Best Marriages

The key to wedded bliss isn’t over-the-top romance, but these surprisingly simple practices you can do to stay – or fall back – in love with your partner. By Holly Corbett,REDBOOK.

Not trying to change each other

Maybe you wish he folded his socks, or that he would chat it up with your friends without prompting. But, his inability to notice hair in the sink may stem from the laid-back personality that drew you to him in the first place. “One of the things we see with happy couples is that they know their partner’s differences, and have pretty much stopped trying to change

the other person,” says Darren Wilk, a certified Gottman Couples Therapist with a private practice in Vancouver, British Columbia. “Rather than trying to fight their partner’s personality style, they instead focus on each other’s strengths.” To better understand how to tap into both of your best qualities, take this quick relationship personality quiz.

Framing your demands as favors
Whether you want him to unload the dishwasher more often or pay closer attention to the kids, your partner will be more likely to change his behavior if he feels like he’ll get relationship brownie points. “Throw it out there like a favor. Present it like ‘here is the recipe for what will make me happy,’ because everyone wants to make their partner feel happy,” says Wilk. “When you present your needs, present them as what you do want rather than what you don’t want.” Instead of saying, “I hate when you have to have everything scheduled,” try saying, “I would love to have a day where we can just be spontaneous.”

See rest of article by clicking here. 

Darren and Lawrence share some valuable insights on the Kid Carson show on the Beat 94.5 Vancouver’s most popular hits radio station.

Listen to Darren and Lawrence talk about what causes divorce!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

How to ruin Valentine’s Day…and potentially a perfectly good relationship!

Having been a certified Gottman Marriage counsellor for years and being married for 22 years you would think love, romance and passion should be second nature.  Well, it doesn’t and every year during Valentine’s Day I am reminded to reflect on how to keep the romance alive in a long term relationship. One way to ruin this awesome reminder is to excuse it away by saying, “It’s all about the commercialism…  I will show love when I want too, not when some saint says I should.” This could be a grave mistake. Trust me, I have made it too many times!!!

Create rituals of connection.

It is true that commercialism and insane mark-ups are everywhere whenever a special holiday comes around and it can really ruin the intention of the holiday in the first place.  (I am so cheap that I make sure I buy flowers one week in advance and never go to a restaurant on the actually day.)  So get mad and stomp your feet in rebellion about this insidious practice and then step back and think for a moment. 

Why is this tradition important for relationships? It reminds you every year to make sure you are remembering to celebrate the love you have with that someone special.  Research is clear that couples that develop rituals of connection that they can count on are healthier than ones that pretend that love, romance and passion just happen by some freak accident. Marriages that end in divorce or those that are stable but miserable often rely on a myth that if we are not fighting and avoid all conflict that fun, friendship and passion will just magically appear in their relationship.  This is simply not true, the Best marriages that have been proven to last recognize that the passion stays alive because they create Rituals of connection, to keep it alive.

Rituals of connection are anything that a couple chooses to make more purposeful in order to stay connected and have fun doing it.  Happy couples have special ways they start and end their days, they know what makes a great weekend for both of them and they build in activities that are they both enjoy into their lives.  They can count on a date or two a month, they know what each of them wants or don’t want when they are sick and they definitely have talked about how they go about initiating and refusing sex.  There literally are hundreds of informal and formal rituals that begin to define a couple.  Valentine’s day is just a yearly wake up call reminding us all to say “ I love you” and celebrate your union.

Make it your own, talk about what it means to you and ask your partner what it means to them.  And to the need to make sure you are aware for what keeps you connected. Most couples that come to therapy say they feel taken for granted and unappreciated.  Valentines is not just a day, it is a reminder to build into your daily life rituals you can count on.

One more thing… make sure you tell your partner how awesome they are and that you can’t wait til you can get your hands on them (in a good way).  Most of the time these loving thoughts stay in our head and rarely trickle past our lips.  When we at Bestmarriages.com counselling ask couples to say positive things about their partner they rarely have a problem coming up with three or four things to say from the previous week or two.  When asked if they verbalized this to their partner the answer is no but they did think about it. What good is that!!! If you don’t say it your partner cannot read your mind.  Make it a practice to catch your partner doing something right and tell them.  The results will speak for themselves.

Darren Wilk, MA, Certified Gottman Couples therapist

Kiro- TV interview with the Gottman’s is a perfect summary of why we are so excited about Gottman Couples therapy.

Watch KIRO-TV’s inspiring
interview with the Gottmans

Finally for the first time Gottman Level 2 training called Assessment, Intervention & Co-morbidities

January 30 to February 2, 2011 (4 days) is being offered in Canada and more specially Vancouver.  Darren Wilk and Lawrence Stoyanowski are two of only 8 Senior Gottman Therapists worldwide endorsed to present this workshop.  It will now make getting certified that much easier as Canadians will not have to travel to Seattle to deepen their understanding of this wonderful modality.

Darren and Lawrence are once again busy bringing BC the very best in Marital therapy trainings!!!

For the past five years Darren and Lawrence have been delivering Gottman Training workshops to hundreds of counselors in Canada. In fact they are the only ones in BC presenting these workshops.  The following workshop is only offered in Vancouver once a year and has been received positively by all who attend.

Bridging the Couple Chasm

Gottman Couples Therapy: A NEW Research-Based Approach!
Next seminar:
November 29th & 30th VANCOUVER, BC

Holiday Inn and Suites, Vancouver, BC
1110 Howe Street — 1-800-663-9151

Note: This workshop is a prerequisite to the level 2 training.

Also announcing Gottman Level 2:  Assessment, Intervention & Co-morbidities

January 30 to February 2, 2011 (4 days)

We’re excited after more than five years to show off our new website! The new look also sports some new features as well, so you can expect us to continue with frequent updates. We plan to continue featuring helpful articles as well as keep letting people know about our upcoming couples’ workshops and training seminars. Of course, our popular online assessment tools are still here, but with a fresh new look we’re sure you’ll appreciate.

(Thanks go to WebRiggers.net, who we chose for this project and can heartily recommend — our new site actually went from zero to surf in just a few weeks!)

Go on, browse around and see if there might be something here that you’ve never seen before!