Keeping the Love: Strengthen Your Partnership while Raising Neurodivergent Children

0:03 Good evening and welcome. 0:06 Thank you so much for joining us for tonight’s webinar, Keeping the Love, Strengthen Your Partnership While Raising Neurodivergent Children, presented by Mr. Jeffrey Young. 0:15 My name is Katie Delaney, and I’m the Family and Medical Outreach Coordinator for the New Jersey Center for Tourette Syndrome and Associated Disorders. 0:24 I will be your facilitator for this evening. 0:27 Before I introduce our presenter, I wanted to go over some housekeeping notes. 0:31 The audience is muted. 0:33 If you are attending the live webinar, questions can be submitted in the questions box at the bottom of your screen. 0:41 During the live Q &A, the audience will gain access to and mute themselves. 0:45 We will stop recording right before this. 0:48 At the top right of your screen, you will see a paperclip icon. 0:51 There you will find a copy of the slides and upcoming events. 0:55 At the bottom of your screen, you will see a react button. 0:58 To the right of it is an arrow. 1:00 When you click the arrow, you will see a few emojis appear such as heart, thumbs up, etc. 1:06 Throughout the webinar, feel free to use this feature to let our presenter know how they’re doing. 1:11 Now, if you could give me a thumbs up just to show me that you guys know where it is, that would be great. 1:19 Perfect. 1:22 Okay, awesome. 1:24 Okay, so for those viewing the webinar recording, you will not have access to these features. 1:29 However, any questions you have for the presenter can be submitted through the chat box to the left of your screen. 1:35 The presenter will answer those questions on our webinar blog located on our website and jcts.org under the programs tab. 1:43 This blog will be monitored until Tuesday, October 1st. 1:46 Any personal information will not be included in the post. 1:50 The New Jersey Center for Tourette Syndrome and Associated Disorders, its directors and employees assume no responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, objectivity, or usefulness of information presented on our site. 2:03 We do not endorse any recommendations or opinions made by any members or physicians, nor do we advocate any treatment. 2:09 You are responsible for your own medical decisions. 2:12 Now, it is my pleasure to introduce our speaker for this evening, Mr. Jeffrey Young. Mr. 2:18 Young received his master’s in marital and family therapy from the University of San Diego. 2:24 He is currently a therapist in private practice at the Relationship Place located in San Diego, California. 2:30 Mr. 2:30 Yeung has worked in a variety of settings such as VA San Diego, San Diego County Psychiatric Hospital and various nonprofit institutions. 2:40 He is trained in the Gottman Method and uses emotion-focused therapy or EFT, and acceptance and commitment therapy, ACT, with his individuals and partnered clients. 2:54 Mr. Young, the floor is all yours. 2:58 Well, good evening. 2:59 Thank you so much, Katie. 3:01 Will I be sharing my screen? 3:04 All I’m seeing is a big picture of me and I wanna make sure that you’ll be sharing the slides so that I’ll be able to see them as they’re showing up for my audience and also for myself. 3:19 Welcome everybody. 3:20 So, as Katie mentioned, my name is Jeffrey Young, I’m a licensed marriage and family therapy here in San Diego, California, coming to you from the West Coast. 3:29 I work at the relationship place where I do couples counseling and individual counseling using the Gottman method and other methods. 3:40 And I just wanted to begin by sharing a brief anecdote from my experience in terms of working with families with neurodivergent children. 3:53 So back in the day, I had the privilege and honor to be a middle school English teacher here in San Diego. 4:01 And I remember fondly a number of students at that time who were in various ways neurodivergent. 4:10 And I became interested in the subject at the time as a teacher. 4:15 There was a program that was available called All Kinds of minds. And it looks like it’s asking me if I want to share my content here. 4:29 Katie, are you sharing the screen with my PowerPoint? 4:34 I’m not. Brianna just gave you access to share your screen. 4:39 Okay. 4:40 Perfect. 4:41 Right, but that’s not the screen that I want to share. 4:45 No, you would have to open up the PowerPoint. 4:47 There it is. 4:49 Okay, perfect. 4:51 Are you able to see that? 4:55 Fantastic. I was just seeing myself on the screen. It was a bit unnerving. 5:00 I felt like I was talking to myself. 5:02 No worries. You were all set. We got a thumbs up too, so you’re good to go. 5:06 Oh, perfect. Thank you so much. 5:08 Anyway, as I mentioned, so I kind of got on the path to what I’m doing currently because I became deeply interested in the families of the students whom I was teaching and the interactions between the parents and the children and how this could often key them up for success, but also the various stressors of family life and parenting that came along with the students that I was working with. 5:37 So fast forward and here I am doing couples therapy and a number of the couples that I work with have neurodivergent children and And very often it’s also the case that one or both parents have some neurodivergent traits as well. 5:55 So I want to share with you today a positive perspective on how you can keep the love alive in your partnered relationship while raising neurodivergent children. 