Some say “Yes, absolutely!”

If you are freshly engaged or newly married, it may seem difficult to imagine time when you’d want to take a separate vacation from your partner. But the time may come when doing just that will turn out to be a great thing for your relationship.

Susan Schwartz, a CanWest reporter, writes about this in her article “Spouses go separate vacation ways“. She states, according to Betty Goldwarg, who is a Montreal psychotherapist, travelling independently can help partners to grow individually and as a couple. Schwartz goes on to say taking a trip, however long or short, without one’s partner means seeing a place from a different perspective than you would together — and returning home with stories to tell.

Dan and I LOVE to get away together. In fact, we recently had an incredible night away at Sooke Harbour House that renewed our romance and left us well-fed and rested. But having said that, we each encourage the other to take breaks now and again — especially now that our lives are so busy with work and with the children. The breaks are also a great idea because we don’t share ALL the same interests and they give us a chance to explore some of the things we like to do individually.

I recently had a weekend away with my girlfriends and Dan had a week in Halifax hanging out with his brother. I love it that we encouraged each other to take these trips. It’s always hard to leave, but it really makes me appreciate him and miss him. Strange, but it feels good missing him. I think he feels the same way, too.

Separate vacations are a good idea as long as the relationship is on stable footing. As Schwartz says, solo vacations can work, as long as the couple has a committed relationship that is healthy and sound. She refers to psychologist Marla Yanofsky who notes “If there is a strength in the couple, it can be seen as a healthy thing — that there is independence.” If all a couple takes is separate vacations or if one person resents the other person taking off on their own, then there could be a problem.

Why not talk this issue over with your partner. Ask them how they would feel taking a holiday on their own. Ask them how they would feel about you doing it? Discuss it, talk about pros and cons, and set some goals for ways to have some time apart AND strengthen your relationship. This kind of communication is really beneficial early on in a relationship and will help you avoid pitfalls later on.

Need other ideas of things to chew over with your loved one? Go to CouplesQuestions.com and find ways to make your marriage extraordinary.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

Many a muggle is experiencing the hoopla and the excitement around the new Harry Potter movie and the upcoming release of the final installment of the books. I know I personally can’t wait to get my hands on a copy of of the book and plan to take pleasure in every page.

Because of all the hype, we thought this piece (in part below) from marriage.about.com rather fitting. The only lesson that we would add to their list is preparedness. Just like in life (and when fighting Death Eaters and other evil forces) we believe in the critical importance of preparing for your marriage and setting this most important of relationships up for success. Think of preparing for your marriage (not just your wedding) as an investment in your future together.

Twenty-Two Tips for Your Marriage from Sheri & Bob Stritof,

Although Rowling has her critics, there are many folks who have read her Harry Potter books and judge her to be not only a good story teller, but also a philosopher and moral teacher as she writes about happiness, fear, and one’s journey through life. Here are some lessons the two of you, as a married couple, can learn from Harry Potter and his friends.

1. Truth. Call a spade a spade. Don’t dance around a topic. However, truth in your marriage can be a double edged sword. Truth can be both beautiful and terrible. Truth needs to be used with caution.

2. Choices. According to Dumbledore, the importance of your choices is that they can show who you truly are. Dumbledore often focuses on choices and how they can determine your character over the long term.

3. Unfairness. Life can be unfair. Think about the many times Harry and his friends were treated unfairly, unkindly or disrepectfully by the Dursleys, Snape, Malfoy, Umbridge and others. Don’t give up when tough times hit your marriage. In the face of unfair and faulty decisions, expect better from one another.

The article also goes on to describe what Harry Potter teaches us about…

4. Relationships.
5. Friendships.
6. Goals.
7. Protection.
8. Courage.
9. First Impressions.
10. Second Chances.

…and much more!! It’s a good little article and worth a read. For the rest of the twenty two life lessons check out the whole article at http://marriage.about.com/od/tips/qt/harrypotter.htm

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

OK, well perhaps not ALL the time, but sometimes the ability to know what our significant other is REALLY thinking would be truly beneficial.

