So, this is my favorite meeting of the year. No, it's not just because I'm an over-sharer and it gives me a great forum to share all my secrets. Really, I over-share at meetings like this to hopefully make other people feel comfortable sharing at all. I love this meeting because I always learn something new. Tabitha is amazing. I was so excited about listening and learning that I failed to take any pictures of her, but she looked gorgeous, per usual. Thanks to the lack of photos, I can get right down to business.
Let's start by giving Tabitha a much deserved plug- she practices Family and Relationship Therapy at Family Therapy Associates of Jacksonville, LLC. She donates her time and expertise to us, and I am so grateful for it. If you felt you had more that you wanted to discuss with her, alone or with your spouse, their website has a super easy online scheduling option.
Tabitha started by telling a story about her new hybrid SUV and how when her husband drives, he can't easily see the gas gauge and often leaves her with next-to-zero gas. This is apparently especially troubling because it's a hybrid, and they are never supposed to run out of gas. Our marriages can be a lot like Tabitha's hybrid and we can all be guilty of forgetting to check the gauges. We don't want to neglect parts of our relationship with our husbands until we are figuratively "running on fumes". Tabitha's answer for relationships that are "on cruise control" is to become more intentional with our relationships. Often we get caught up in checking our "feelings" gauge instead of our "love" gauge, and this can be a real problem. Feelings change all the time; your feels are and indicator in how your marriage is going, but shouldn't be the determinant. Tabitha says that she hears "I'm just not happy anymore" from people all the time as a reason for ending a marriage. It is not the sole job of your marriage to make you a happy person. After we have been with someone for a while, we can start to fixate on the negatives, and it has been shown that for every one negative that you feel about your spouse, you need five positives to compensate. These negative feelings can also start to re-write your history. Tabitha talked about being able to tell when this is already happening by asking about a couples wedding day. If you're already in that negative headspace about your spouse, the answer will often include everything that went wrong, instead of concentrating on it being the happiest day of your life!
So, how do we get that connection back once it has left a marriage? You have to disconnect to reconnect. Often we have a ton of different things on our plates. Between extracurriculars for our kids, jobs, toddlers we have a lot going on; add social media and smart phones to the mix and it's easy to understand how we can get to that point of "running on fumes". Tabitha has people tell her a lot that "[they] don't have time" to reconnect because of all the things I just mentioned. The reality is you have to say no to some things in order to take care of the most important relationship in your family. Greg and my marriage is the foundation on which we are building our family; if it goes away, everything crumbles. Yes, t-ball is important. So are book club and playdates and gymnastics and swim lessons. Not more important than maintaining a good marriage, though. Do you guys all keep To-Do Lists? I do. I have at least four going at any given time. They are filled with really important things I need to get done. After Monday, I started a Stop Doing List, after Tabitha suggested it. It's my reminder that there are always things that I can leave until later or even skip altogether. Sitting outside with Greg and a glass of wine is more fun than mopping the floor, anyway.
So, how do we be more intentional? In what way? I'm so glad you asked! Tabitha outlined eight areas in which we should be more intentional in our relationships:
-Intentional Conversations
-Intentional Fun
-Intentional Admiration
-Intentional Boundaries
-Intentional Sex
-Intentional Romance
-Intentional Service
-Intentional Priorities
She didn't go into extensive detail on all of them, so I'll cover a couple quickly and then expand on the ones that she spent the most time on. Good news, though! She is in the process of writing a book that goes into depth on the subject of the Intentional Marriage, so stay tuned! To me, intentional fun and admiration are pretty self-explanatory. That doesn't mean that I always succeed and doing them, but I know generally what I need to do there. Make time to have fun with your spouse and remember why you fell in love in the first place. I try and tell Greg whenever I think something positive about him; I know I think good things a lot, but he can't read my mind. Intentional service can be a controversial one, but I don't think that Tabitha intends for the service to be one-sided. I think it's more in the vein of "do unto others as you would have done unto you." Do I serve my husband? Absolutely. My entire vocation as a stay-at-home-mom is in some ways a service to him and our family. I also do things for him that I know he appreciates. Can I control whether he reciprocates all those acts of service? No. But it is a lot more likely if I'm putting the same thing into the relationship that I want to get out of it. Intentional boundaries are being sure that you don't put yourself into a situation where you are susceptible to making a wrong choice. Most affairs are insidious. Most people don't start a relationships or friendship or online conversations with the intention of breaking marriage vows. Being intentional about where we place our boundaries is important. Tabitha says when a couple comes in where one or the other has had an affair, she is sure to tell them she doesn't do marriage counseling with 3 people. In order for your marriage to succeed, there can only be you and your spouse.