6:09 So I want to start off by considering some of the common relationship challenges that occur across couples, but especially those couples who are parenting neurodivergent children. So let me go to my first slide here. 6:25 So some of the common relationship challenges, couples who are parents of neurodivergent children face unique relationship challenges. 6:34 So some of these include heightened stress, communication difficulties, and emotional burnout. 6:41 Some of common issues that I see, well, I will start off by, this is no surprise to you, I’m sure, but increased stress and burnout. 6:51 So parenting a neurodiversion child, parenting a child in general, can lead to higher levels of stress, which affects the emotional and physical well-being of both partners. 7:03 So the constant demands of caregiving, managing therapies, addressing behavioral challenges can lead to exhaustion and this often results in emotional distance between partners. 7:15 This is especially significant in families who are dealing with autism or ADHD where daily routines may require constant attention and adaptability. 7:27 I would like to reflect as I go along on some of the skills and interventions that I use in my couple’s work that meet some of these challenges. 7:38 And when I think about stress and burnout, this shows up in so many ways, right? 7:43 Our fuses are shortened, our ability to communicate effectively, to take in new information, to hold space for our partners emotionally and mentally. 7:52 And one of the things that I like to teach my couples early on in therapy is how to have what we call a stress-reducing conversation. 8:04 A stress-reducing conversation. 8:07 This is not a conversation that is primarily directed towards solving logistical problems or other scheduling issues, addressing concerns in terms of how do we want to successfully manage these concerns. 8:21 It is a forum to whose purpose is to bring the stressors either from outside of the relationship or even within the relationship and create a holding environment in which we can effectively co-regulate as partners. 8:38 We might take turns, for example, simply listening, setting aside our agenda, paying close attention, attuning to our partner, listening to what they have to say, making empathetic remarks, joining with them in their concerns, holding off on judgment, on criticism, on problem solving, simply trying to understand and to lend an empathetic ear. 9:06 And I find that being able to this regularly has the capacity to reduce couples’ stress significantly. 9:16 Studies show, in fact, that when partners in couple relationships are able to effectively co-regulate, they can reduce each other’s stress, they can boost their immune systems, they’re actually more resistant to disease and to fatigue. 9:35 So addressing stress and burnout in a couple’s setting is a very, very important skill set. 9:42 Now, I’m not going to be going into that in detail today, but I wanted to highlight to you that there are remedies for each one of these challenges that I’m going to be bringing up just to set us up. 9:56 The second common relationship challenge has to do with differences in coping styles. 10:01 So, usually when couples come together, they, you’ve probably heard of opposites attract, and it’s not exactly that, but rather couples tend to have complementary styles. 10:14 But these complementary styles, when you throw in stress, can often lead to differences in the way that they want to deal with those stress and the ways that they want to cope with that stress. 10:29 So, for example, one partner may be Mr. or Mrs. 10:33 Logic, let’s be practical about this, we just want to solve the problems. 10:36 Why dwell on this, right? 10:39 Why worry? 10:40 Let’s just leap right in and problem solve, while the other might be, no, no, wait a minute, this is important. 10:46 I want to have this emotional experience. 10:49 This is meaningful to me, and if I find that you’re just trying to leap in and problem solving, I’m finding that my emotional experience is being invalidated. 10:59 I feel like you don’t understand where I’m coming from. 11:02 So these differences can lead to a lot of frustration and misunderstandings when they feel that their way of handling challenges isn’t being validated. 11:11 So this can result in one or both partners feeling unsupported or overwhelmed. 11:19 So again, in couples therapy, We definitely take into account the fact that partners have different ways of coupling, of dealing with their stress. 11:37 They have their preferred coping styles, but again, as we do in the stress-reducing conversation, we want to create space for those complementary differences to emerge so that we can rather than sort of making it seem as if one person’s style is right and the other person’s style is wrong. 12:01 Another big source of challenge for couples is this idea of role imbalance and lack of support. 12:09 So many couples experience an imbalance in caregiving responsibilities where one partner, often the mother, but not exclusively, takes on the majority of caregiving duties and leaves the other feeling either marginalized or overly reliant. 12:28 So role imbalance can lead to resentment, especially when the primary caregiver feels isolated or unsupported by their partner. 12:37 So in the couples and parenting world, we call this the partner who is doing all these caregiving duties is carrying the emotional load, right? 12:47 They’re keeping track of all of the things, the food allergies, what we need to pack on trips, how to prepare their lunches in the morning, and so on, right? 