| |
Mike Carruthers:
You've heard
it a million times - half of all marriages end in divorce.
Mel Schwartz:
But to me the more telling fact is that the majority of intact relationships and
intact marriages struggle. They're far from happy. So when I step back and look
at it, I consider that only a small percentage of relationships succeed. That's
a staggering rate of failure. Psychotherapist
Mel Schwartz, author of the book The
Art of Intimacy the Pleasure of Passion… I
believe that the problem is due to the fact that we're uneducated. Our parent's
probably weren't sufficient models. So the most important thing that we need in
our lives to be joyful and happy, we're unschooled in. So my vantage point is
that to begin with, we need to start to learn the process in the art of relationships. Mel
says a necessary and often a missing skill in every relationship is the ability
to be vulnerable. Typical
conversation goes like this, "You don't know how to listen to me, you don't
care about what I feel." If you say that, the other person is immediately
defending their territory, whatever their thoughts might be. Being vulnerable
might sound like this; " You know sometimes I don't speak because I'm fearful
that you're not interested in what I have to say. And I keep it to myself and
it really feels miserable for me." In other words when you share in your
vulnerability, you actually enlist or engage the other person to listen to you
- which ought to be the goal. Tomorrow,
the problem of predictability in relationships - I'm Mike Carruthers and that's
Something You Should Know.
|
|
| Keep
up with Mike! Join
the "Something You Should Know" Insider
Update. We'll e-mail your Update
to you every 2 weeks.
| |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| | | |