According to a research study from the University of Rochester, this may very well be the case. Published online August 22 in Health Psychology, a publication of the American Psychological Association, the study shows that the long term survival rates of patients that receive coronary surgery increases when the patient is in a supportive, happy marriage. Fifteen years after surgery, 28% of women in unhappy marriages and 27% of unmarried women are long term survivors. But when you compare that to the 83% survival rate of happily married women, the contrast is stark.
Read this article at The University of Rochester to learn more about the study and find out how happily married and unmarried men fare 15 years after coronary surgery.
Wishing you a lifetime of love and happiness!
Dr. Dana and Amy
Henry Gornbein of Divorce Credit Help asks the question, "Can You Have a Good Divorce?" His article, by the same name, explores the answer to this question and many others, and provides tips on how to make the process as painless as possible despite the inherent challenges in separating from your partner forever.
Before you consider a divorce, read the article, and consider Henry Gornbein's ten points.
Wishing you a lifetime of love and happiness!
Dr. Dana and Amy
Do you feel as if the romance is gone from your marriage? Does sex feel like “wham, bam, thank you, m’am?” Do you want more or better sex? Do you feel like sex is a chore? Do you just want to be wanted?
Make Love Throughout the Whole Day
One of the things couples have a tendency to do is to begin to take each other for granted. To prevent this, remember to flirt and stay connected throughout the day, put in the time to clear your mind and environment from distractions, then make it safe to take your love and affection as far as it goes, (see our article, Couples Guide to Great Sex, and How a Woman is Sexually Aroused to learn about how a woman and a man’s arousal process are different from each other). Don't take things personally and lighten up! In other words,
Make love throughout the whole day
regardless of whether you
end up in bed and chances are
you'll end up there way more often!
Feelings of Excitement Can Change Over Time
Now, let's get into how feelings of excitement can change over time. Many couples are unconsciously yearning for that amazing sensation, that rush they experienced in the first (roughly) two years of their relationship. And they feel that "something is missing" if it's not there. The bottom line is that you can't keep that going. I mean I could marry my favorite hot movie star tomorrow, (Hellooo, Mr. Depp!), and in about two years, when he walked in the room, I’d say in a loving, yet unruffled voice, “Oh. Hi honey.” His mere presence would no longer be enough to make me weak in the knees. Monogamy is, by definition, somewhat boring. It's not a natural state. You could be married to the best lover on the planet, but even champagne and caviar every day eventually gets dull. It's not personal and it doesn't mean that you're not still completely in love with your partner.
But, don't get discouraged! Because there are actual chemical and biological reasons for this, there are also ways to counter it. We can rev up those thrilling sensations. We can make it interesting and exciting again. How? By creating and putting ourselves in situations that are new, somewhat “risky,” or even vaguely “forbidden.” Whether that means taking up dancing, trying new positions, buying new toys, taking up white-water rafting or having sex on the beach! I'm just saying don't rely on the day-to day interactions to keep it interesting. Try getting out of your comfort zone a little - Spice it up!
To learn more about how to have more (and better!) sex using our online videos and downloadable exercises, check out our StrongMarriageNow System.
Are you having issues in your sex life? How can we help? Please comment below.
Dr. Dana Fillmore and Amy Barnhart, co-Founders, StrongMarriageNow.com
Don’t Let Your Marriage Slip Away Save Marriage Now. & Visit http://www.strongmarriagenow.com
So, you want to now the real difference between the people who stay happily married and the people who don’t?
The people who stay happily married are willing to work on it. They’re willing to learn, to grow, to change, to take risks and to take action. Basically, they’re willing to do whatever it takes.
But maybe you’re thinking, it’s too late. That you’re not in love anymore and that you don’t think you can fall back in love with your partner. It’s this very belief that may be getting in your way.
I’m here to tell you that it’s normal to fall in
and out of love in a long-term marriage.
People who are married for a long time are not typically “in love” with their partner the whole time. They fall in and out of love many times over the years.
You know that 80-year-old couple that’s dancing at the wedding who clearly adore each other and still look madly in love. Well, those people will tell you that they were not madly in love every day for the last 60 years. In fact, there were many times when they wanted to toss their partner out of a window. We all want to be that 80-year-old couple, right? We want people to say, “Wow, look at them, I want that kind of marriage.” Well, that couple will tell you that it took two things to get to that point...