All couples find communication difficult at least some of the time. And at least some of the breakdown is in part because we don’t always say exactly what we mean. Now, there are very “good” reasons for this lack of clarity in a marriage - perhaps you don’t want to hurt the other person’s feelings, or you unclear/undecided on the issue yourself, or you have rushed what you meant to say for some external reason (job, kids, whatever) or maybe you are just covering your own ass. Regardless, we certainly understand that it DOES happen and every person involved in a significant relationship will have to spend a certain amount of time decoding messages taking into account the situation, how well we know the other person, probably other factors as well.

Of course, clear and open communication (getting your message across in a kind way with love at the heart of it) is the ideal and that is what we advocate and strive for. But what about this mind reading thing? Wouldn’t it be great to get some insight with a super power?

We realize that members of each gender do not come from a cookie cutter and sweeping generalizations are not going to apply, however, for women (single, living together, married…) who want to know more about what is going on in the minds of men check out these pages from ivillage.com for responses from a variety of guys to many different questions. The little snippets found on this site will definitely provide an interesting look at what The Boys are really thinking. (Note: some of the questions on this site are related to single women and the topic of dating, but it is still illuminating…)

Now for the fellas (we KNOW you find women rather cryptic sometimes..OK, much of the time!) , I haven’t found a site that is as thorough in its variety of responses (the video on ivillage is cool) but for a quick and informative tutorial check out pleasebemine.com .

These sites won’t help you actually read your sweetie’s mind, but they may provide some insight. One idea might be to check out these sites WITH your partner and discuss them, that way you will get an even deeper understanding of who they are and where they are coming from.

Finally, if all else fails and you REALLY need you know what’s going on inside your your lover’s noggin, HAVE A CONVERSATION. Talk to them openly and approach them with love and understanding. It’s not always easy. In fact sometimes is really rather hard, but do it. You, your partner and your relationship are all worth it.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

Dan and I always do this thing when we are out in certain public places together. It’s something we think of as “our thing” even though we believe it to be more than a bit geeky. It is an activity we know will truly embarrass our children in the years to come.

Inevitably, when out at Home Depot or a farmer’s market or a museum, we get separated by whatever has peaked our individual interest. When we find each other again some time later, we always pretend that we have suddenly and unexpectedly come across a person we haven’t seen in a while. Sometimes it’s a long lost friend, sometimes it’s an old flame, but we always make a big show and say things like, “Dan? is that you? My God you look fantastic!” or “I knew you’d walk back into my life one day, Gorgeous!”. These greetings are always followed by big hugs and kisses and usually some silly small talk.

I’m not sure why or how we started doing this. It has simply become one of the dorky things we do as a couple. But now I am happy to report that this frivolous activity may be helping to keep romance alive in our relationship.

Psychologist Elizabeth Dunn is an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC. She has come up with a theory that my actually help long-term couples re-kindle their romance. According to a report by Stuart Hunter, for the CanWest News Service, Dunn’s theory might be called the “Benjamin Effect”.

Here’s how it all started: Dunn used to have a boyfriend, Benjamin, in whom she noticed a particular behaviour. Some days he would come home sad or grumpy and she would always show him the appropriate sympathy. But then, if they went out for a walk and bumped into an acquaintance, he would perk right up in the presence of the new person. She must have wondered, “Why the heck are you all sullen with me, your GIRLFRIEND, but perfectly happy and cheerful with this person you barely know?”

She took her questions and, along with some colleagues at the university, began her study of hundreds of participants to see if they, too, perked up when faced with someone they didn’t know too well. What did she conclude? According to Hunter’s summation, she concluded that “the best way for couples to rekindle romance is to pretend they are strangers and put their best face forward (called self-presentation process) as if on a first date.”

Dunn stated, “People in this condition ended up feeling happier, enjoying the conversation more than people in the control condition.” She goes on to say, “It’s like scientific evidence for the value of Valentine’s Day.”

The full study will be published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in the June 4th edition in the impressive title “Misunderstanding the Affective Consequences of Everyday Social Interactions: The Hidden Benefits of Putting One’s Best Face Forward”.

I love it when science makes it OK for my husband and I to be goof-balls.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

Not a happy topic to be sure, but it IS an important one.

Not surprisingly, abuse in a relationship is a key cause of discord, break up and divorce. In fact, merely having a history of abuse in your family of origin (that is, the family you grew up in) is a key predictor of whether you will eventually divorce (especially for men).

The common wisdom has always been that boys who grow up in abusive families tend to become abusers themselves, while girls who grow up in such families tend to end up abused as adults. It is a sad fact that people normally keep to familiar situations and patterns, even if they are uncomfortable or downright harmful.