12:56 Often this is misunderstood or devalued by the other partner, and this can lead to, as I mentioned, resentment and so on. So in couples therapy, we want to address these role imbalances. 13:11 Because we want to find ways that both partners can contribute meaningfully to the parenting load, the emotional load of parenting, of child raising. 13:30 Another thing that shows up on my couch is this idea of strained communication. 13:36 In fact, most couples when they come into therapy will say something like, yes, we’re here because we’re having difficulty with communication. 13:45 So communication breakdowns are very common, as couples may struggle to find the time and emotional energy to talk openly about their needs, feelings, and concerns. 13:56 Again, communication in couples who are busy with the task of parenting, often it comes down to practicalities and logistics. 14:07 and there’s very little time to actually talk openly about what is going on for us. 14:14 What are our emotional needs? What are our feelings? What are our concerns? 14:18 Now, neurodivergent children, of course, may have unique needs that required structured communication, and this leaves really little space for partners to be able to address their own relationship needs. 14:32 Miscommunication can also arise due to the emotional exhaustion that both partners feel, and this can lead to arguments or avoidance or both. 14:43 Dealing with communication and how to navigate conflict is really at the heart of couples therapy as we practice it and as I’m going to highlight, when we get to the Gottman method of working with couples. 15:00 So I want to just highlight that this is one of the central challenges And a little bit later in the presentation, when I talk about the Gottman method, I’m going to show how do we typically deal with that in a therapy setting. 15:16 Financial stress. So the cost of therapies, medical treatments, specialized educational support for neurodivergent children can place tremendous financial strain on families. 15:27 And this adds another layer of stress to relationships, as couples may disagree on spending priorities or feel overwhelmed by the financial burden. 15:38 In general, dealing with finances is one of the central issues where most couples struggle, where they experience conflict. 15:50 Being able to have a relationship that is aware of the possibility for there to be imbalances in power and control, who has a say in how expenses are allocated, and so on, this can cause relational stress in addition to the financial stress, right, of meeting our financial obligations. 16:21 So again, in couples therapy, we want to be mindful of this and introduce ways that couples can meaningfully collaborate in how they want to approach their financial challenges. 16:39 I want to check here. I’m not able to see the other screen. 16:45 Can I pop back over here just real quick? 16:51 I wanted to check in with people. Are you following me so far? I’m not seeing any feedback. 16:56 Is this making sense to you? Is this describing some of the challenges that you find yourselves facing? 17:04 Okay, I see a thumbs up. I see a thumbs up. Good. Yes. 17:11 All right. Jeffrey, if you don’t mind, if you could just keep it on the PowerPoint slide. 17:16 And when you ask, I can most definitely let you know the thumbs up just because I want to make sure we stay online. 17:22 Got it. Of course, of course. Let me see. Okay, so continuing. I wanted to talk briefly about emotional isolation. 17:30 So due to the unique challenges of raising a neurodivergent child, so many couples report feeling socially isolated with fewer opportunities for self-care, social activities, or time together. 17:42 So this isolation can increase feelings of loneliness within the relationship, further weakening the emotional bond between partners. 17:51 So again, creating time and rituals of connection within the couple so that they can provide support for each also that they so that they can co-parent in a way that allows each of them to have some social engagement as well outside of the home so that they can balance that. Impact on intimacy. 18:13 Boy, finances and the bedroom, two of the hardest hit areas when it comes to the stresses that couples face. 18:23 So the over-demand, overwhelming demands of caregiving and the stress involved in raising a neurodivergent child can negatively impact intimacy, so couples may find themselves focusing solely on parenting tasks with little time or energy left for physical or emotional intimacy. 18:39 One of the tools that I’m going to introduce later on when we get to the skills and tools section is how to set up, well, how to address the impact on intimacy in a relationship. 18:58 Moving along, I’ll cover this fairly quickly, but it’s important to note that what shows up in my room is that there’s a sense of feelings of inadequacy or guilt or shame blaming themselves or their child’s difficulties or behavior. 19:15 And this can be particularly intense before a diagnosis, when parents may believe they’re failing at parenting. 19:21 And even post-diagnosis, many parents struggle with self-compassion, they feel guilt for not being able to fix their child’s challenges, which can negatively impact their mental health. 19:31 And there’s this idea of disenfranchised grief, which is basically grief that’s not acknowledged by society, yet many parents deeply feel this as they’re raising a child whose developmental trajectory is different from the they had had envisioned. 