As intimate relationships mature and progress, things aren’t always what they use to be in ways you may miss. What begins with attraction and develops passion frequently devolves into relationship conflict and dissatisfaction that can leave partners wondering what happened to the joy they once had together. No one marries with the intent of eventual divorce. Yet separation and disillusionment occur with despairing frequency.
Manifestations of disappointment and frustration usually have roots underneath the surface. Even though much of this is predictable and correctable, many people give up psychologically and sink into withdrawal, resentment, agitated conflict, or worse. A former colleague once described an unsatisfactory partner relationship as “living in a barn with a dead horse.” Perhaps overly graphic and dismal, but many can relate.
Though not universal, wanting a partner or companion for closeness and intimacy is normal and common. Such relationships carry vulnerability and the problems that are revealed and known. Costs can be involved whether a person is attached or unattached. Comedian Chris Rock framed the quandary as “single and lonely, or married and bored.” But this sardonic juxtaposition of relationship frustration does not have to be the fate of those who aspire to greater harmony and trust their hearts. Relationship familiarity has rewards and perils, but spiraling into cynicism or contempt can be avoided. Even the most predictable pitfalls are usually recoverable. Intimate relationships bare our vulnerabilities and flaws. Pastor Rick Warren says, “Marriage doesn’t cause your problems; marriage doesn’t solve your problems; marriage reveals your problems.”
The natural and welcome attraction that occurs when two people bond is a wondrous and memorable phenomenon. Most can recall the excitement first felt when the hormones flowed with easy replenishment, and feelings of importance and value flooded the heart and mind with energy and devotion. But feelings and behaviors can change over time, and seemingly strange and unwelcome attitudes and interactions may replace the previous flames of invitation, attentiveness, receptivity, and passion. The unfortunate result is often the sense that “You don’t love me like you used to.” The intersection between matters of the heart and behavioral science helps to explain this devolvement and lead the way toward resuscitating interest and desire.
Broken relationships can be repaired!
I’ve been married twice. My first marriage lasted twenty-eight years, and I have been with my current wife for eighteen years as of this writing. I am a “long-term relationship man” and a dedicated advocate of marriage. As a husband and father, and as a psychologist, I am keenly interested and invested in making relationships work in healthy win-win coupling happiness. I have counseled couples over many decades (arguably the hardest work in psychotherapy) and even wrote a book, Staying Madly in Love With Your Spouse: Guide to a Happier Marriage (2012).
However I don’t claim to have all the answers (and I sometimes struggle in my own marriage), nor do I believe that any or all relationships can or should be saved. Over the years of maturing, acquiring insight, making many mistakes, and unearthing better understanding of human foibles and interpersonal dynamics, I have uncovered and developed some key strategies for resolving conflict, becoming more compassionate and accepting, and wisely distinguishing what can be fixed and what simply must be tolerated or abandoned.
When two people connect with intimate interest, their union, if continued, is roughly characterized by the following stages, especially in a deteriorating relationship:
Attraction. A spark, an interest, a chemistry starts the ignition. Senses are aroused and one or both people are intrigued and want to know more. Hormones do their part and carry the appeal forward.
Enchantment. Becoming more acquainted, the partners experience delight in the presence of and interaction with each other. The dynamic grows stimulating and fulfilling.
Infatuation. Attraction becomes more intense and encompassing. Mind and heart are filled with the aura generated by the other; thoughts and feelings cascade with admiration, good will, and absorption.
Romance.The attraction and intensity progress and blossom into amorous feelings and intent. Physical intimacy usually accompanies a desire to please and satisfy. Romance is typically experienced as extraordinary, which nurtures and creates bonds that can last a long time.
Appreciation. Over time, lovers acknowledge and revisit their appreciation for what their partner brings to the relationship, for admirable qualities, and for consideration in the ways they are treated. Recognizing and highlighting appreciation contributes to each partner feeling fortunate and special to have the other as a companion.
Devotion. Commitment and loyalty comprise an attachment that bonds and maintains the constancy of valuing the other person and the sanctity of the relationship.
Erosion. Even in the most workable of relationships, time and familiarity wear away at some or much of the initial fascination. This is normal and natural. However, in relationships that degenerate to profound dissatisfaction and alienation, erosion (called reinforcement erosion) must be countered to rekindle the attraction that has subsided and supplant any negative aspects that have arisen.
