“We need to talk about our relationship.”

Is there a sentence that strikes more fear, trembling and mumbling into the strongest man’s soul? But with the right prescription, we can be the stand-up, take charge guys that we normally are, even in the face of the dreaded “relationship” talk.

In a book I am reading, the little girl, missing her absent mother, says, “Dad, let’s play dolls.” He’s thinking, why not “Let’s play baseball cards,” or “Let’s play demolition derby.” These I know - but dolls?  He gamely concedes, “Okay, after dinner we’ll play one game of dolls.” 

Playing one game of dolls may seem easy compared with being asked by our significant other to tell them how we are feeling. We would like to know what we are feeling, too! For many of us, we often don’t get much beyond “Pick one: mad, glad, sad or bad.” Most of the time, with enough reflection, the correct answer is “all of the above,” but we don’t know how to verbalize this and certainly not in a way that our partner really wants to hear.

Several things are for sure: we like to be good at what we do, we plan to succeed, and we will hang from any convenient ledge to keep our partner happy. But we too often have a feeling of failure when to comes to talking about relationships or feelings. It doesn’t come naturally to us and we don’t know the rules of the game.  We try to fake it ‘till we make it  - but we may loose our lover before the end of this experimental phase.

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Financial Infidelity

by Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil

After forty years, there's a new woman’s lib – the pendulum swings again.  Familiar and comfortable sex roles around money are being rewritten. 

We need to change the way we look at male-female power dynamics.  We need a new way to navigate the shift in power due to male-female role reversal and the resulting power dynamic that now faces both couples and singles. 

The way out of this struggle is what I call money love language or smart heart dialogue based on Harville Hendrix’s brilliant Imago Dialogue.  It gives couples a way to maintain attuned contact when they are experiencing problems with intimacy and connection.

Money and intimacy problems are often linked. Men typically feel defined by money.  Research shows that men feel happier in marriage if they are the main breadwinners.  However, today women are earning more than ever before. In twenty-five percent of households, women are earning half the household income.  They are stepping, not without internal conflict, into the role of breadwinner - in addition to the hours they may already commit to chauffeuring, cooking, and cleaning. Women are feeling burned out.  Men are feeling demoted and obsolete.  Men are used to being nurtured but now women also require that same nurturing. The fallout from this role confusion is resentment and “financial infidelity” a form of cheating so subtle you don't even know you're cheating. 

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