19:50 One writer on this subject had described it as essentially this idea that perhaps as we were ready to become a parent we were planning a trip to Italy and then we have our child and we find out that we’re actually taking a trip to Holland which we weren’t prepared for. 20:06 It has some differences, it’s absolutely lovely, but we were not expecting nor were we for that. And so this has an impact on us. 20:18 So again, being aware of this, there are ways that couples can support each other in addressing this. 20:26 However, what I often find is that couples can be really out of step with this, or even one partner simply is not willing to even acknowledge that they are experiencing it, which can be very lonely alienating experience for their partner who wants to be able to share this. 20:44 So let me switch on over to the positive perspective here, and I wanted to start looking at ways of keeping the love alive in the Gottman world and some of the tools that we can use to strengthen our relationship. 21:04 So, very briefly, I wanted to share with you that the governments are essentially the leading lights in the study of what makes couples work and how therapists can meaningfully teach skills that help partners improve their relationship. 21:28 These are foundational skills, like understanding each other’s emotional needs, fostering admiration and addressing conflicts constructively. 21:38 They arrived at this method essentially over 40 years by doing research on couples, watching what successful couples, what they called the masters of relationship, how they maintained a strong, stable relationship, and also by observing what went wrong with what they called the disasters of relationship. 21:58 Essentially, what they realized is there are two fundamental parts of keeping a relationship alive. 22:08 One part has to do with our ability to navigate conflict. 22:13 That is, how do we meaningfully address the fact that we’re two different people, that we come together as two different worlds? 22:21 And so how do we manage conflict? 22:24 That’s one of the essential things. 22:27 The other has to do with how do we tend and maintain our friendship. 22:35 Those two things, managing conflict and tending to our friendship, are the central components really of the Gottman method. 22:45 Katie, I think I had, did I have a poll question for you at this point? 22:54 Yes, so Katie actually had a little bit of emergency for a minutes but I believe she did. Couples therapy is most appropriate for was that the one? 23:07 That was the one. 23:09 Perfect okay I just launched the poll give everyone a few minutes to answer for 30 seconds. You got it. 23:30 So it seems we have an overwhelming vote for couples who want to improve their relationship. 23:37 I’m glad to hear that. 23:41 Right? 23:43 Many couples believe that, oh, yo, that’s for people who have serious problems. 23:48 Oh, no, on the contrary, how lovely it is to be able to learn, you know what, we’re not alone in this. 23:54 And there are just some, some, there’s a whole range of meaningful skill sets that we can take on board. 24:02 It’s going to my pleasure to share some of those that I’m hoping you can take away and apply right away. 24:09 I wanted to briefly show you that sort of the central metaphor of, in the Gottman world, the fruit of their research is that essentially we view a relationship as if it were a house, right? And that has levels that sort of depend the one upon the other. 24:27 And today I’m going be looking at some of the foundational levels of the house, but I thought I’d give you just a brief overview here. 24:35 So essentially when we look at a relationship on the ground floor, we’re looking at the way when two people come together with their, it’s like when two worlds come together and initially we’re just full of questions and we just spend all our time getting to know each other and all these detailed ways, right? 24:54 But as our relationship progresses and our focus shifts, very often we can become complacent about continuing to check in with each other and to continue to get to know one another’s concerns and hopes and dreams. 25:11 And so building love maps of each other as an ongoing activity is foundational for the Gottman Method. I’m going to be talking about that in a moment. 25:21 In terms of action, we have system of shared fondness and admiration in which we are constantly noticing the things that we like and admire about our partner and then we are letting them know. 25:35 We are positively reinforcing those qualities in our partner that we are fond of and that we admire. 25:41 We are looking for little small ways to improve their lives. 25:46 We’re making little deposits into what we call their emotional bank We are also doing what is called turning towards bids for connection. 25:55 I’m going to be talking about this momentarily. 25:59 We have these opportunities to strengthen our connection throughout the day. 26:05 When we turn towards each other, when we notice when one of us is bidding for connection, and we turn towards that, we close the circuit. 26:13 We grow closer because of that. 26:16 On the other hand, when we turn away from our partner’s bids, they begin to feel less important, and over time this can erode our sense of connection and our sense of trust with each other. 26:28 If we’re maintaining these things on the regular basis, then we’re able to hold each other in what’s called the positive perspective. 26:35 That is, I will give you the benefit of the doubt. 26:39 I will extend grace because I hold you in the positive perspective. 