Your Emotions and Your Relationships

Last night I watched part of PBS’s This Emotional Life. This segment was about a husband and wife and their trials and tribulations. Of course they were totally in love when they married, subsequently had four children and things went south. She felt like she was a great mom but he wasn’t very available. He felt like his wife criticized everything he did so he clammed up, disappeared. As their lives continued on this path, he had an affair. Fortunately for them, they began couples counseling.

The therapist helped them communicate with each other as best he could. His belief was that he needed to watch couples have conflict so he could help them change and grow from it. Oftentimes, the husband would use basketball as a way of explaining something to his wife. Every time he did, she got mad. She simply didn’t understand why he kept on talking about basketball and felt like he was changing the subject.

Finally the therapist asked the husband about his father. It turns out that his father had been murdered when he was two years old. The therapist asked if he had any memories of his father. The husband said he did. He remembered that his father gave him a basketball. He said he couldn’t really get his arms around it but he hugged it all the time.

You should have seen the look on his wife’s face when she heard those words. Her face and her body language softened. It was so beautiful because you could see that she understood something very important about her husband that she hadn’t before this conversation. It was obvious that something big had shifted in her and that things would change between them.

We often don’t take the time to ask questions. To find out what makes each other tick, or to find out how our past has influenced us. We don’t even know what questions to ask. Sometimes we’re too busy, sometimes too polite, sometimes don’t even care.

In these days when everything goes so fast it’s important to connect with those we love, to get current with what’s happening with them and with us and to laugh while we do it. For this reason, Do Tell, the Relationship Game is the perfect remedy. It sets the space to have fun and get more connected with the folks we love. So don’t wait any longer -  we’re here to love and feel happy and here is one terrific way to accomplish both.