Q: My wife and I have been married for 2 years.  We were 18/19 when we married, we have 4 children, 2 still at home. About two years ago we got into the swinging lifestyle.  At that time we talked and said we would only go as a couple. A few days after we did it the first time, I came home early and found her “making out ” with the man next door in his driveway. This man is a notorious flirt and she said she just wanted to see how far he would go. I felt a trust had been broken. We met some other couples etc., but infrequently, mostly on my part, as I felt betrayed. A couple months ago, she met with a man, by herself, that I knew about, for sex. This started a big problem. I didn’t like it and she did. This has led to her lying to me, and plans to cheat on me when I was going out of town. This would have happened if I hadn’t  had a feeling about it and confronted her about it. She said she may of mentioned it to him and I found out from him that all he was waiting for was the confirmation and when and where. We had argued about this and she said she loves me but likes the feeling of sexual power she gets from doing this. A couple of weeks before this happened she met him and told me she did it to break it off. I came home and she told me they had met and talked and that she felt much better telling him it had to stop. Today I found out she had done oral sex on him that day! Also she had been talking to him on the computer and today I found out she would talk to him on the phone . What else has happened that I don’t know about? We talked over the weekend and she said she loves me and is going to break it off. The man sent her an e-mail and told her he was having marriage and business problems and that he is too confused right now to continue seeing her. She showed me this but not the reply she sent him. I am not proud of what I did.  I broke into her private site to see if I could read it, and I did. That is where I found out about the phone calls and she told him she loved him ” a little” what does that mean, a little? I feel that love is based on trust and my trust is broken. I have went through some very deep depression since all this has started. I don’t know what to do or when to believe her. The last couple of days have been better for us and last night when she came in from work she was giddy and told me she realized she loved me and I love her. Then later she tells someone else she loves them. I’m lost, confused, desperate. Please help me if you can.

A: Earl.  What you are finding out is what many former proponents of “open marriages” have found over the years.  Playing around with sexual boundaries is dangerous to your marriage.  You can’t guarantee that you may stimulate compulsive behavior in either yourself or your partner.  For the sake of your marriage, I would suggest that you try to negotiate strict sexual exclusivity with your wife and give up the “swinging” lifestyle.  If she is unwilling to do this, you may not be able to re-work your relationship. You may have to put your marriage on the line.   She is already showing signs of compulsive sexual behavior when she lies and engages in deceit.  I see no other way. – Bryce Kaye

Q: MY QUESTION IS I’VE BEEN MARRIED FOR 13 YEARS NOW AND MY HUSBAND ACTS LIKE HE DOESN’T WANT TO BE BOTHERED ANYMORE. WE USE TO MAKE LOVE AT LEAST 3 OR 4 TIMES A WEEK. NOW IT’S LIKE ONCE OR TWICE A MONTH. THE THING THAT BOTHERS ME THE MOST IS THAT MARCH OF THIS YEAR I RECEIVED A LETTER FROM THE RED ROOF INN MOTEL ASKING ABOUT YOUR STAY. SO I CALLED THEM AND TRUE ENOUGH, THE RECEPTIONIST GAVE ME HIS BIRTHDAY, LICENSE, AND ADDRESS.  SINCE THEN, HE’S BEEN ACTING FUNNY. OF COURSE I ASK HIM ABOUT IT AND HE DENIED EVERYTHING. WHAT SHOULD I DO?   WE HAVE AN 11YEAR OLD SON.  PLEASE HELP.

A: Jean. Of course you are painting a picture of a possible affair.  Whether or not this is true, focusing on the motel letter will not help you. He’ll deny it and you’ll only argue about it without resolution.   If you’re going to stay in the marriage, you need to invite your husband to begin talking with you on a more intimate level.  If you don’t know how to do this, then get some professional help or go to a PAIRS program near you. If you can reconnect emotionally, then you can later deal with the resentments, distrust, and underlying feelings that caused the sexual diversion. It is very likely that your marriage has long had some issues that your husband has failed to discuss with you.  He may not even recognize some of his own feelings.  Don’t put the issue of sex first.  It’s the dog that wags the tail, not the other way around. – Bryce Kaye

Q: How can I convince my husband to go with me to a marriage counselor? He does not believe that going will accomplish anything except take more out of our already tight budget. Thank you, Carly.

