This is one of my favorite quotes and I use it often when talking with my clients about relationships. Not only their intimate relationships but also their relationship with themselves. Think back to when you fell, fell into that love you hold tightest to your heart. What did you fall for first? Their eyes? Smile? Laugh? Or was it that indescribable thing that your partner possessed; that spark that ignited in your heart, mind and soul. As a relationship progresses and the newness begins to wane, it can be hard to always keep sight of this connection. When we hit these transitional periods it can helpful to have a few couples therapy appointments to ground ourselves in what connects us to our partner, learn some new skills or develop a new layer of mutual weirdness to grow into as we enter the next phase of our partnership.
During couples therapy, we work on your relationship communication patterns, attachment and trauma processing; we also will work on rediscovering the connecting points of your history together while also building a shared future goal to help focus your time and togetherness. These future goals may be tangible or not. It is about finding the weird that fits who you both are at this moment in time. Early on in our relationship we have so many things to figure out. How do we spend our time? What do we value? Kids? Pets? Move for work? Buy that house? The complexity of blending families, traditions...all of the in-law drama! After the relationship has navigated these new fresh, fun exciting rapid waters we move into a slow moving river; at least for a time.
When people ask me about the truth of "the seven year itch", I feel like the crux of my answer is wrapped up in this quote from Dr. Seuss. After about seven years in a relationship we have settled into a "normal routine": we work in somewhat settled careers, our kids have gotten to be in a fairly stable routine, we have homes, established credit, cars, a "predictable" life. During this settling we can forget or get lost in the routine of daily life which makes it easy to forget the cultivate the richness of our own quirks and the light that we bring to those that love us.
So what does that all mean? How do we recapture and reconnect to this good stuff from the fun parts of the relationship baby phase? We find the small moments of intimacy, the laugh, the twinkle of their eye. We work on projects, learn new skills, date each other. During couples therapy we will work on carving out time to help you make these moments stand out in the steady waters of your life as you are living it today.
If you and your partner are in need of a moment to lean back into your relationship contact me and we will begin the process. Let's get weird.