Commitment and the willingness to work on the marriage.
Let me tell you about the mistake people make when considering whether to check back into their marriage. They believe they should wait until they feel “in love” again. In other words, they’re waiting to take any action to fix the marriage until they get the sensation that they want to fix the marriage and it’s the cart before the horse argument, isn’t it? Learning marriage success skills and working on your marriage leads to those loving feelings again. Did you see the movie Field of Dreams? Marriage is a lot like that - “build it and it will come.” Have faith. Trust the process. Learning these skills revitalizes your marriage and, therefore, allows you to fall back in love with the person you’re already married to.
Do you want to fix your marriage but your spouse isn’t willing to work on them with you?
Are you trying to save your marriage but your partner is checked out? Dr. Dana has a new solution that can help get your spouse checked back in and working with you on the relationship. Check out Dr. Dana’s solution to “Get Your Spouse Checked Back In.”
Save Your Marriage Today
Are you ready to take action and do what it takes to save your marriage?
To learn more about saving your marriage using our online videos and downloadable exercises, check out our StrongMarriageNow System.
Have you recognized any issues preventing you from working on your marriage? How can we help? Please comment below.
Dr. Dana Fillmore and Amy Barnhart, co-Founders, StrongMarriageNow.com
Do you sometimes wonder if you and your partner are even speaking the same language? Do you wonder what’s going on with him/her? Are you angry at them all the time but when you try to talk you just fight? Do you feel sometimes as if your partner is just a jerk?
Here’s Dr. Dana’s advice to improve your communication. It’s Important to Give Your Partner the Benefit of the Doubt.
The first practical tip to help you use patience and humor in communication is to give your partner the “Benefit of the Doubt.” Believe it or not, most pain inflicted in a relationship is accidental. Chances are, you’re not married to a jerk. Giving someone the “Benefit of the Doubt” means, given all evidence to the contrary, you first assume that they did not mean to hurt you on purpose. This makes forgiveness far easier to offer because there’s a lot less to forgive when you realize the behavior was accidental. If your wife snaps at you when she walks in the door at night, you first assume that she had a really bad day at work. If your husband didn’t clean up the back yard after he said he would, you first assume that other important tasks came up and his intention was never to purposefully ignore your request. Giving your partner the “Benefit of the Doubt” allows you to avoid becoming immediately angry, and therefore, to potentially access your patience and humor - doing this can dramatically decrease the number of times a mere misunderstanding turns into full-scale conflict.
To get more of Dr. Dana’s advice, use our online videos and downloadable exercises, check out our StrongMarriageNow System.
Have you given your partner the “Benefit of the Doubt” in your relationship before? Did it help? Please comment below.
Dr. Dana Fillmore and Amy Barnhart, co-Founders, StrongMarriageNow.com
Find Solutions To Fix Your Relationship Problems For Good. Visit http://www.strongmarriagenow.com
I hear this all the time. I want to tell everybody right here, right now, that this is completely false!! In fact, the opposite is true. People change all the time. It’s actually the one thing we can count on in life. I mean really, most of you wouldn’t be reading this right now if one or both of you hadn’t changed - changed how you feel about each other, changed what you wanted out of life, changed how you treat each other. People change throughout their lives. The question is how motivated are you to change for the better? To change in a way that you grow together instead of apart? And do you know how?
The second part of this myth is that “people will always go back to old habits.” Now the tough part of this myth is that there is a small element of truth here. It is true that people will return to old habits - if they don’t learn a new way to do things and then put those new skills into action. But, the real question here is “Can people permanently change?” And the answer to that question is: Absolutely!
Yet one of the biggest mistakes people make is that while they may have good intentions to make positive change(s), they don’t actually follow through on learning how to change or learning how to make those changes permanent. This is why they fall back into old patterns of behavior.
Our StrongMarriageNow System is specifically designed with that in mind - to help people to learn how to change, and how to make those changes permanent. That’s why we created our System for people just like you!
To learn more about Relationship Myths using our online videos and downloadable exercises, check out our StrongMarriageNow System.
Have you recognized any other Relationship Myths holding you back? How can we help? Please comment below.
