If you are struggling in a marriage with infrequent or no sex, you are not alone. Sexual incompatibilities can cause deep tension and open conflict or can be a silent and lurking issue that is difficult to discuss. In either case, the loneliness and fear can be overwhelming at times.    

Since sex is often considered taboo to talk about, we don’t usually hear a lot of discussion about sexless marriages. Even though it isn’t talked about very much, sexless marriages or relationships are more common than many people are led to believe. We are often led to believe that physical intimacy is something that comes naturally and frequently for couples, but this isn’t true. Sexual intimacy takes work. Depending on you and your marriage, there are various considerations to be made. 

Ways to Begin to Address a Sexless Marriage:

1. Pause

The urge to fix things in a sexless marriage can be intense. Instead of jumping to solutions, first pause. Put effort into observing your emotional intensity. What are the feelings? What do you do with the feelings? 

2. Learn how to honor your emotions 

Karla McLaren, author of The Language of Emotions, proposes that emotions are one form of intelligence and that each emotion has a particular set of questions and messages for you. I recommend purchasing her book or looking for her short videos on YouTube. What needs to be honored? What needs to be restored?

3. Study the emotional vortex

The emotional vortex is a concept that’s been studied for decades now by family therapists. It is officially known as the family emotional system, but I call it the emotional vortex. It is the experience we have that our marital problems seem to have a life of their own. The more we try to change them, the more they seem to stay the same. The idea is that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. And it’s the feeling that your marriage has YOU rather than you having it. It’s not pleasant, but it can be studied. There are predictable patterns you can identify. Four of them to be precise: distance, conflict, borrowed functioning, and emotional triangles. When you can begin to identify these patterns, you can begin to change them.

4. Deliberate Disruption

Real change occurs in four stages. The four stages of change. It starts with one person disrupting the status quo. It means that something has truly changed within them. Something they can no longer do. Something they can no longer hide. The predictable second stage is that there is a “change back” reaction. The emotional vortex rears up and says “don’t do that…don’t change the status quo.” Stage three involves a choice: does the person who has made the change stick with it? If they do it takes them to stage four which is change. If one person sticks with the changes that they are making, if they do not cave to the pressure, then the entire system starts functioning better. 

5. Therapy to help you stick with the changes

This is a complex process. An experienced therapist can help. You can go at your own pace. In fact, an experienced therapist will help you take conversations about this sensitive topic slowly and with dignity and respect.

Learn more about marriage counseling or contact me to get started!

The post 5 Ways to Repair a Sexless Marriage appeared first on Miriam Bellamy.

But You Don’t Have To.

I must confess. The easiest (and worst) thing for me to do when I’m upset with my husband is to go global. I really do know better, but my brain JUST GOES THERE! When he does something with our daughters that upsets me, I can easily make many grand conclusions about him and about our relationship. With coronavirus having gone global, I am reminded of how easy it is for couples to go global…emotionally and mentally…making painful moments even more painful with deep dives into “underlying problems.” When couples go global, they miss the big picture…and therefore miss any real pathways for change. With shelter in place orders in effect around the world, it’s that much easier for us to go global and to miss what’s really happening in our relationships. See the video below for essential marriage help for the difficult times we are facing.

The post Marriage Help for Uncertain Times appeared first on Miriam Bellamy.

According to Bowen Family Systems Theory (BFST), the most important and impactful relationship in your life is that which you have with your parents. Bowen demonstrated that when one can begin to understand one’s family history, and can begin to change their relationship with their parents, all of the other relationships in their lives will change-including the marital relationship. Unfortunately, through the decades since Bowen’s work, his ideas have been popularized, bastardized, and turned into a kind of blaming of parents for our own shortcomings and pain. From a BFST perspective, emotional maturity and a happier marriage can be better achieved by exploring one’s family history in order to see parents more broadly and fully…less as “Mom” and “Dad” and more as people. When we are more emotionally mature, we can then approach our own marriages and children, etc. better.

Excerpts from the recording:

Miriam: “When the family can’t talk about these things and integrate past events, the ways that that passes the anxiety down INVISIBLY…across the generations…is profound! And if you are living with anxiety and you don’t know why or what’s going on and you can begin to pull out [your family history], it’s…wow!”

Kelly regarding one’s family history and its impact on our day to day functioning: “We don’t know what we don’t know!”

Kelly regarding people who may not think their parents have anything to do with it: “The biology is compelling.” “We don’t react to people who ‘don’t matter.'” “Getting straight with Mom and Dad…all other relationships fall from this piece.”

Books mentioned in this episode:

“You Can Go Home Again” by Monica McGoldrick

“The Family Diagram & Family Research” by Victoria Harrison

Contact me or learn more about marriage counseling!

The post What Does Your Family History Have to do With Your Marriage? appeared first on Miriam Bellamy.

After a summer hiatus, Kelly and I are back to this series on marriage and family life from a Bowen Family Systems Perspective. The episode below is about parenting. We explore the idea of an emotional triangle in parenting–and the idea that what we do with our children is part of a much larger dynamic in our families. Whether we live in adoptive or step or biological families, whether parents are married or divorced, or whether we are grandparents raising our grandchildren, the emotional process of a triangle applies.

Why is the Focus Always on Children?

Bowen was able to observe a kind of anxious focus on children by parents, experts, and society alike, and he believed this anxious focus was perhaps the most significant contributor to how certain family patterns repeat themselves generation to generation. He was able to observe that less is more in parenting in direct opposition to today’s hyper focus on children. He saw this anxious focus as a way to dissipate the conflict or tension in a marriage to another relationship–to the parent/child relationship. Avoiding topics and avoiding taking a stand with spouse can bubble over into interactions with a child. As Kelly states in the video below, “If you are looking for real, solid, lasting change, then the parents are the ones who are going to have to get a hold of themselves.” So often, in our anxiety, we focus on the children, and we just can’t get around to dealing with our selves in our marriages. Our urges to fight, to run, or to freeze up can be so very powerful.