26:43 I know that you’re not intentionally trying to hurt me. 26:46 You’re my partner. 26:47 You love me. 26:48 And so I’m going to overlook some of the things that might be irritating or even hurtful. 26:55 Not that I’m going to ignore boundary violations or put up with abuse. 26:59 That’s not what this means. 27:01 This means that as long as we’re maintaining our connection, we’re able to hold each other in a positive perspective, which allows us to manage conflict. 27:11 Now, I’m not going to be focusing today on managing conflict because, honestly, that is a whole area I could give an entire presentation on managing conflict alone. 27:23 But it’s absolutely essential that every partnership has the ability to resolve their differences in a way that does not lead them into some very destructive habits of behavior, which again, I won’t have time to get into. 27:41 If you’re curious, I would highly recommend looking up the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. 27:47 In the Godman world, the fruits of their research shows that most relationships can get into these harmful patterns of criticism and defensiveness and contempt and stonewalling. 28:01 And when these things happen, it means that a couple, their partnership is in jeopardy and that something needs to be done to correct that. 28:10 If we’re able to do that successfully, then, of course, we are able to work together to make our life dreams come true and create a life of shared meaning and create a legacy for our relationship. All right, so I’m going to be going into these action steps. 28:31 These are the small things often philosophy, right? 28:37 The foundational friendship level of our relationship, these are the small action items that we can take every single day to keep the love alive in our relationship, to strengthen our partnership. 28:52 So I’m going to start with bids for connection. 28:56 So a bid for connection, as I mentioned before, is a gesture or an attempt that one partner makes to seek attention or affirmation or support. 29:05 So they could be verbal, like asking for advice or making a joke. They could be nonverbal, reaching out for a hug or sharing a look. 29:14 And the way the partner responds is absolutely essential to the relationship’s emotional health. 29:21 We want to be turning towards bids for connection as often as possible. 29:27 These are ways that couples build intimacy, trust, and emotional connection. 29:33 And couples who regularly turn towards each other’s bids are going to have more resilient relationships. 29:42 Partners who ignore or dismiss those bids are more likely to experience emotional distance and conflict. 29:49 So what does this look like? 29:52 So here’s your partner, and they’re on their phone, and they say, oh look, this is an interesting article. 30:00 They’re making a bid for a connection. Here are your possible responses. 30:03 You can look up and say, oh yeah? What’s it about? 30:08 You can keep typing the email you’re working on while staring at your screen, which is turning away, or you can say something like, be against. 30:20 In one of the studies, the couples who got divorced had only turned towards their partner’s bids 33% of the time. 30:27 The couples who stayed together had turned towards 86% of the time. 30:31 Being on the lookout for bids for connection in our busy lives is absolutely essential to maintaining that connection. 30:42 So what can we do? I recommend the 10-minute checkup first thing in the morning. 30:50 When you, first thing in the morning, pick a time to check in with your partner when you have, it says 10 minutes, if you can do five that’s even, that’s that will be fine too. 31:00 The most important thing is that you have five or ten minutes of undivided attention and what you want to do is you want to ask is there anything you need from me today? How does this create turning toward? 31:13 It allows your partner to reflect on their own needs for a moment, and it makes clear that you really want to be there for them today if you can. 31:22 And it gives hope that if they state what they need, you’ll try to respond affirmatively. 31:27 It’s just one sentence, but it does a lot. It says, I love you and I want to be there for you. It’s a great trust builder. 31:34 So making time for a 10-minute or a 5-minute check-in in the morning, is there anything you need from me today is a great way of creating an opportunity for a connection. 31:53 So one of the things I’d like you to be on the lookout is always be aware that there are small bits for connection going on all the time. 32:03 Eye contact, a smile, a sigh, a direct ask, saying good morning or good night, asking for a favor. You notice them carrying something by themselves. You offer to help. 32:16 Every time you respond positively to your partner’s bid, you’re depositing money in their emotional bank account. 32:23 And with small moments throughout each day, you can make sure that your deposits outnumber your withdrawals. 32:34 I would like to go over this, but I think we’re going to probably run short on time, but you do have access to the slides. 32:42 What I’d like us to be aware of is, nobody is expected to get this perfect. 32:49 It’s the making the constant attempts, remembering to do it daily, remembering to turn towards as frequently as possible. 32:59 And one thing, just acknowledge, if you can’t do it at that time, you can say, look, I’d really love to hear about this, but I have to X, send the email, get the kids to bed, please remember to tell me about it later. 