Dr. Dana Fillmore and Amy Barnhart, co-Founders, StrongMarriageNow.com
Are you tired of the argument that never seems to end? Do you feel as if you argue about the same thing(s) over and over again? Do you want to stop the pain but don’t know how?
Gracefully Accepting a Concession Resolves Issues
Here, I am using the word concession to mean yielding, giving in, admitting we might be wrong. How many times have we been in the middle of a fight and realized the other person was in fact right, (or more right than we were anyway), but we kept fighting. This often has to do with pride; it sometimes has to do with needing to be right, but just as often it has to do with the other person's inability to gracefully accept a concession.
I don't know how many times I've heard one person in a couple say begrudgingly, "Well, you're right, I shouldn't have done that," only to have the other person respond with a triumphant gleam in their eye, "You bet I'm right! You never listen to me. Now, let me now tell you the other 27 times you've been wrong!"
I understand why people do this. They see it as an opportunity to increase their power in the relationship and they want to take advantage of that opportunity for as long as possible. Unfortunately, this just teaches their partner that it is not safe to ever admit they're wrong or to concede that their partner may have a valid point. And, chances are, if one person in the couple does not gracefully accept a concession, neither does the other one in an attempt to get that power back. This pattern effectively sets up a communication style that does not ever allow compromise or concession.
This is, in my opinion, one of the biggest barriers to resolving most conflicts in a relationship. It isn't that someone doesn't know they're wrong or that the other person is right, it's just that it's not safe to admit it.
Gracefully accepting a concession is not always easy, but it is very simple. Just say, "Thank you” or “I appreciate it," and move on. Give it a try today.
To learn more about gracefully accepting a concession to resolve issues using our online videos and downloadable exercises, check out our StrongMarriageNow System.
Do you have trouble gracefully accepting a concession? Does your partner? How can we help? Please comment below.
Dr. Dana Fillmore and Amy Barnhart, co-Founders, StrongMarriageNow.com
Learn How To Solve Your Marriage Problems. Visit http://www.strongmarriagenow.com
This article is all about getting both of you checked back in to your marriage and checked in to each other such that you are both willing to work on the relationship. But it is only the first step. A common mistake that people make is stopping at this first step. Maybe one person says, “OK, I agree to give it another try,” or even, “I’ve realized I still love you and our family and I want this to work.” But that’s not enough. Just “wanting to” and agreeing to work on your marriage is not enough. You have to learn and then practice the skills it takes to have a long-term happy marriage, otherwise you’ll just end up right back at this same place again. “Wanting to change” and actually changing are two very different things. But don’t worry, it’s not that hard and I would love to teach you how you can do it.
So let’s get started. First and foremost, I need you to understand this. Being happily married has more to do with knowing how to be married than with who you are married to. In other words, most people whose marriages end up in trouble believed in the fairy tale that once you married the “Right Person,” everything would be easy from then on out and they’d live Happily Ever After. Unfortunately, that’s just not true. Marriage takes work; not just “trying really hard,” but knowing some real practical skills that most of us were never taught. The good news is that it doesn’t take very long to learn and apply these skills. And honestly, most of these skills aren’t hard to put into action. Then, when you do them right, the reward is so much greater than the effort invested!
To learn more about How to be Happily Married using our online videos and downloadable exercises, check out our StrongMarriageNow System.
If you're ready to work on your relationship but your partner is not, there is a way to motivate your partner to check back in. Discover how Dr. Dana can help you Get Your Partner Checked Back In.
Do you hope to be more happily married? How can we help? Please comment below.
Dr. Dana Fillmore and Amy Barnhart, co-Founders, StrongMarriageNow.com
Looking For The Best Relationship Counseling Advice? Visit http://www.strongmarriagenow.com
Why do so many people’s attempt to save their marriages fail? What are they doing? or not doing? Why do so many who go to counseling still separate? Here’s what you need to know to save your marriage and succeed where others fail.
