Remember that your relationship is not just a mental experience, but it is also both of your nervous systems communicating security to each other. There is a great difference between "I know she cares about me" and being cared for. We need, in our long-term relationships, experiences of being cared for and prioritized in order to maintain the cognitive belief that we are cared for and prioritized. Maintaining contact is an important way to do this.

Always say you are sorry...never say you are sorry...never go to bed mad... We have all heard these words of wisdom about apologies, but do we really know what they mean? Do they really help? In my years of experience in my own marriage and with the many couples I have counseled, the answer is no. This is because an apology is a very specific and intimate experience, and the word sorry rarely suffices. In the next few paragraphs I am going to outline the way to make a good apology so that it becomes a true relationship repair.

Our brains are wired for survival. But our world has changed faster than our brains can keep up with, so we have a lot of survival impulses that no longer fit our modern lifestyle and world. Many of these survival impulses are embedded in the primitive part of the brain that is largely ruled by unconscious reactions to stimulus from the environment.

A couple relationship is 2 nervous systems interacting. This goes beyond the realm of verbal communication, which can often just be about the business of life, decisions to be made or discussion about politics, kids, or other interests. While sharing these details with your partner is important, it doesn't necessarily stimulate the nervous system in the special way we expect in our most intimate relationship. We choose each other because we are special to each other. Reminding each other of that specialness keeps a relationship secure and fresh.

When a couple merges their lives together, they need to make some big decisions together along with a lot of very minute and uninteresting daily decisions. There was a funny video that circulated a few years back showing a couple in a disagreement about the "right" way to fold the bath towels. I wanted to link it here, but I couldn't find it. Nonetheless, I am sure you can imagine how funny and relatable the video was. So many couple arguments occur about these mundane things. We commit to relationship much later into adulthood these days, such that many people already have firm habits about how they run their homes. And what we learned in our childhood homes also contributes to how we like things done.

We all want satisfaction in our friendships and our more intimate relationships, and especially in relationship to our significant other. But often we don't take in what our relationships have to offer. The nourishment barrier is a very descriptive term used in the Hakomi method of psychotherapy. It refers to a barrier to taking in positive psychological feedback and nourishment from relationships.