33:12 Just acknowledge that you want to turn towards the bid, but circumstances prevent it. 33:16 It is so much better than simply ignoring the request. 33:20 Ignoring the request hurts, and over time ignoring bids for connection can lead to eroding trust in the relationship. 33:31 It’s like, I just don’t think you’re available for what I need. 33:39 I mentioned love maps. 33:41 Basically, the way I like to approach love maps with couples is you want to take some time regularly. 33:49 Maybe it doesn’t happen every day, but every day is great. 33:52 But at least maybe once a week, maybe over dinner or something, you take some time to do something other than talk about just your daily lives and all the stresses and responsibilities and the logistics again, but really just treat each other like you’re still getting to know each other and ask some questions that are open-ended and will lead you to have a conversation in which you can become curious and learn more about your partner. 34:21 For example, you could ask a big question. 34:24 What are some unfulfilled things in your life? 34:27 Or how have you changed in the past year? 34:29 Or what legacy do you want our kids take from your family. Or you can try something fun, light, or silly, right? 34:35 If you could design the perfect house for us, what would it look like? 34:39 These are ways that you can remain curious and open with each other. 34:44 And again, the more you do that, the more you are actually carrying your partner around in your head and your heart, you will have that sense of connection, right? 34:56 And you want stay up to date with each other. Accentuate the positive. Okay. 35:05 So, this has to do with what do we pay attention to. So, does this describe you sometimes? 35:21 You only see the things your partner has done wrong. 35:24 So, imagine following your partner through the house all day and and catalogue and tracking every time your partner does something wrong or neglects to do something right. 35:34 Basically, you’re building a list of all the ways your partner’s falling short and failing you, and you’re gonna stop giving them the benefit of the doubt, right? 35:42 So when you see a pile of lunch dishes in the sink, you don’t think, well, he had back-to-back Zoom meetings and was pressed for time, you think he doesn’t care about our home as much as I do, right? 35:53 So if If you’re doing that, chances are you are building up basically a case against your partner. 36:02 It’s going to be very difficult for you to hold them in that positive perspective that is so essential, right? 36:09 That leads you to be able to give them the benefit of the doubt. 36:15 So if we do this repeatedly, we can get into a situation where we find ourselves in negative sentiment override. 36:24 And essentially what this means is we only notice the things that our partner is doing wrong, and we find it very hard to even notice anything at all positive about our partner. 36:37 The way to disrupt this mental habit means we have to constantly be on the lookout for the positive. 36:45 When I was describing the sound relationship house, I was talking about shared fondness and admiration. 36:50 Essentially, what we want to be doing is looking for the things that our partner does that we are fond of and that we admire, and we want to let them know. 37:02 We want to point it out to them. 37:05 Every time we do that, just as we do with our children, when we catch them doing something good and we praise them or give them positive feedback, we reinforce that, right? 37:17 And so we’re actually reinforcing that positive connection that we have with our partner. 37:24 So noticing and accentuating the positive as frequently as possible, this is a way to build and strengthen that connection. 37:37 We want to express gratitude, we wanna say thank you for the things that our partner is doing. 37:44 We don’t want them to have the sense that we take them for granted. 37:47 Even if it’s something small and something they do every day Thank them tell them why this is a big deal to you I always recommend that we practice gratitude It is super good for your own health and it’s great for your relationship with each. 38:08 Thank you you’re building a culture of appreciation and basically expressing Appreciations having a culture of appreciation Where we point out to each other the things that we really like and admire of each other and positively reinforce those That is one of the top skills of the Masters of Love and Longevity. 38:25 So you want to keep the love, you want to accentuate the positive, and express appreciations. 38:32 Here’s one way to do it. 38:34 Just make it a point to, on a daily basis, give your partner a genuine compliment. 38:43 Here’s a suggested list. 38:45 If you were to paint a verbal portrait of your partner in words, which words would you choose? 38:50 Choose some words. By the way, I can share some of these handouts with you. I’d be happy to do that, but also you have this slide. 38:59 I start every couple off when we’re finishing up our assessment or starting treatment. 39:05 I suggest that they get into the daily habit or create a ritual in which they are expressing appreciations for each other, that they’re creating a culture of appreciation. 39:16 This has multiple beneficial effects. 39:21 So, in your own mind and heart, you are keeping in touch with the things that you most love and appreciate about your partner. 39:28 That feels good, and you’re letting them know, which is positively reinforcing it, and it’s creating that connection, right? 