Boredom. All too often, excitement and novelty fade to boredom. Quirks that may have been previously endearing can become viewed as annoying habits. Personalities, habits, stubbornness, selfishness, and sexual sameness or withholding can progressively detract from interest, stimulation, and satisfaction. Familiarity and reliability may be comforting and provide security, but may also leave emptiness and lead partners to diminished interest and drifting apart.
Stagnation. Same old, same old can overtake and grow tiresome, leaving couples in a stagnant state. The relationship feels stuck, and neither partner can or will instigate change that creates more flow and satisfaction. Woody Allen’s character in Annie Hall remarked, “A relationship is like a shark—it has to keep moving to survive. I guess what we’ve got is a dead shark.”
Rebellion. When a situation becomes too fraught or frustrating, rebellion can ensue as a method of expressing anger, resentment, and/or demand for change. One or both partners may act overtly or passive-aggressively to “get back” at or attempt to control the other. Whether consciously intended or not, this behavior is destructive and damaging to the relationship.
Resignation. At some point, one or both partners may give up on a dissatisfying and dysfunctional relationship. This can mean leaving the relationship, or staying but psychologically withdrawing into resentment and/or limited expectations and resigned acceptance.
Marry and with luck
It may go well.
But when a marriage fails
Those who marry live at home in hell.
If “You don’t love me like you used to” rings true for you, you are not alone. I will offer explanations for what you may be experiencing and suggestions and recommendations to make things better. In his book, Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Passionate Relationships (1997), David Schnarch equates passion with high desire. He describes sexual desire as one source of energy contributing to total stimulation. He refers to desire during sex rather than desire for sex. He notes that this kind of desire derives from maturation rather than infatuation. This book amplifies this concept. When you’re madly in love, you desire engagement with your spouse, you feel enthralled when you’re engaged, and you find satisfaction after engagement.
Let’s take a closer look at this dynamic:
Engagement as it relates to marriage is being connected with and attentive to another person. When you desire engagement, you anticipate and seek involvement with your spouse. The expectation of a fulfilling experience heightens the desire for and orientation toward your spouse and manifests in a spectrum of diverse activities.
Participating in activities and interactions with your spouse is infinitely more rewarding when you’re madly in love. This enhancement affects verbal interactions, shared goals, and duties having to do with the household or child-rearing, as well as your physical intimacy. To feel enthralled, you must feel good about being involved.
Satisfaction means finding reward, fulfillment, or some kind of payoff for your efforts and involvement. It doesn’t mean getting your way necessarily, or that disagreements are resolved, or that your spouse behaves exactly the way you want. Rather, it means you are habitually able to feel good about how you interpreted and responded to what happened. This involves healthy esteem for you and your partner.
Your reactions to the points above might include:
“You don’t know my spouse!”
“Oh, how I’ve tried for years.”
“What if my partner isn’t willing?”
“What about cheating, lying . . . ?”
“My spouse is irresponsible, alcoholic, abusive . . .”
Such reactions are credible. Perhaps you have suffered and struggled with these issues for a long time. Such perceptions and a desire for a more fulfilling relationship are legitimate and justified, as is the frustration that your spouse doesn’t do all that may be required to achieve this. I have faced these challenges firsthand, personally and through the thousands of people I’ve counseled. The temptation is to find fault, spend time and effort seeking validation for your point of view, or give up trying.
Constantly imposing your does not work over the long haul. The process of compromise involves setting limits and realistic boundaries to curtail unreasonable or insensitive behaviors.
Your spouse may be difficult, absent, contrary, irresponsible, or dysfunctional. However, only you can determine whether such characteristics and behaviors prevent you from getting what you really want: a relationship with your partner—hopefully one that:
Staying madly in love with your spouse requires that your spouse also makes some contributions, but the state of being depends mostly upon you. The capacity and maturity to be whole and complete in yourself is necessary to bring emotional commitment and connection to your relationship without becoming fused to your spouse with no room to breathe and individuate.
People grow at different rates. Personal and circumstantial problems can intrude upon the relationship. These obstacles are grist for the mill. In the process, you will have opportunities to refine and transform your character so that you can become more compassionate and empathetic toward your mate. This will, in turn, likely allow a more passionate relationship to evolve.
