to receive rather than to give!

Perhaps this is why love starts fading when we each start wondering how we can get more out of our marriage, thinking about our expectations, how our spouse can give us more and what we are lacking. Instead of investing and giving, we are starting the taking cycle. The choice to dwell on our expectations of our spouse, then, might be the choice to actively allow the love to stagnate and fade away.

Turn towards each other

When you pass your spouse sitting at her desk doing some work, do you stop and rub her shoulders, give her a kiss on the cheek, and whisper something nice in her ear -- or do you just walk on by? This is the meaning of "turning toward" as opposed to "turning away."

Marriage research shows that happily married couples do a lot of turning toward each other whenever they get the chance. They look for ways to be physically and emotionally close to each other. Turning toward each other means making each other your number one priority.

Another important aspect of turning toward each other is doing things together that you both enjoy. Taking walks together, drinking coffee together after dinner, learning Torah together, and listening to music together, are all examples of how couples turn toward each other.

A powerful way to turn toward each other is to show the ultimate respect -- by standing when your spouse enters the room. Sounds old-fashioned? It is. But it's a powerful way to turn toward your spouse, make him/her feel very special.

Couples who "turn away" from each other don't develop closeness. It's a basic principle stated in the Talmud, "A good deed begets another good deed. A bad deed begets another bad deed."

Seasons greeting

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

Rituals are habits that build and strengthen a relationship. One couple had the following "greeting ritual" at night when the husband came home:

Our actions affect the way we feel. How are your greeting and good-bye rituals?

Here are some rituals you and your spouse should consider working on:

* Daily e-mailing each other with a compliment.

* Daily phone call. (especially important for husbands to do)

* Anniversaries deserve special attention. Plan to do something both of you really enjoy, rather than feeling stuck two days before your anniversary arrives and then running out to get some flowers.

* Before you turn in for the night, try saying two compliments to each other. This means coming up with something new each night!

* It is essential to have a "date night" at least every other week.

Good communication to resolve hot issues

The technique that every couple must learn is called the "listener-speaker technique." The problem with the way most couples argue is that they try to find solutions before fully giving each other the chance to say what they need to say. The speaker-listener technique ensures that before you can engage in solution talk, each person feels they have been fully heard.

Here's how it works: One person holds an object in their hand which symbolizes that he or she has the floor. While one person has the floor, the other person can only listen by repeating back or paraphrasing what the other person said. The listener can stop the speaker if s/he is saying too much for the listener to repeat back.

When couples use this technique, it automatically ensures that each person will be able to say everything s/he needs to say without interruption, rebuttals, criticism or attack. Only after each person has been fully "heard," do you then proceed to problem solving.