So how often do you find yourself listing all the details of the day to your spouse? Who smeared peanut butter on the carpet, who didn't want to nap, what was on BOGO at Publix, how many steps I have left to get before the end of the day. This is Report talk. We all do this a lot, and there's nothing wrong with that, as long as we're also mixing in intentional conversation in the form of Rapport talk. Rapport talk is exactly as it sounds- those conversations that go deeper than the surface details of day to day life and build on the relationship that made you want to marry your spouse in the first place. Make time for rapport talk.
We've reached the point I know you've all been waiting for! Intentional sex and romance. Let's start with some expectation management, and also some normalizing. 40 million couple in America are considered "asexual"; this is defined as having sex 10 times a year or less. This sounded so awful to me, until Tabitha said that 10 times per year comes out to about once every six weeks. There have definitely been a few times in our marriage (mostly following the birth of both of our girls) where we have gone that length or longer; I'm comfortable sharing that because I think it's important. Sex is so important to the health of a relationship. Tabitha said that when couples are having sex regularly, sex constitutes roughly 10-20% of what they're concerned about in the marriage. When couples are not having sex, that number jumps to 80% or more. I can totally see that. When we were in those dark, tennis-less times (anyone who missed the meeting, hit me up and I'll explain the tennis thing), I felt like it was all I was thinking about. Not fantasizing about having it, worrying about not having it. It became this all-consuming thing that wasn't happening, and it consumed my brain. Luckily for us, we are both talkers, and we talked it out. It was coming from a place of fear for me- especially following my first c-section, I was just terrified that my body was going to break if I did anything strenuous. It was a hard mental hurdle to get over. I can imagine that there are a million different mental hurdles that people can have that turns sex into this THING that you're not HAVING. Tabitha says there is nothing wrong with scheduling sex. I totally agree. She brings up, rightly, that if you're having sex, one or the other of you has probably scheduled it in your mind, right? For me, I needed to put it on the calendar and keep putting it on the calendar until it stopped being this huge thing that I was worried about. I needed to keep scheduling the practice, at least in my own brain. The goal of sex isn't always, and shouldn't always, be Orgasm. There is a more important big O in a marital sexual relationship, and that is Oneness. The first step to getting over any hurdle in your sex life with your partner is to open up the conversation and talk about it. Tabitha is going to send out "15 questions to ask your partner about sex", which is great. If you're uncomfortable, call it homework for MOPS. Blame me if you want, but get the conversation started.
The last thing to talk about is intentional romance. With everything going on in our lives, it can be hard to get in the mood. Men are good at compartmentalizing things and are more likely to be able to go into sexy-time mode at the drop of a hat; women, not so much. Tabitha says women are like spaghetti where everything is connected, while men are more like waffles, where everything is separated. Good foreplay takes good forethought. Woven into this idea of idea of forethought is something that John Gottman talks about, the magic 5 hours. Couples need to spend 5 hours together, and he breaks it down further into what you should be using the time for. I don't have the complete breakdown, but some highlights- 2 minutes on goodbyes with a 6 second kiss; 20 minutes a day on reunions with a 6 second kiss; 5 minutes a day on appreciations and 2 hours a week on a date with just the two of you. You can count sex in that time, we asked:)
Tabitha told us about a couple who came into counseling after 35 years for marriage- she said they hadn't had sex in 20 years. We were all horrified, but when I thought about it later, I found a better take away than "that will never happen to me". That couple is in counseling. They are making an effort to repair their relationship. On some level, they have some measure of hope. So, no matter what is or isn't going on in your marriage or your bedroom, don't despair! My dad always tells me (don't worry, it's not going to be sex advice) when I'm overwhelmed with a problem or set of circumstance to "make a list and do step 1." If step one is printing out the list of 15 questions to get a dialogue going with your husband, start there. If things are beyond that and you need a Tabitha to mediate, do that. But don't think that you're all alone going through whatever you're going through. There is always hope.