That prevailing wisdom may be changing somewhat, though not necessarily for the better. More and more research is showing that women are often the abusers, rather than men. There is a good (if somewhat political) roundup of these findings on the men’s interests blog of the 451 network.

There were two great little news reports of a romantic (or perhaps quasi-romantic) nature on the CBC Radio’s ‘The Current’ yesterday morning that are really worth checking out in the CBC Radio archives.

(go to http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2007/200703/20070307.html and click on the little listening icon for PART 3…or download it to your ipod thingy)

The first is an interview with Dave Rose who is the Personal Classifieds Editor of the London Review of Books. That personal ad space has become what ‘The Current’ host Anna Maria Tremonti calls a “much-celebrated forum for the forlorn and a compendium of clever come-ons” - even if some of them are totally over the top! Rose’s job is to read through every single (clever, witty, strange, unique, bizarre, erudite) personal ad that eventually finds its way into that publication. He’s put together a book of the best of them entitled They call me Naughty Lola. It is a very entertaining piece and fun to listen to with your sweetie. Anyone who has ever tried online dating, or contemplated a personal ad will relate…and laugh!

The second piece has more of a cultural anthropological bent…but don’t let that turn you off!! It was really interesting! Interviewed was Chris McCollum of Pennsyvania, USA. He wrote his PhD dissertation on how people tell their love stories and what that says about how we understand romance and relationships. Surprising findings! This story may just give you something new to think about the way you tell YOUR love story.

Happy listening, and…

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

It’s expanding again… soon we are going to have to put a better navigation system in.

The new articles include a book excerpt from Deepak Chopra, reprinted with permission.

There’s also a piece on family of origin issues, those things that you do that you do because you were raised that way.

We are interested in short articles on subjects related to coupledom. If you’ve got an idea or a draft, please get in touch. We can’t guarantee we’ll use your submission, but you won’t know until you try!

Basically, we are looking for reasonably well written submissions of at least 250 words and probably under a thousand. They don’t need to be written by experts — we are just as interested in people’s personal experiences.

A fuller explanation on article submission is on the library page of CouplesQuestions.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

The Blog of Love is about a week old. Jade’s focus is “love, romance, fate, destiny and soulmates”.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

As Valentine’s Day draws to a close, here’s a small collection of things we thought interesting.

• There was a very sweet story of ‘love interrupted’ on CBC Radio’s “The Current” . Unfortunately, music copyright issues (CBC is being cheap?) mean that they won’t have a downloadable version of the story available. But maybe if lots of us ask for it…
• An alternative to buying a large bouquet of flowers is to buy a very nice, tall, slim vase and “drown” a single long stemmed rose in it. That is, you have almost the whole stem under water. I can’t recall where I heard/read about this idea, but will give credit if and when I figure it out! In any case, the idea is that you can economically have flowers around all year, buying just a single rose at a time. And, of course, you now have another full year to find the perfect vase.
• I also heard a show featuring someone from e-How talking about the chemical effects that falling in love has on the brain. This one is worthy of a full article, but the short form is that love causes a rush of dopamine in the brain similar to many types of addiction. Typically, though, we come out of that honeymoon period in six to twelve months and move to a commitment phase of love (or break up, of course).

The moral of that last piece is don’t make important decisions when you are falling in love or have just fallen in love. Set an engagement of a year or more before marrying, do some form of premarital counseling, savour that loving feeling. If you are right for each other, you’ll have a lifetime of more level-headed decision-making ahead of you.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

About Marriage has done a good article debunking the link between the Super Bowl and violence against women in America.

To recap, a study — based on anecdotal evidence — showed a slight increase in domestic violence on key dates such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the Super Bowl. Hardly surprising that there would be a small increase around what can be stressful, non-routine times.

What the author found interesting was that there seemed to be a correlation between a team winning and its fans being more violent. Not a clear link, but one worth looking at because normally you would think it would be the losing fans who were more likely to get angry and take it out on those around them.

In any case, a news release was issued calling Super Bowl a “day of dread”, media all piled in on the story only to retract it days later, and the damage was done. The myth lives on, muddying the waters around what is a very serious issue in relationships and in society at large.