A: Carly.  I would suggest that you give him several choices.  Do the research and give him data on 3 marriage counselors.  Get him to choose one of them.  By reframing his choice to be among the three, he will be less likely to focus on his choice of opposing you.  Another option would be to negotiate a contingency contract. It would look like this.  You would agree to temporarily suspend the idea of marriage counseling if he would come up with a plan of his own for improving the marriage.  However, he would need to agree that if his plan does not improve the marriage to your satisfaction within 6 months (or another mutually acceptable time frame), then he would be committed to trying your plan of marriage counseling. Hope this helps. – Bryce Kaye

Over the past 35 years, I have seen thousands of couples.  I thought it might be useful to list out the personal traits of the most successful and competent coupes that I’ve seen.  They seem to have the following characteristics.  Let me know what you all think.

1) Heterocentric perspective – The person intuitively weighs the best balance of welfare among competing interests.  The person is concerned for the other person but also for his or her own self as well as the overall relationship. The person doesn’t just consider self alone (narcissism) or just consider the partner alone (codependent self-sacrifice). 

2) Future welfare is prioritized over immediate comfort – The person is willing to sacrifice the immediate emotional relief that derives from regressive behavior (e.g. blaming, attacking, raging, lying, hiding etc.) and instead promotes and protects the future relationship.  The person uses self-discipline to tolerate temporary discomfort in order to do this. 

3) Truth is prioritized over appearance and pride – The person is willing to tolerate the shameful discomfort that accompanies exposing truth about his or her own limitations.  The person practices healthy humility for the sake of truth.  When the person makes a mistake, “loses it”, behaves irresponsibly, etc. the person admits it and takes responsibility.  Because the person values truth so highly, he or she is welcomes outside information to help the relationship.  The relationship is an “open system.” 

4) Autonomous persistence – The person behaves constructively and works at cultivating the relationship even when the partner misbehaves irresponsibly.  The person doesn’t base their self-discipline on whether or not the partner “is trying too.”  The person’s behavior is motivated by his/her desire for personal integrity.

5) Mindfulness of state – The person is able to notice more than the content of conversations.  The person notices the background moods occurring in both self and the partner.. The person gauges when the background mood states are conducive for productive communication (e.g. Is the person or the partner too angry to engage in a constructive conflict?)    

6) Pro-active creativity – The person comes up with his or her own ideas about how to share positive experiences with the partner.  The person makes suggestions and invites the partner to share fun in different ways.  The person doesn’t just wait for the partner to arrange the common agenda.

7) Willingness to risk exposure – The person is willing to share his or her internal truths with the partner.  The person discloses his or her more vulnerable feelings such as fear, shame, desire and wonder in addition to less vulnerable feelings such as anger and frustration.

Liberated curiosity – The person is able to stop being task-focused or defensive and periodically shares wonder, curiosity and uncertainty in the moment.

9) Long-term view – The person considers the long-term effects of their own emotionally driven behavior before acting or reacting.  The person’s intuitive wisdom checks impulses to either act out or to hide that would eventually lead to damage or imbalance in the relationship.  The person’s intuition creates a model of the probable future world(s) depending on what he or she will do.     

10) Realistic expectations – The person avoids magical expectations of quick change or fairytale expectations of a perfect partner.  The partner’s acceptance of the partner’s imperfection, negative feeling states and slow emotional change actually protects the relationship from toxic shame.  The partner accepts that changing emotionally driven behavior involves time and only gradual results.  Realistic expectations prevent an overwhelming amount of frustration and anger.

Copyright Bryce Kaye 2011

For a good while, I’ve had to talk to numerous people about how to let go of harmful relationships. Getting out of harmful relationships has been a very hot topic in the press for several years. The topic seems relevant to the needs of many. However, there is a danger to such a negative outlook. With such a collective focus on avoiding or escaping from destructive relationships, it’s easy to overlook the natural and non-pathological ways that relationships often do not work out. Many times I have seen people blame themselves mercilessly for having pursued yet another ill-fated relationship, even when the relationship initially seemed to hold much promise. This self-castigation is especially prevalent among the people focussing on recovery from codependence issues. Like most self-blame, it’s destructive as well as unnecessary.

