If you are familiar with Imago Relationship counseling you may recall that when we first fall in love the brain releases a powerful cocktail of chemicals, which make us feel on top of the world. According to Harville Hendrix, these chemicals are important, because while we are very good at recognizing our ideal partner, we need a little time to get really connected before we discover that there’s a downside. When the initial euphoria of the drugs wears off, we begin to discover that part of being with the ideal partner is discovering some profound differences, which we need to work on together.

Online marriage counseling meets Sienfeld! “The Marriage Ref” is a TV show produced by Jerry Seinfeld where couples reveal their relationship problems, and a referee steps in to say who wins. Now there’s an online version. And you can be “the marriage ref”. Or you can reveal your own disputes and see which side the world votes for. Want to try it – just go to http://couplesspark.com/.

For those of you new to validation, this is what we call the second main step in a dialogue. First you would mirror your partner, carefully repeating back what you had heard. And then you “Validate”, which doesn’t mean any form of clerical processing, but just simply saying “You make sense, and the reason you make sense is…”

Hardly surprising then that Tara Parker-Pope, writing last month in the New York Times talks about how several groups are turning to online approaches to end marital strife. Some approaches are based on the idea of an online survey, which measures your marital health, and points out areas where you might need relationship help. Other approaches are more like Imago couples therapy, where couples learn to understand and accept each other more fully.

The delight of being a blogger is searching for what to write about. It sends me scouring the internet for articles of interest about couples therapy. And in the process I came across a short blog post on psychology today which really got me thinking. In the post, Joni Johnston PysD talks about three things to consider before giving relationship advice. Since she is the author of the “Complete Idiot’s Guide to Psychology” I like her take on things.

From Couples Therapy to “Ciao”, the Italians are known for doing everything in style. The New York Times recently reported on Italy’s first divorce fair, held in Milan.

It turns out a divorce fair isn’t quite as exciting as it sounds. It’s just a couple of thousand people streaming into the basement of a hotel, and checking out lawyers, dating agencies, and something called a divorce planning agency. Well, if you had a planner for your wedding, why not for your divorce.

Elizabetta Poveldo who wrote the NY Times article, points out some extraordinarily

My father died late last year at the age of 86. I expect that when he was a young man he would have regarded 70 as a great achievement, let alone 80. But a very close friend this week had an operation to remove cancer which left her without an eye, and another found that a cardiac check-up led almost immediately to bypass surgery. Yet another is struggling with persistent glaucoma. It’s like I’ve reached the age where my friends are falling apart. “Let’s get younger friends” quipped my wife, the mistress of black comedy. Or maybe I shouldn’t hang out with so many marriage counselors?

Many people go into couples therapy with a simple objective. Change my partner!! Please!

Usually they aren’t looking for a younger model, with fewer wrinkles and a smaller waist-line. They just want their couples counselor to deliver them back the same old partner with some tweaks. Then everything would be great!

Now let’s put aside for a moment the idea that the goal of going to see a couples therapist is to change your partner. Imago couples counseling takes a different perspecitve on that which I can talk about in other posts. Today, I just want to talk in general about the idea of changing anyone, or even changing their opinion.

That’s when my good friend Rod Kochtitzky asked me if I ever looked at a map before I went on a long journey. “You can think of couples therapy as the road” he said. “But the Imago couples retreat shows you where you are going.”

Scott Stanley pointed out that much of the research published recently appears to be reaching completely different conclusions. Just last week I wrote a blog post “Is Marriage bad for Couples Therapists” about British survey that showed how cohabitation with the arch-enemy of long-term relationships, and pointing out the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) didn’t necessarily agree. Then just yesterday the CDC released a report picked by USA today: “Cohabiting has little effect on couple’s success in marriage”.