Now, that is not to say that the Super Bowl is not a “day of dread” for many who just don’t care about football. If you are one of those, Tango Mag has a list of things you can do instead.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

Valentines Day is sneaking up on us. So what are you doing for your love?

Our suggestion is a kissing night. Total cost: one bottle of juice or wine. Full details are on John Ince’s article on kissing in our premarital library.

The Bargain Queen has a longer list of Valentines dates under $20. Be sure to check out both posts.

We are not really big fans of the barrage of advertisements that precedes Valentines (or just about any major holiday, for that matter). But we do play a game that works for us.

Heather rates how great/awful the various pieces of jewelry in each ad are. Dan gets an idea of what might work for future presents. It works because there is no pressure to actually ever buy. But the day after we win the lottery…

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

It’s provocatively titled, and we’re pleased to have it as our latest addition to the premarital library.

Our contributor this time is Bob Grant, LPC, “The Relationship Doctor”. He has been counseling and coaching clients — mostly women — for sixteen years. He’s also written a book for women based on that experience.

The article is What do Men want from Women, but it could just as well have been entitled What do Women want from Men. Guys, it is about trust and how you earn it.

Bob’s book, by the way, is available for purchase and download at www.relationshipheadquarters.com. We don’t make any money off the sale of the book; it is simply a resource that some of our readers will find helpful.

More on Bob, his blog, and his book in a later post…

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

It is a key question for many couples — how much time together or how much time apart? No matter how much you love someone, you need some time apart. You need to pursue your own interests and you need to look after yourself.

Today, we’ve posted the first of what will eventually be a series of articles on this subject (on the CouplesQuestions library).

It deals mostly with the need to balance your needs with those of your partner and those of the relationship itself.

It really is the case that the relationship is a separate entity from the two of you. You need to take some action to make it better, but you also need to keep yourself as a priority. It is a balancing act that most people could improve a bit. And one that you will likely be able to improve just by keeping it in mind.

In one of those coincidences that happens all the time, I got an e-mail from a friend today. He is serving in Afghanistan in a position that keeps him apart from his wife for months at a time. This is not an arrangement that would work well for me or for Heather. Yes, we’d survive it and our relationship would survive it. But we’d never volunteer to be apart unless there was one heck of a reason. Yet it works fine for my friends.

It is something that can be a real stressor, especially if you are on different pages. If you marry expecting that your partner will generally always be around, you need to make sure that he or she isn’t one of those people who thinks nothing of being apart for weeks or months (for the sake of their career, for example).

Anyway… read the article and let us know what you think.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

Not much else to say, really.

I love Christmas. It is by far my favourite holiday, though we make an effort not to go overboard.

Heather and I make a pact not to get gifts for each other, each year. And every year, I cheat and get her something. She has cottoned on, though, and bought me something this year.

To my mind, gift-giving is mostly about kids. And we had a great time watching Millie open her presents (and everyone else’s). She was quite spoiled this year and — at two years old — she if finally understanding what the gifts are. The last two Christmases were all about eating wrapping paper.
For us, Christmas is more about family. We live close to our parents (by design, after years of living and traveling far from home). My parents usually host a Christmas Eve get together, then we host Christmas morning for brunch and a Secret Santa gift exchange, then my in-laws host a dinner with all the trimmings.

The Secret Santa works well for us. We set a $50 limit. Each person contributes one gift and we each get a chance to unwrap a present or to steal an already unwrapped one from someone who has already opened. It’s fun, some of the gifts are really creative, and I always look forward to it. It makes Christmas shopping a breeze and really removes much of the stress. And, as we have all been adults for some time, we all have more than we need already. We still get the joy of giving, but without collecting piles of stuff that we don’t really need.

How you handle holidays is something you should discuss with your spouse. Ideally, before you get married, of course. Do you want to start your own traditions? Do you like the way your family handled things? Will you spend a given holiday with your parents or your spouse’s? Do you want to start celebrating on your own?

Remember, too, that holidays can be stressful. In fact, many people do not have happy associations with, for example, Christmas. Starting a married life together can give you the opportunity to change that with traditions or approaches that work better for you.

All the best for the holidays, to you and yours.

-Dan

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

As author John Ince notes, kissing is one of the most intimate and important things a couple does. But the frequency and passion tends to decline as the relationship matures.

Find out how to reignite the passion in John’s article on kissing for couples. You can even take a class, if you happen to be in Vancouver!

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!