- Not all therapists are created equal – Now, I recognize that might sound strange coming from me, but let me explain what I mean: Couples should not go to a therapist who isn’t qualified to do couples therapy. Many people, (and therapists for that matter), don't realize that couples counseling is very different than individual counseling. So much of it is teaching - teaching couples how to truly communicate, how to resolve conflict, how to learn and understand their partner's point of view, etc. In fact, it's when couples’ therapists attempt to be mediators in the room - attempt to judge who is right and who is wrong - that they get into trouble and can actually damage the relationship, (I mean, 3 out of 4 couples who go to couples counseling actually end up breaking up!) Additionally, you don't want the couple to become dependent on the therapist. A good therapist doesn't want their clients to be in therapy forever! And after they’ve stopped coming to see the therapist, the therapist is not going to be standing in the kitchen mediating their fight over who should be responsible for feeding the dog! They have to learn to do it themselves and honestly, in my opinion, the StrongMarriageNow System is the perfect medium to teach them.
- Don’t rely on friends and family for completely subjective advice that more times than not actually damages the relationship more than helps it. Recognizing that these are the people that love you, they are not necessarily qualified to teach you how to be married, (particularly if they are taking sides!)
- Don’t put your heads in the sand and tell yourselves, “as soon as she gets that new job, it’ll be better” or “as soon as the kids go to kindergarten, it’ll be better” as the marriage just gets worse and worse. Don’t wait for the other person to change – Instead, take a good hard look at yourself and do what you can to make the marriage better.
- And finally, (this is my personal favorite really), DON’T simply fight about it day-in and day-out for years and years and years without learning how to change anything.
What all of these issues have in common is that they focus solely on the problems in the marriage rather than on actively looking for any kind of solutions.
So, to reiterate, how can you succeed where others have failed to save their marriages?
- Seek information from a qualified therapist – it may or may not be face-to-face therapy - but look for information as soon as significant problems appear
- Take responsibility for your part in making the marriage successful and
- Check out the StrongMarriageNow System we created for people just like you.
- For Pete’s sake, stop fighting about it!
To learn more about saving your marriage using our online videos and downloadable exercises, check out our StrongMarriageNow System.
Have you recognized any other issues holding you back? How can we help? Please comment below.
Dr. Dana Fillmore and Amy Barnhart, co-Founders, StrongMarriageNow.com
Get The Best Couples Therapy From A Professional. Visit http://www.strongmarriagenow.com
Have you ever wondered why so many people’s attempts to save their marriages fail? Why do so many people divorce? Why so many who go to counseling still separate? Are you worried that might happen to you too?
First and foremost, many couples simply start too late and give up too soon. What I mean is this: They let the problems in their marriage go on for so long (often for years!) that they become increasingly difficult to fix. (Not impossible, just increasingly difficult). Then when they do finally decide to fix them, there’s so much hurt and resentment built up that they give up too soon. Couples frequently come to me for counseling and initially say, “We don’t know if it’s going to work out.” I look around and always ask them, “What is it?” I point out that they are speaking about their marriage as if it is something outside of themselves that they can’t control, like the weather. I remind them, “it” is actually the “two of you.” I tell them what I will now tell you - If you want your marriage to work out, work it out. It’s up to the two of you to work on it, to put in the time and effort required to learn marriage success skills like those taught in our StrongMarriageNow System.
Wherever you go, there you are
Secondly, running to a new relationship, doesn’t solve 50% of the problems that ended your last relationship because you bring yourself, (50% of the partnership), with you into the new situation. Staying and working on yourself and through the issues with your partner allows you to learn and, therefore, to grow into a better person and a better partner.
The grass isn’t always greener…
Finally, when things get difficult and painful, if often appears as if it’s all too easy to walk away from the person you’re having problems with - as if there’s always somebody out there to take their place. I’m amazed at how many people think that if they find someone new, all their “problems” will be gone. The bottom line, as mentioned above, is wherever you go, there you are. Whatever issues you had in your previous relationship, you are likely to have in your next one. Plus, once you start dating, remarrying and blending families, you bring a whole new host of issues to your life. Yes, a new person can bring about those exciting, passionate feelings again - for awhile - but is that really worth a lifetime of complications?
To learn more about avoiding Common Relationship Mistakes using our online videos and downloadable exercises, check out our StrongMarriageNow System.
Have you noted any other Relationship Mistakes you might be making? How can we help? Please comment below.
Dr. Dana Fillmore and Amy Barnhart, co-Founders, StrongMarriageNow.com
Fix Your Relationship Problems For Good. Visit http://www.strongmarriagenow.com