Way back when, you probably found your spouse incredibly attractive. Perhaps that flame still flickers or glimmers intermittently. Maybe you now look at your spouse and wonder when the magic disappeared, or what you saw in them in the first place. What happened to the passion and love?
For many couples, memories of strong allure and good times shine through clouds of disappointment and conflict that accumulate as the years pass. For those couples, the glue that holds the relationship together is strong enough to weather the inevitable obstacles that have the potential to inexorably chip away at the intimacy and appeal that were once dominant. But keeping the flame burning requires work that they may not have the energy nor the knowledge to sustain. In the midst of conflict or mounting resentment, it can be difficult to remember or recapture the attraction and openness that once nourished the relationship and made both partners inviting and receptive toward each other.
This phenomenon of diminished passion and excitement is both natural and normal. However, it’s confusing and disturbing for most people; and if not countered by conscious and systematic plans and actions, it can decimate the marriage. Just as aging takes a physical toll, the progress of a marriage takes a toll on the organic structure of the relationship.
Fortunately, you can anticipate, divert, and repair the degrading influences that otherwise impair the health of your attitude, satisfaction, and relationship. As with physical health, good habits early on pay off down the road.
Like most human activities, love is a habit. The continuation and practice of what we experience as love is composed of a compendium of feelings, thoughts, chemistry, and actions that involve another “special” person. The beginning of a love relationship is transformational, and the associated feelings evolve in a nonlinear manner. Suddenly, a flood of warm and arousing emotions and a gush of internal chemicals and excitement easily and continually ignite.
The way this attraction takes off seems almost magical and carries hearts on the wings of hope and ecstasy. The experience of infatuation and its associated thought and behavior patterns becomes literally habit-forming. Propelled by nature and its biological roots, the good feelings and thoughts, physical attraction, and attention that each partner devotes become strengthened through repetition and practice. At the beginning, this is easy to do without much conscious effort because it feels good and seems to come naturally. You notice the lovely things about your partner. Your beloved lavishes attention and affection upon you. Physical chemistry strengthens the attraction. You feel alive and capable, energized and optimistic about giving and receiving. You’re flattered and ego-strengthened by the adoration.
You also notice and pay attention to your partner’s subtlest behaviors, highlighting what pleases you. The attention you give and receive strengthens the likelihood that such behaviors will reoccur with frequency. This process is known as reinforcement. In behavioral psychology, we say that a behavior (conscious or otherwise) has been reinforced when it maintains or increases in frequency, intensity, or duration.
During the infatuation stage of a relationship, reinforcement of attentive and pleasing behaviors is constant. If not, the relationship wouldn’t progress. If your partner was regularly annoyed, criticized, or rejected by you, the pleasurable bond would be dampened and stymied. Such a knife obviously cuts both ways.
The reinforcement (or strengthening) of behaviors in the interaction between partners grows gradually in a process known as incremental shaping. When you shape a behavior, you build it into a habit gradually, incrementally, and often without noticing. We all shape our behaviors, consciously or not, those that are desirable and those that are undesirable.
We can see this same shaping phenomenon operating when we teach a dog to sit, give his paw, and then progress to more complex commands. The building blocks are carefully stacked one upon the other, and—voilà—you have a well-trained dog.
Sometimes these building blocks take the shape of positive, self-affirming behavior, and sometimes negative, self-destructive behavior. The same shaping principles are also applicable in other venues. When you exercise regularly, talk by phone with your parent or your kids, eat desserts, drink alcohol or take drugs, you are incrementally strengthening the likelihood that you’ll engage in the behavior again. This is true regardless of whether the behavior is beneficial or desirable or it is counterproductive or undesirable.
When you fell in love and engaged in constant reinforcement of each other’s behaviors—the ones that drew you together, you actually shaped each other’s attentive and pleasing behaviors. Much of it is hormonal and chemical, but that is true for other habits too. In that heady time, you became hooked on loving the other person, as it should be. After all, romance is enticing and delicious!
Nature brings other processes to bear in order to make relationships enduring and strong. Just as your nervous system springs into action when the demand is urgent or critical, you soon discover that you cannot sustain the high-alert stage for too long, because maintaining this level of arousal would ultimately prove unhealthy. Nature has methods for transitioning the continual reinforcement shaping to a less frequent but more enduring pattern known as an intermittent reinforcement schedule. This is simply an efficient and scientific way to describe and predict how behaviors increase and form habits. Though behavioral science may not seem particularly romantic, it is an underpinning for the good feelings, partnership, and commitment that necessarily preceded and supported such a marriage.
