Love & Sex Answers

Today's #1 Love & Sex Resource

You are here: Home / Archives for drbonnieeakerweil

Live Longer With Healthy Relationships

By

Low and unhealthy social interaction can produce the same amount of stress in our lives as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, or being an alcoholic, or not exercising. A new study from Brigham Young University reports that healthy relationships improve our odds of survival by 50 percent. “The idea that a lack of social relationships is a risk factor for death is still not widely recognized by health organizations and the public,” write the editors in a summary of the BYU study and why it was done.

The Benefits Of Healthy Relationships

The study was developed by analyzing data from nearly 150 previously published studies that measured things like frequency of human interaction and tracked the resulting health outcomes over a period of years. Because information on relationship quality was unavailable from these studies, the 50 percent increased odds of survival may actually be an UNDERestimate of the benefit of healthy relationships.

While the study isn’t just referencing relationships with significant others, but rather all our daily interactions – from husbands and wives to co-workers and friends – some of the same techniques I teach for healthy romantic relationships can be applied to the relationships we have with other people in our lives.

For example, having what I call in my book, Make Up Don’t Break Up, a “smart heart-to-heart” can be beneficial to a friendship or a co-worker relationship as well as a marriage. It teaches us to create an environment for honesty and conflict resolution. Being able to put heated emotions aside and let each person share their experiences and feelings is beneficial beyond a romantic relationship and can work for professional and personal relationships alike.

Separation Makes The Heart Grow Fonder

Another technique I teach is break up to make up and this can be helpful for many types of relationships that have come to an impasse. Typically, I recommend it for those in committed relationships who are on the verge of break up or divorce as a way to separate from each other with the clear intention of getting back together. The separation ideally allows each person to determine or restructure their priorities and, yes, also ideally makes the heart grow fonder. But in any closer personal relationship – such as within a family or in a close friendship – there can come a time when it’s a wise decision to take some time apart.

After all – if you’re implementing some of these techniques to create happy relationships in your life, you may actually live longer! And according to one of the study authors: “When someone is connected to a group and feels responsibility for other people, that sense of purpose and meaning translates to taking better care of themselves and taking fewer risks.”

Eat, Pray And Love Your Relationship!

By

With Eat Pray Love hitting theaters, I suspect there’s a lot of soul-searching going on. The movie is based on the book of the same name which focuses on the author Elizabeth Gilbert’s round-the-world journey to seek out enlightenment and peace after her divorce. It’s reported that her publisher paid her an advance which helped to finance the trip and there’s no doubt that would sweeten the pot and help make such a trip doable.

Most of us probably won’t see an advance that enables a trip like that but there are plenty of things you can do to ensure enlightenment and peace without leaving home. And since my area of expertise is relationships, here are a few tips to keep things happy on the home front – and to help ensure the only round-the-world excursion you’ll take is one for fun and relaxation, with your significant other by your side!

Make The Most Out Of Your Relationship

  • Don’t over-ride emotion. Sure, it can seem easier to just sweep heated discussions or uncomfortable communications under the rug but sooner or later things will resurface. Opting not to talk about things will likely lead down a road you don’t want to be on; one where you end up in a knock down drag out fight, or one where you’re pushed apart and possibly even enter into an affair.
  • Instead, learn to fight fair. The idea is to provide a safe place where each person can feel comfortable talking about their fears and frustrations. These types of habits can be the glue that helps to create passion in a relationship, even during and spite of disagreements and conflict.
  • Know your “Imago.” Imago is the imprint that makes you who you are – your background, upbringing, friends, job history, education and so forth. But it’s also the “image” of what your’e looking for in a partner. As you transition through life changes with your significant other, a big part of making that transition successfully comes from the way you deal with stressors as a couple. Being aware of how YOU deal with these things (your imago) and acknowledging your partner’s imago helps to forestall any preconceived notions or assumptions. It all comes back to being honest with yourself and your partner!
  • Have an affair – with your own partner! People are looking for novelty, for that dopamine high we get when we try something new and adventurous. Unfortunately, many people sacrifice a relationship they’ve worked hard to build on the quest for that high. There are ways to recreate these feelings with your partner, eliminating the need to look outside your relationship. You know those feelings you had when you first met? That’s the newness and excitement you’re looking for. Bring new elements into your relationship, and help yourself fall back in love with your partner.

Breaking Up Literally Hurts

By

Before you let someone diminish the pain of a break up or tell you there’s no such thing as a broken heart, consider this study from the University of New York, and Rutgers University. Scientists tracked brain activity as participants in the study – 15 students who had recently been victims of a break up – did mundane tasks like counting backwards from 8211 by sevens. That’s right – students who had recently been dumped were asked to provide a picture of their former significant other, then look at it while they counted down from upwards of 8000 – all which seems to add insult to injury!

Brain Activity After A Breakup

Aside from the potential painfulness of this exercise, the scientists discovered that “the brain areas associated with the pain of romantic rejection were the same ones involved in reward, motivation, physical pain, craving and addiction. For instance, looking at photos of exes lit up regions that are activated in cocaine addicts’ brains.”

It’s possible that anyone reading a romance novel could tell you that, but it goes deeper in explaining why the feelings of heartbreak are so hard to get over – it’s the same feeling experienced from pain, addiction and a host of other things. Lucy Brown, professor of neuroscience and neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, thinks it’s helpful for people to know that breaking up is supposed to hurt. “One guy called back the next day and said he thought the self-knowledge really helped,” she says.

Can You Avoid A Breakup?

It’s true that sometimes relationships just can’t be worked out and that dealing with the pain of a break up, struggling through the loneliness and emerging with new self-awareness is part of a growing process. Especially since the study participants were college-aged, these processes are to be expected. But so often I find that people have given up too easily on significant, meaningful relationships because of a lack of dedication to working through a problem.