39:36 So, again, that’s another thing that is making a deposit in your emotional bank accounts, which we really want to make sure we’re doing as frequently as possible. 39:48 Okay, so this is a really big one. I want to pause. How are we doing so far? 39:53 Are we following along? 39:55 I know I’m covering a lot of material fairly quickly. Okay, we’re getting some thumbs up. 40:06 Okay. Yep, thumbs up. You’re doing good. Okay. 40:10 Boy, this is such an important topic that I almost wish we could do an entire presentation on this, but I just to tease this idea. Asking for our needs. 40:24 Most of the individuals and couples that I work with have difficulty simply identifying and asserting what it is that they need. 40:38 We’re cultured from early on not to acknowledge our needs. That’s selfish. 40:43 We’re not supposed do that. Or if we do have a need, we’re not supposed to announce them. 40:48 We should wait respectfully for maybe for our birthday or for somebody to kind of figure out that maybe that’s what we need. 40:56 So women are taught, don’t be too needy. 40:58 Men are taught, you should be tough and strong and not have needs. 41:02 And many of us have had experience of not having our needs or having them ignored early in life. We don’t have a sense that our needs are even important or valid, right? 41:12 And so then we will tend to tiptoe around them instead of stating them outright. 41:18 And so I always introduce very early on a way that is very successful at bringing up and expressing a need in a way that is most likely to get that need positively responded to. 41:40 Again, these are some of the ways that asking for our needs can go wrong. 41:45 Sometimes we expect our partner to read our mind, or we hope our partner will just know because it’s common sense. 41:51 Or when our needs aren’t being met, sometimes we will go directly to criticism like, how come you never? 41:57 Or why do you always? 41:58 Or I wish you wouldn’t leave your socks on the living room floor, becomes you’re such a slob, right? 42:03 It becomes a character attack when really it’s just a basic need. 42:07 I have a need for cleanliness and order. 42:09 I should be able to express that to you in a direct way. 42:14 And so there’s a way to do this, and essentially what you want to do when you’re asking for your needs is you can use what we call a gentle startup. 42:24 And the magic around this is you don’t start off with you always, how come you never. 42:31 You want to describe yourself. 42:34 You don’t ask her what you need by telling your partner what they’re doing wrong. 42:37 You don’t even start by talking at your about your partner at all. 42:40 This is about you So you want to describe the situation that you’re upset about or that you would like to see some change in and then This will allow your partner to see What it is that you’re looking for instead of feeling like they’re being attacked or that they’re put on the defensive Because you’re letting them they’re letting you down and then you want to state your positive need What could your partner do for you to make you feel better? 43:11 You want to be specific, you want to be clear, and you want to keep it positive, right? 43:16 So think of your request as an opportunity for your partner to do something right for you that you will really appreciate. 43:22 Basically, you’re giving your partner a roadmap for how to shine for you. 43:27 How does this work? 43:30 Well, instead of saying, you never make time for me anymore, Or obviously you couldn’t care less about our relationship. 43:37 You could say, I feel lonely when we go this long without really spending quality time together. 43:43 I feel lonely. 43:44 This is my feeling about not spending quality time in this situation. 43:49 Can we find some time just to be together? 43:54 Instead of saying you always leave the kitchen such a mess, what a slob you are, don’t you think I want to relax at the end of the night too? 44:00 You can say, I feel overwhelmed lately, your feeling. 44:03 By all there is to do around the house, the situation. 44:08 Could you please take over the dishes or laundry this week? 44:11 Your positive need. 44:15 So this is the general startup formula, right? 44:18 You make statements that start with I instead of you. 44:20 I’ve been feeling a certain sort of way about the situation. 44:25 And then talk clearly about what you need in positive terms. 44:28 What I would really like or really appreciate it is. 44:31 then you’re requesting a very specific behavior and it really helps if you can check in with your partner and say you know what I would really like is and then is that something you’d be willing to do and get their buy-in get their commitment all right so um I will just briefly scan over this because I think we’re pretty much coming up pretty quickly on the end of our time I want to suggest that if you’re going to ask for a need, a good way of setting yourself up for success is to make sure that you’re checking in with your partner to see if they are available. 45:20 Timing matters, especially with super busy partners. 45:24 So if you’re going to ask for a need, this is basically a bid for a connection, right? 45:29 So you want to make sure that your expressing a need, identifying a need, and expressing it is challenging, you can always start with something easy or maybe start with something that they’re already doing and just request a little bit more of that, right? That’s a low-risk way of asking for a need. 45:52 And then, you know, when they’re able to do that, then you can offer a thank you and you can both feel good about that. So it’s a good way to kind of start up. 46:03 All right. I do have a few more slides, but I’m mindful of the time. I’m wondering if… 46:12 Brianna, are you still there? Hello? 