Frank Sinatra sang a song that relates to this called “(How Little It Matters) How Little We Know,” composed by Carolyn Leigh and Philip Springer, that refers to the “tingle” of lovers when they “intermingle” and how little we really know about these powerful chemical forces.
While you were “tingling and intermingling” during the initial highly charged romantic phases of your relationship, nature was at work, scientifically building the reinforcement bond that attached you to each other. As relationships mature, these reinforcement patterns transition to different schedules and, through these schedules, love and passion grow and flourish or erode and dwindle.
Some basic principles and properties of reinforcement help us understand how emotional bonds strengthen and weaken, and how attraction, desire, love, passion, resentment, disgust, ennui, etc., build and diminish. Behaviors obviously strengthen and reoccur with reinforcement. The connection of a consequence with a behavior, such that it strengthens or increases that behavior in frequency, intensity, or duration, is the active agent in the conditioning of desirable and undesirable behaviors. This reinforcement occurs within patterns of connections (schedules) between the consequences and behaviors that have predictable effects on those behaviors.
In the infatuation stage of a relationship, virtually every behavior contributing to the attraction is noticed and reinforced. When every instance of a response is reinforced, the schedule is called continuous reinforcement. The advantage to continuous reinforcement is that it facilitates the shaping of new behaviors. Because every instance of the behavior is encouraged, it’s easy to learn new things. But continuous reinforcement is not necessarily efficient or economical. A honeymoon cannot be maintained indefinitely for practical and hormonal reasons.
Nature has wisely provided intermittent reinforcement schedules that require less energy and preserve more economy and efficiency in order to maintain learned behaviors. With these schedules, by definition, some instances of the behavior are reinforced, and others are not. Though useful and efficient for maintaining behaviors, intermittent schedules but they are not very good for initiating or learning new behaviors.
Imagine if you called a new love interest quite a few times, and that person did not return many of your calls. Or think of a new date standing you up or ignoring your birthday. You would likely become discouraged, and your efforts to develop the relationship would dim or cease. Now imagine your spouse not returning several calls or not acknowledging your birthday or treating it with special attention. Surely you would be disappointed, but because of the history of intermittent reinforcement, such omissions by themselves would not deter you from continuing the relationship.
When you learn new things, you need a lot of encouragement and practice to cement the new behavior. This is the function of continuous reinforcement. Once the behavior is established, you need occasional reinforcement to maintain it. We have all learned thousands upon thousands of behaviors in this way—from academic skills to preparing food, driving a car, maintaining old friendships, and so forth. Intermittent reinforcement is an efficient way to maintain behaviors and cause them to be resistant to extinction.
Extinction is a behavioral term that defines the reduction of a behavior to the point of elimination. When behaviors are no longer reinforced, we say that they have been extinguished to the level of extinction (they no longer occur). By depriving or diminishing reinforcement of a behavior, nature (or man) erodes the reinforcement.
On a continuous reinforcement schedule, reinforcement erosion occurs rapidly because the behavior is conditioned by reinforcement every time. If you put money into a machine but did not get your product, how many more times would you put money into that same machine? Similarly, unrequited romantic overtures during nascent relationships will quickly erode and extinguish interest and effort.
Most established behaviors are maintained on intermittent reinforcement schedules that have evolved over long periods of time, and they can be quite resistant to extinction—that is, they can endure prolonged “droughts,” only to be revived and strengthened by infrequent reinforcement. For instance, seasoned athletes can weather “slumps” of diminished performance without quitting; they are familiar with these downturns and expect to break out of them. Veteran salespersons and businesspeople (and creatives) experience lots of rejection, yet they persist due to familiarity with the cycle of long and unpredictable gaps between motivating reinforcements.
How does this apply to love and passion?
As explained, the initial relationship stages are characterized by high rates of continuous reinforcement. This excitement and “learning” develop the bond. Gradually, the attraction and the patterns of relating make transitions to intermittent reinforcement. As you grow more secure in the relationship—culminating the commitment and security—you are reinforced with less-frequent occurrences of praise, attention, validation, and even sex. This is natural and doesn’t have to damage the relationship or make love insipid or boring. However, what happens in many marriages is that the initial passion erodes without being transitioned to more enduring intermittent schedules that maintain the flames.
