Balancing Passion and Security in Long Term Relationships

How do we remain in a committed relationship long-term? Are we meant to be monogamous? How do we keep passion alive after years of living together? These questions are crucial to those of you committed to long-term relationships. How can you keep passion alive when the day to day challenges of life slowly erode the excitement of relationship? Most of us trade passion for security in life. We choose to work a job or live in an environment that is a compromise. Of course we all want a certain amount of safety and security in life. It is important. However, sometimes relationships become too safe and predictable creating a different kind of stressor. We lose sight of the person we met and fell in love with. Our eyes and minds wander, seeking new excitement. We come to be known as someone else as we struggle day to day with the practical matters of life. We develop fixed ideas about ourselves and our partners in the relationship. This doesn’t have to happen. You can rediscover your partner every day. By letting go of static ideas and beliefs, you can challenge yourself and your partner to grow together. I encourage you to ask the hard questions, challenge your stories and find a path to new passion in your relationship.

Mindful Communication – Creating Connection in Everyday Moments

It is very gratifying to work with couples and relationships of all kinds. I often see intimacy deepening right in the room as we work together to strengthen the connection and improve communication. However, coming in to therapy once a week is only the beginning. Mindful communication around everyday interactions is the key to sustaining intimacy and connection in our relationships.

This idea brought to mind some guidance I heard once, something from “A Course in Miracles”. It goes, “every decision I make is a choice between a grievance and a miracle, I relinquish all regrets, grievances and resentments and choose the miracle.” I wonder what our relationships would be like if we relinquished our regrets and grievances and made mindful choices around our interactions with others. What if we choose the miracle of connection over an expression of resentment and regret. What if we think to ourselves as we interact with our significant others, “is what I am going to say or do going to bring us closer or push us apart?” We all have regrets and resentments. By making choices about how we express them in our every day communication, we can experience more connection, intimacy and love in our lives.

Now Offering Services in San Francisco

Couples counseling and individual therapy services are now being offered in San Francisco.

Location: 55 New Montgomery St. Suite 420
Hours: Thursday and Friday, 9 am - 8 pm.

Please visit my website or call 510-868-2878 for more information and to arrange an appointment.

I look forward to meeting you.

Drew Hutchinson, Marriage and Family Therapist
Specializing in Couples and Relationships

Working with Non-traditional Relationships

I have had the good fortune to work with a number of clients in non-traditional love relationships. I say that I have been fortunate because I have learned so much working with different kinds of relationships. We humans are adaptable and creative. We are not a one-size-fits all crowd. It is impossible for me to imagine that one style of relationship could fill the needs of all the different types of people in this world. Non-traditional relationships consist of more than two people with a variety of agreements about intimacy and sexuality. Often the term polyamory is used when more than two people are in a love relationship. I feel the term non-traditional is more open and inclusive.

In previous posts I have stated my belief that relationships create an opportunity for learning. We do not all learn in the same way and one kind of relationship does not fulfill all needs. What I have learned in my work with non-traditional relationship dynamics is that there are certain human needs that seem to be requirements in all relationships. Trust, communication, respect and intimacy seem to be universally desirable for any love relationship to be sustainable. In order to build trust, communication must be open and reliable. Agreements must be explicit and consistently held. What gets in the way of developing trust and communication is usually past relationship dynamics and the model for relationship that we grew up with. The dynamics may be more difficult to tease apart in more complex relationships involving more than two people. However, the experience of learning may be deeper. Experience and practice have taught me that it is possible to tease apart the complex dynamics and deepen intimacy in any relationship when the participants are committed and caring.

Finding Relationship

Finding relationship seems to be a difficult process in spite of how crowded our world is becoming. In a world populated with more than 6 billion people, it is actually difficult to be physically alone. The real challenge is meeting those people that we want to be in relationship with. So how do we meet people in our hectic and isolating culture?

New forms of media provide new tools for social networking. Although tools like internet dating sites and Facebook seem to offer a way to connect with more people, they simply don’t work well for many of us. One of the big challenges with internet dating is a lack of context. Context is not just having shared experiences and interests. Context is a structure that allows us to open ourselves and share, discuss, and disclose. It is much easier to begin a conversation in a familiar and shared environment such as work, school, church, or gym. This is because certain assumptions can be made about the other that help relieve social anxiety and allow for more relaxed communication. Whether these assumptions are valid doesn’t matter, initially at least. In contrast, when you try to meet someone through a dating site, there is no actual context. All you have is what you know from a profile or brief phone call. For some outgoing and extroverted people, this is fine. For many, this creates a lot of anxiety and most of us do not communicate our best when anxious.

So if you are not one of those people who are comfortable with meeting a complete stranger at a coffee shop, what should you do? The answer is to create a context that creates a shared experience. Find things you really want to do and go do them. If you love music, go to clubs. You will meet and talk to people standing in line for tickets. If you love to dance, go to a salsa lesson. If you love orchids, join an orchid association and attend their events. If you love to hike, go to meetup.com and go on some hikes with hiking groups. Take an art or cooking class. Do what love and find others that share your passions. You may still have to overcome some social anxiety to get out and say those first words to a stranger, but it will be much easier to find the first words to say!

Risking Relationship

We live in a crowded world. Eighty percent of the world’s population is packed into urban areas where it is difficult to find quiet and to be alone. Yet, many men and women seem to struggle to find a relationship that feels vital and alive. We go through our lives encountering many people but failing to develop many intimate relationships.

Is this the way it is supposed to be? I don’t think so. It is my experience that we resist allowing ourselves to be in intimate relationships and create emotional walls that separate us from others. What is so risky about relationship? On a conscious level there are practical risks. In our deeper sub-conscious, the fears are more intense. Fear of criticism, of being attacked emotionally and being abandoned make their way into our dreams. Foremost though, is the risk of loss and being devastated by grief.

I was having dinner with a friend recently and we found ourselves speaking about our past relationships. When she told me of how devastated she felt at the breakup of her most recent relationship, I carefully considered my response. As I reflected upon my own devastation at the ending of a relationship, I could only respond in this way. I am grateful for the capacity to feel devastated by the loss of love in my life. It is an indication that I have opened my heart and become more capable of loving. For with love, comes loss. Every relationship ends one way or the other. This is a natural cycle in life. To suffer the loss is the most human of experiences and connects us deeply with all other humans. The capacity to open our hearts and love deeply allows us to experience a great range of human emotions from joy to sorrow, passion to boredom, loneliness to deep connectedness. Find opportunities to connect, seek out relationships that allow you to open your heart, become more alive through relationship.

Holiday Wishes

My best wished to everyone during the holiday season and for the New Year. Relationships can be challenging during these times. It is a great time to stay mindful about how you are relating and what is being stirred up within you. You can learn a lot about yourself by just noticing and being curious. Accept whatever you learn about yourself without judgment. Through mindfulness and intentionality you will begin to experience the kind of relationships that you desire.