Too many people view relationships from a pseudo-scientific perspective: If you make a wise choice in a partner, then the relationship will work out (assuming you make the “right” moves as well). If you hold this belief as being your own, it may be laying the foundation for accumulating shame and low self-esteem. The problem is that relationship skills are probablistic at best. You can behave in “better” or “worse” ways to influence relationships but you cannot control them. They are NOT scientific and they don’t rely on exact procedures. There are no “right” choices! The myth of control is dangerous even though it seems reassuring on the surface. If you assume relationships can be controlled, then when one doesn’t work out you will likely conclude that you either did not make a wise choice in a mate (i.e. “dumb choice”) or that you didn’t manage the relationship the “right” way (i.e. “dumb moves”). These messages accumulate more shame and evidence of your being a defective human being, even though your investment in the relationship may have been a good risk. You are better off with a broader concept of risk within relationships. Instead of assuming that risk is just a matter of feeling vulnerable., you can also assume that you are operating on very limited information. You can assume that there is a lot about your partner that you cannot know, and perhaps a lot that they may not know about themselves. You can assume that you can’t perfectly predict how your partner’s feelings will change as the relationship evolves. You can assume that changing life circumstances may influence either your partner’s emotional investment or your own. In short, you can assume random and unpredictable influences over which you have little or no control. Which brings me to my main premise: That you can take wise risks for a relationship that doesn’t necessarily work out. Even though you may be disappointed with the demise of a relationship, your initial decision to invest may have been a wise one. This is especially prevalent when one person risks investing with another who is undergoing personal change following a separation or divorce. The newly divorced person may be wonderfully receptive, compassionate, and loving but he or she may be understandably avoidant of new commitments and may not have a stable vision of what he or she wants. Investing with such a person has many risks but also much potential. Will it be worth it? There’s no way to tell for sure. How much time do you have to find out? How important is a future commitment and how much do you want to emphasize the present? How vulnerable are you to the pain of possible disappointment? You may weigh these and other considerations when making a wise choice…and you may still be disappointed in the end. If you considered many of these factors, you don’t have to blame yourself for being dumb or pathological. You can instead appreciate your limitations in being able to predict the future.

So how do you know when you are making a “wise” or an “unwise” investment in a relationship? I would suggest that it is unwise to ignore easily obtainable information that can help your decisions. For example, not communicating with your partner can help keep you totally in the dark. The most unsound choices are made when you are ignoring information that you already have on hand. If you ignore a long and consistent pattern of frustrating behaviors by your partner merely because you keep hoping that he or she will change, then you are certainly exercising unwise choices. The bottom line is that unwise choices will involve unsound consideration of available information. Wise choices involve consideration of available but limited information as well as the real possibility that you may still wind up with having made a wise mistake.

Q: My husband and I have been married for 6 1/2 years. We have 3 children and live far away from family. My husband has a very demanding job with many hours and lots of travel. I am very lonely, raising the 3 children practically alone. I keep urging him to change jobs because I am emotionally, physically, and mentally fatigued and our marriage and family are falling apart. His job has become more demanding in the last 2-3 years and I feel I’m at my wits end. Recently he told me he needed time apart, time to think, and that he was very unhappy. I am scared to death he wants to leave me. I had never felt this way till now and it’s been four days and he will not talk to me. I don’t know what to do! I need to know what he’s doing but he won’t talk. I have needs too! I almost feel like he’s going through a midlife crisis but he’s only in his 30′s. I’ve heard of the 7 years itch, could this be it? I don’t know what to do since this has gone on longer than normal?

A: Tina. Try to get into marriage counseling fast. If your spouse is unwilling to talk to you about what’s really going on, then there’s real possibility that he’s trying to sort out whether or not to stay. You would do well to give him another avenue of hope other than the two he’s probably juggling. I’m sorry to cause you discomfort but your fears sound realistic. – Bryce Kaye

Intimacy. The holy grail of relationships. At least it seems that way for those of us who have searched long and hard for the “right person.” I wonder how many of us really have gotten a clear picture of what we’re looking for. Where would we have gotten such a picture? From the cinema, from literature, from our parents? When I’ve asked people what they mean by the word “intimacy”, the common reply is usually something about making one’s self vulnerable. Usually there’s no further explanation, as if the word “vulnerability” explains all. But does it really?