To make matters worse, other behaviors evolve surreptitiously and inadvertently to intermittent reinforcement schedules within the relationship—the stealth behaviors that partners find irritating and objectionable in each other, their habits and characteristics that you may now deplore.
Common gripes:
I love being married. It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life
Rita RudnerBecause annoying and disruptive stealth behaviors evolve in the same manner as the attraction behaviors did, they become stronger through the process of intermittent reinforcement. Soon they are hard to ignore. You may try to downplay them, and may succeed for a while, but when your coping mechanisms are overwhelmed, you react to the stealth behaviors, and the reinforcement cycle strengthens.
In most relationships the attraction/pleasing behaviors and the stealth behaviors compete with each other. When you pay attention to a behavior, it tends to strengthen and reoccur. Because annoying behaviors are hard to ignore, we tend to notice and react to them. This not only strengthens them (even if we don’t mean to)—it also contributes to the reinforcement erosion of the attraction/pleasing behaviors. Over time, your spouse’s objectionable behaviors tend to encroach on and assume a tenured place in your mind and heart. How can you focus on your spouse’s pleasing characteristics when you’re miffed by the careless, selfish, inconsiderate behaviors?.
To counteract the cycle of reinforcement erosion of passion and its replacement with strengthened habits of attending and reinforcing the behaviors that are inimical to passion and intimacy, you must learn and practice some techniques to enable you to override the corroding influences of habits that have occurred in relationships left unmanaged.
Many variations on themes underly the diminution of health, attraction, and closeness in marriage relationships. They all conform to the basic structure of reinforcement erosion (of loving behaviors) and replacement by intermittent reinforcement of divisive behaviors. Yet little is more insidious and relentless than the phenomenon of boredom—the silent killer of passion and the frequent foe of staying madly in love with your spouse.
Boredom is a slow torture that erodes satisfaction and involvement, saddles sufferers with complaints, detracts from engagement in relationships, and undermines productivity. Boredom is antithetical to passion. When you’re bored, it’s challenging to be attentive, involved, interactive, and responsive.
When circumstances are unsatisfying, the issues often seem to be external. Someone else makes you mad, a situation is frustrating, events are depressing, and challenges appear overwhelming, insoluble, and unfair. Time creeps by interminably slower when you’re bored. Situations may seem stifling, repetitive, and tedious, and the people with whom you’re interacting may put your toes to sleep. The classroom, business meeting, waiting in line, movie, book, job, relatives, and even your spouse may elicit a pervasive and numbing sense of weariness. Boredom may literally be wringing all the zeal from your life.
Though troubled marital relationships take many forms, boredom is a common denominator that frequently afflicts many distressed marriages. As time passes, couples may find that their relationship lacks luster and excitement; the thrill is gone. Routine responsibilities, pressures, and bills become never-ending rituals, and married life devolves into the “same-old” patterns of obligations and tedium. You’re increasingly aware of how unsatisfying and dull your marriage has become! Take heart though, because you can resurrect the vim and vigor in your relationship. The solution to your boredom actually resides within you, not in the conditions that seem to create it.
Though boredom may appear as an inherent property of external conditions, it’s actually generated from within your own brain and nervous system. The experience of boredom is the cognitive and emotional perception, a neurological function of under arousal. Our nervous systems are complex and sensitive dynamic feedback mechanisms that modulate sensation and interaction by means of the inhibition and disinhibition of neurons. Think of your nervous system as a vehicle for transporting messages that accelerate and brake. Motor movement, hormonal secretions, thoughts, and feelings are activated when nerve cells fire (acceleration or disinhibition) electrochemical signals that move rapidly across millions of cells. This process is the basis of our survival, our interactions with the world around us, and our interpretations about those interactions. The conditions required for neuronal firing depend upon action potentials—thresholds necessary for cells to transmit under varying conditions.
When an action potential is reached, there is disinhibition—the firing or release of signals across neurons that propels the responses. With insufficient activation to elicit the action potential, neurons are inhibited (brakes applied). These processes are so fundamental to daily life (like gravity) that we don’t even think about them until some problem or glitch confronts us.