There is a fine line between being a sucker for someone who hurts you repeatedly and with no indication that the behavior will change – and of course I’m not advocating staying in a dysfunctional relationship. I discuss finer details and techniques in my book, Make up Don’t Break up, but if both parties admit there are problems before the relationship gets to a dire point, and both people are willing to put effort into putting things back together I believe most relationships are salvageable.

Beware Of Dating Via Social Networks

By

A woman in the UK recently set up a Facebook page to help her facilitate sexual encounters. The page, entitled “I Need Sex” has since been shut down but before it was, the owner, Laura Michaels, said she met up with and slept with 50 men. Admitted Michaels, “I know that it was risky behavior but that was part of the thrill.”

According UK paper The Sun, Michaels admitted some people might “look down on me” for her behaviour and said some might even say that she may as well have been a prostitute because then she would at least have been paid for sleeping with so many different men, but she said: “I don’t see it like that at all. I was satisfying my own desires by setting up the group.”

Social Networking vs. Online Dating Sites

Gathering dates on social networking sites can be much riskier and more dangerous than utilizing online dating sites for a number of reasons, one of which being dating sites are set up to deal with issues of safety and privacy whereas social networks aren’t focused on that in terms of facilitating meetings and dates. Another issue is that it’s possible for people looking to date or hook up on social networking sites may more often be like Laura Michaels: seeking a thrill. Utilizing this method can be a bad way of trying to get attention.

As Michaels admitted to, this behavior is risky. People seeking it out usually have problems with intimacy and aren’t of the caliber that would create a healthy, fulfilling, safe relationship. It’s this thrill-seeking behavior that can often lead to affairs and other relationship troubles down the road.

It’s a way of over-riding true emotions by opting for a “high” instead. It could be the case that people looking for lots of casual encounters via social networking are seeking out a way to mask the fact that they don’t want to deal with their emotions or don’t know how to engage in true intimacy. It’s a way of acting out – not talking out – extreme feelings in a person’s life.

How Social Networking Can Kill Your Potential Relationships

Additionally, social networks – while they certainly have a number of good, positive aspects – have created a culture of self-indulgence where it’s easy to broadcast any and everything about yourself and find exactly what you’re looking for. This is another behavior that’s fraught with problems when it comes to the point of trying to create a committed relationship. People who have been going a mile a minute, playing fast and loose with sex, emotions and everything in between will find that they have a difficult time honing in on a relationship.

Of course, people seeking these types of thrills aren’t usually concerned with a potential relationship down the road and that’s just the problem – they’re in it for the high the feel in the moment without examining what’s making them seek that high. Just as I encourage couples suffering from this thrill-seeking behavior to communicate with each other, I would instruct single people indulging in risky behavior to communicate with themselves; dig deeper than indulging a momentary desire and learn what feeds the need to act in such a way.

How Can An Affair Be Defined As A Life of Truth?

By

It may seem strange to hear someone attribute their affair to wanting to “live a life of truth” but that’s exactly what John Edwards’ mistress did on a recent interview with Oprah Winfrey. “Our hearts were louder than the minds,” is how Rielle Hunter explained her decision to have an affair with a presidential candidate whose wife has cancer. Additionally, Hunter insisted that she wasn’t a homewrecker because the Edwards’ marriage was over long before she got involved and that she isn’t sure whether she hurt John’s wife Elizabeth. According to the New York Times, Hunter justified the affair:

[Hunter] said she didn’t regret the affair, and instead painted the whole sordid scandal as a perhaps necessary stage in Mr. Edwards’s “process” of self actualization. “I followed my heart, and I believe it was the right thing to do … I was supporting him in his process, and his intentions never wavered. I knew that he wanted — he just had a really unique way of getting there — to live a life of truth.”

Could Edwards’ Relationship Be Saved?

Most people would look at this situation and make the determination that there is definitely something wrong here, whether or not you believe that John Edwards‘ relationship could have been saved. While I am in the camp that believes just about any marriage can be salvaged, hearing someone justify an affair should lead us to examine what happened in the communication breakdown of this relationship and how we can keep something similar from happening in our own lives.

If, as Hunter says, Edwards’ marriage was over before she stepped on the scene, why had this deterioration not been discussed by the married couple? Of course it’s not as simple as that – talking about tough topics is, well, tough! But I believe that when you commit to a relationship you commit to a level of honesty and integrity out of respect for the other person, no matter what life throws your way. Here are some tools I discuss in my book, Make Up Don’t Break Up, and use with my patients to help them in their pursuit of building (or rebuilding) a healthy relationship.

How To Save Your Marriage

• Learn how to fight fair: It’s a misperception that fighting is bad; a relationship without passion enough to launch arguments likely won’t last for the long haul. However, arguing in the wrong way can also drive a relationship into the ground.

• “Smart-heart”-to-heart: I encourage having a weekly ten minute open discussion with a figurative emotional “bullet proof vest” to protect from hurt, anger and defensiveness, as you listen and echo back what you heard.

• Be aware of your Biochemical Craving for Connection: we all need to connect in a deep and meaningful way with our partners. But some people have exaggerated feelings of stress, separation and loss that cause them to seek out illicit behavior in order to fill this craving. If you’re in this situation, you can avoid a lot of heartache by identifying it and dealing with it early on.

• Know your Imago: When looking to fulfill your “imago” when it comes to a mate, subconsciously, you’re looking for someone that will “fill in the holes” left by your experience growing up and your parents – or to adults who were formative in your childhood – and you’ll be attracted to these traits right away on a subconscious level. Ideas that you’re carrying around from your parents and from your childhood WILL affect your relationship. Don’t forget, however, that you have control over HOW they affect it.