This is something to which I’ve recently given much thought. I’ve had to think about it because I found myself growing somewhat confused – confused about my growing comfort in relationships and my diminishing vulnerability. If intimacy is vulnerability, then I was definitely growing less intimate over the years. Either I was getting pretty lazy in my own personal development or I wasn’t fully comprehending something. The first possibility didn’t excite me much. But in addition to threatening my pride, it didn’t make much sense. Over the years, I’ve found myself gradually sharing more and more personal experience as I’ve become more self-accepting. In latter years, I’ve also received more affirmation from others that I’m intimate with them. So what gives? Why am I not quaking with terrible vulnerability?

It’s time to try out another definition. My personal belief is that intimacy is closely associated with vulnerability, but it isn’t exactly the same thing. Intimacy is sharing the truth about your experiential being – generally your desires and your feelings: the things that really define the core of who you are. When you do that, you tend to be pretty vulnerable if the other person runs you down. Most of us are much more hurt when our feelings are derogated than when our behaviors are criticized. This is especially true about our hidden desires for someone to nurture us. In an intimate relationship, this is the experiential truth that is most risky to show. When we reveal our dependence on the other person, criticism can feel devastating.

So when is intimacy not vulnerable? Perhaps there’s no way that intimacy can occur without some vulnerability. Maybe a five star psychopath would be able to reveal all of his desires without fear. That’s not possible for the rest of us. My own belief is that intimacy can be much less vulnerable, depending upon several factors. The first factor is that a person is able to use their own frame of reference. This means that the person is able to choose to rely upon his own authority for deciding that his desires and feelings are valid and important. If the person is derogated by another, it’s important that the person can quickly shift back to his own frame of reference for support.

The second factor is that his own frame of reference needs to be affirming and not derogatory. This usually has to be taught by good parenting or else later by good mentorship or therapy.

The third factor is more subtle. It has to do with emotionally letting go of the other person’s frame of reference. If we’ve been derogated and we shift back to our own frame of reference, then we’ve lost something. We’ve lost a sense of connection with that other person, and our desire for dependence has been frustrated. We’ve lost some hope that we can immediately experience that tender connection. When this happens, we can’t let go of the pain unless we have the capacity to mourn. When we have to pull back and rely on ourselves alone, it’s important to feel sad. Many of us do not do this well because we have a sense of shame about sadness. And because we’re blocked from feeling sad, we’re often blocked from pulling back into our own frame of reference. Healthy sadness is an essential tool for deepening intimacy. It allows us to lessen our risks because it allows us to separate emotionally when we need to.

So let me invite you to rethink your definition of intimacy. If intimacy is shared truth and not mere vulnerability, then we can be more hopeful. We can hope to grow in ways that give us more choices and fewer risks. We can grow in ways that reassure us that someone is truly there for us, even when the other person isn’t. We can hope to experience tender togetherness and be comfortable at the same time. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Q: My husband and I have been married for 6 months. I am 19 and he is 20. I think he’s gay or something. About two weeks ago he asked me to have a threesome. But instead of with another woman he wanted to have one with another man involved. At first I thought he was kidding, but yesterday when I got home from work I caught him using my vibrator. I’ll spare you the details. I don’t know what to do. I tried confronting him about it but I just don’t know what exactly to tell him.

A: Mageta.  It’s less about what you will tell him than seeing if you can listen to him.  I would suggest that you suppress your outrage to ask him about his secret fantasy life.  It sounds like you might be right about his having homosexual fantasies.  This doesn’t necessarily mean the end unless he becomes compulsive and acts out.  The other question is whether or not he can be sufficiently turned on by the female sex.  You already have the best evidence about whether or not this is true.  Many people feel sexual attraction toward both sexes but are able to live within a monogamous relationship.  Can he?  Could you accept that he has sexual attraction to men very much like many husbands still feel sexual attraction towards other women.  The point I’m making is that feelings are one thing while behavior is another.  Does he cross the line into lying, deceit, and other indications of an underlying compulsion.  Mageta, you have a lot to find out but you had best calm down first so that he’s willing to talk with you. Good luck. – Bryce Kaye