Have a listen below and let us know what you think in the comments.

Thanks so much and we hope this is helpful to you and your family. Contact me or learn more about marriage counseling!

The post Webinar Series: Parenting from a Bowen Family Systems Perspective appeared first on Miriam Bellamy.

Ever feel like you’re constantly watching what you say to your spouse? Do you have the fear of one wrong word and it’s World War III? Has the conflict gotten so intense that your normal filters disappear in front of the kids? Do you love your spouse but can’t stand to be near them at times?

Most often the feeling in these high conflict marriages is one of loneliness. Couples will often say we aren’t on the same page. One woman said once “we aren’t anywhere near the same book!” I understand the feeling, and I understand why many couples might conclude that if they could just get more connected, then the marital conflict would go away. If they could just communicate more, then the understanding and warmth and openness would flow freely. But when high conflict couples try to get closer, they often times find that it makes things worse. All their best intentions gone with the wind. Why? Despite how distant they may feel, the facts point to just how connected they are.

Have you ever given or been given the silent treatment? Think back for a minute to what it was like. Most of the time when couples aren’t speaking, and feeling at their loneliest, they couldn’t be more aware of each other. You can cut the cords of tension with a knife. That’s not a lack of connection. That’s intense, uncomfortable, painful connection…like you’re tied to one another so tightly you can’t breath or have stability standing on your own two feet. In the beginning of a relationship this kind of connectivity feels very nice. But it isn’t something we can sustain. We have as much of a need to stand on our own as we do to be connected.

Think About The Intensity…

The solution in high conflict marriage isn’t to get more connected. It has something to do with getting less intensely connected. The irony is that less intense connection leads to a deeper, calmer, more sustainable and meaningful connection.

One woman said recently that she might really enjoy the feeling of being more separate from her husband, especially when he’s angry. She noticed that whenever he was frustrated, no matter what mood she had been in two minutes earlier, she would become frustrated or angry or anxious too. It had never occurred to her that she could be in the same room with him, listening to him, without taking on his emotional state. Separate yet connected at the same time.

How contagious are the emotions in your relationship? To what degree can you be separate and connected at the same time?

Contact me or learn more about intensives and retreats!

The post Walking on Eggshells in Your Marriage? appeared first on Miriam Bellamy.

5 Tips To Improve Communication

Ever had this kind of a fight with your spouse where both of you are trying to follow the “rules” of “good communication” and it turns out rather absurd, rather quickly? Consider these 5 tips to improve bad communication in your marriage.

1) Good communication is not about following rules or squeezing techniques into tense moments

Sometimes tense moments are just tense moments. Trying to “behave” during them sometimes misses the jewels and gems you may learn about yourself and your spouse. I’m not advocating “blowing” at your spouse. Walking away when things get tense can be a very important relationship saving discipline. But on some occasions losing your cool can be useful. It may help you recognize the load you are carrying in the relationship and it may help you let go of it a little. It may help you identify feelings you weren’t aware you had. It can sometimes even help you let go of these feelings. One wife I spoke to recently saw her husband’s newly emerging, occasional angry vents as a sign of progress – a change from his normally stoic approach to their every problem. He experienced the relief of not holding on so tightly. They both look forward to a time when feelings and thoughts can be shared between them openly and without too much fear.

2) Good communication is separate, equal, and open

Good communication is about adopting a stance characterized by 3 qualities: separate, equal, open. When individuals can separate themselves, even just a little, from the emotionally reactive blob of couple-ness, they can start to settle down and respond more from thought – much like they may be able to do with, for example, a work colleague. Working toward separation from this blob in turn generates more of a sense of equality and openness. The two shall become one may be a truism rather than an ideal for couples when it comes to good communication.

3) Bad communication is a symptom, not the problem

What is the problem? According to Bowen Theory, the problem has to do with an imbalance between two powerful relationship forces: the force toward togetherness and the force toward individuality. When the relationship togetherness pressure is greater than the ability of each spouse to be separate individuals, communication falls by the way side. It is a matter of too much anxiety or togetherness pressure and too little individuality. Being able to be an individual when the pressure to conform increases is key to improving bad communication.

4) It’s about the “I” Position – not “I” Statements

Did you see the couple’s absurd application of using “I” statements in the movie clip above? Using “I” statements is a way of thinking – not a technique or formula to apply as if we are in grade school learning how to write sentences. Perhaps a better way of thinking about “I” statements is the “I” position.  An “I” position is a way of being – a lifestyle not a diet. An “I” position is a way of being we develop over a long period of time with sustained focus and effort. It involves increased self-awareness, not only of what principles we live for and live by, but also a self-awareness of how we contribute to the stuck-ness and crises in our relationships. Harriet Lerner does a wonderful job of describing the “I” position in her books. The Dance of Anger or The Dance of Intimacy would be great places to start.

5) Keep it light

Ever think about why friendships seem so much easier to maintain than marriages? One theory I read about recently – in Roberta Gilbert’s book Extraordinary Relationships – posits that friendships tend to automatically make fun and lightness a priority. When you can cool off some of the emotional reactivity to make a point of having more fun with your spouse, you will go a long way to being able to resolve some of the stickier issues in the relationship. This is not a quick- fix kind of idea. Developing this ability and having it be a more stable aspect of a marriage takes a long time with sustained effort. But if the married couple in This is 40 could have broken down and started laughing at each other and at themselves during this fight, we would all have been laughing with them. Some of us were anyway.

Contact me to get started or learn more about marriage counseling.

The post 5 Tips to Improve Bad Communication appeared first on Miriam Bellamy.