Transcripts

Mike Carruthers:
"If I had to do it over, I wouldn't marry him, or her." A lot of marriages have gotten to that point where it's fighting, complaining and blaming.

Mira Kirshenbaum:
Stop that whole process. Stop blaming each other; stop thinking that you've got to assign blame.

Psychologist, Mira Kirshenbaum, author of the book, The Weekend Marriage says it usually isn't anyone's fault.The problem is too little time is being spent on the relationship and it can be fixed. Step one is to use what she calls the power of stop.

They promise each other that the minute one of you senses that you're headed towards a big ugly hard to heal fight, you say, "Stop". And you both stop talking and come back to the issue the next day when you're calmer. It works like magic. Another thing they do is custom tailor your love. Tell each other what makes you feel specially loved, then make sure you do those things everyday - at least one of them.

If your relationship doesn't feel as good as it used to Mira suggests you try this test. Simply go out for an evening or a weekend together.

And then you ask yourself does your relationship usually feel better when you have this extended time together or does it feel worse? If it feels better when you spend time together the problem is in your relationship and mostly coming from your time starved lifestyles, not from who you are as people.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.