46:18 Yeah, Brianna and I are still here. 46:21 Okay, wonderful. In terms of time, should we… Do you think we should open it up for questions? 46:28 How many more slides do you have? 46:30 So, basically, I wanted to cover the importance of physical touch just as a building. 46:42 So, good. 46:42 Let me… 46:43 Yeah. 46:43 Go right ahead. 46:44 Yeah. 46:44 I’ll take a moment about this. 46:45 This is so important. 46:47 It’s too bad that I left it for last because, really, it’s… 46:50 When it comes to maintaining our connection, physical touch is so, so, so important. 46:57 All right, so touch, all touch, not just sexual touch is very powerful, it’s soothing, it helps you connect emotionally, and it builds trust. 47:09 It also, again, it strengthens your immune system, it increases disease resistance, and so on. 47:17 It actually lowers your sensitivity to pain, if you can believe this. 47:22 Holding hands with your partner has been shown in experiments to actually reduce your sensitivity to physical pain. 47:32 What do we want to do in terms of our daily life? 47:36 We want to build in what we call rituals of connection around touch. 47:40 For example, it’s so important being mindful and attentive of how we welcome each other home at the end of the day, for example, or saying goodbye in the morning with a kiss. 47:51 According to one study men who kiss their wives goodbye in the morning live five years longer than men who don’t I’m not sure Exactly why that is But it’s a great statistic, isn’t it? 48:02 A 20 second hug releases oxytocin into your bloodstream Holding the hand of your partner reduces sensitivity to pain I’ve heard that the research shows that kisses that are six seconds or longer and and hugs that are 20 seconds or longer both have the effect of releasing oxytocin in your bloodstream. Oxytocin is basically the love hormone, the bonding hormone. 48:27 If you want to increase your sense of connection, make time for physical touch. 48:35 Even people who report that they’re not getting as much touch as they would like, their relationships improve when they saw their partner was actually making an effort, right? 48:44 So, put that on the menu, express to each other, and this is a great opportunity to use your general startup. 48:51 You know, I’ve been feeling a little bit lonely. 48:53 I love it so much, you know, when you just, when you’re passing and you put your hand on my shoulder, or maybe you give me a little neck rub when I’m feeling stressed out. 49:01 That would be so meaningful to me. 49:03 Asking for those kind of needs, building and rituals of connection around touch, very powerful. 49:11 So again, these are some examples a kiss for six seconds hugging for 20 seconds holding hands for as long as you like You know if you’re watching TV in the evening or whatever holding hands always a good idea Trading a 10-minute massage cuddling on the couch touching feet under the table putting your arm around your partner See how many many touches you can squeeze into one day They are so powerful and I always suggest that couples Schedule regular date nights. 49:45 You’ve probably heard this before It is a tried-and-true thing and by the way, this doesn’t have to be anything fancy or expensive Sometimes just if you have some time at any time during the week It doesn’t even have to be like a weekend night or anything like that. 50:04 You can Set aside all distractions maybe you can even put down a blanket in the living room floor light a fire in the fireplace and just Create some us time, right? No screens, no phones, FaceTime. 50:20 Probably don’t want to have too much to drink, right? You want to be able to be present and engaged. 50:26 Make sure that you’re both wanting to do this. Don’t say, you know, let’s, okay, you know, join me or not. 50:35 A big important thing here to take some of the pressure off is don’t assume that it has to end in ***, right? 50:42 it’s about having that face time. 50:44 It’s about having that connection. 50:45 It’s about prioritizing your couple relationship. 50:50 If one person needs to vent or talk about what’s stressing them out, great. 50:55 Create some space for that, right? 50:57 It doesn’t have to be super romantic or perfect. 51:00 Besides, there’s gonna be other date nights, so if that’s what you need, maybe you need to have a stress-reducing conversation. 51:06 You can do that. 51:07 Maybe you wanna take the time to ask some open-ended questions to love map each other. 51:14 Express interest and curiosity. 51:17 Keep it simple, and the emphasis is on conversation and time and touch and intimacy together wherever. 51:26 And by the way, scheduling intimacy. 51:30 I just read something on my LinkedIn feed about people sort of having at pooh-pooing the idea of scheduling intimacy. 51:44 And I was like, well, you wouldn’t say that about scheduling a softball game and you enjoy softball. 51:48 It just means you’re gonna have a softball game. 51:50 So why would you take that same attitude with scheduling intimacy? 51:54 I thought that was pretty interesting. 51:56 So I’m going to wrap up on that positive note and we have some definite time for questions. 52:04 Here are some of my sources and I’ll just put up this slide And if anybody has any questions, I am ready to answer those. 52:17 We’re going to stop the recording now. 52:21 OK.