When seeing traffic signals or deciding to change lanes, our brain activates the accelerator and braking mechanisms in our nervous system to control either the acceleration or slowing of the car. Similarly, when you raise a glass of water to your lips and take a sip, this seemingly automatic action actually involves a complex but typically unnoticed feedback loop of disinhibition and inhibition. If driving, brushing your teeth, getting dressed, or any other routine activity is not a challenge for you, it might seem peculiar to think about whether these tasks are boring. We usually attribute boredom to being restricted or waiting passively for someone else to act. But any activity that involves the nervous system can be boring if the brain is insufficiently aroused.
I routinely assist parents who have not been able to get their children to follow through in a timely manner with mundane daily activities such as dressing and hygiene tasks, transitioning from one undertaking to the next, and responding to directions or cues to act. Children often admit to being bored by required activities, from daily self-care to paying attention to schoolwork. To gain their attention, I talk with them about boredom.
Understanding how the dynamics of this affliction degrades the satisfaction and performance of so many people is usually an eye-opener. After explaining the troublesome role of boredom, I furnish a treatment plan to relieve their boredom. The plan involves training their brains, using EEG neurofeedback, to be more activated and engaged. The very notion that you can relieve boredom from within, rather than by escaping or changing the circumstance, is quite revolutionary! (Among many in the San Francisco Bay area, I am known as the “boring doctor”!)
As is typical in the bored-to-tears-and-distracted student who underperforms in school, low arousal can creep into one’s perception and behavior and make a marriage feel boring. I am not referring specifically to sex, although that domain can be part of the problem. Under arousal is a brain state—not a figment, fantasy, or false expectation, but a neurological habit that feels unpleasant and generates perceptions that the boredom is being caused or inflicted by somebody or something else.
Some life situations are not particularly stimulating. Few people like to wait in lines, sit in traffic, or endure tedious lectures. (As I write this, I am sitting in an airplane on a very long flight that could be rather boring were I not engrossed in communicating with you!)
Various habits and behaviors can reinforce the feeling of boredom with a spouse. That extra dessert may be disheartening and cause dismay about their bulging waistline and the subsequent loss of physical attractiveness. Perhaps your spouse doesn’t respond with interest to your inquiry about how their day went or not listen to or be interested in the stresses and challenges of your day. You can become enmeshed in the “same old” frustrating cycle of disinterest, disengagement, and chronic low arousal. But don’t despair!
You can change this chronic pattern of boredom by manipulating the arousal patterns of your own brain and your interactions with your spouse. This “secret sauce” will infuse your relationship with revived interest and excitement. Moreover, these techniques can also erase your boredom in other areas of life and, in so doing, make yourself more dynamic, productive, and attractive. The secret lies in taking charge of reinforcement schedules.
Behaviors wax and wane, and habits form and persist, according to our schedules of reinforcement. To break a habit, we must deprive it of its reinforcement, which is not always easy or practical. The work-around is to introduce new behaviors that are incompatible with the ones we want to eliminate, and to put them on reinforcement schedules that compete with the old ones, thereby eroding the reinforcement of the undesirable habits.
As with bacteria, boredom is opportunistic. This state of under arousal waits for conditions that are conducive for it to thrive. As relationships mature and the infatuation transitions to more practical and efficient patterns of variable intermittent reinforcement, these transitional reinforcement patterns do not always develop adequately (which tends to happen without conscious effort, like putting money into a vending machine), then reinforcement erosion accelerates and paves the way for the shaping of prolonged low arousal that results in boredom. The antidote is to change those schedules and develop a self-reinforcement of arousal.
A curious problem in changing one’s own behaviors occurs when the other person doesn’t or won’t change theirs. Despite our best efforts to introduce new attitudes and behaviors, others don’t necessarily always play along. An adolescent patient many years ago, when reporting on how it went with his parents after we rehearsed some new behaviors for him, told me, “I did just what you taught me, calmly and perfectly. However, my father didn’t read from ‘the script,’ and he didn’t act the way he was supposed to!”
How do we break the vicious cycle after you approach your spouse with a new and exciting idea, an attentive behavior, or a pledge to fulfill some need or commitment, and your partner still responds with a disheartening disinterest or refusal.
Facing rejection, disapproval, or lack of enthusiasm, especially in the wake of your significant effort and courage to resuscitate a dull or withering relationship can be discouraging. So rather than depending on your partner’s reaction, choose to strengthen your new behavior by your internal response to the new act. Reinforce yourself for beginning new behaviors and shaping them into habits. Good salespeople persevere despite continued rejections, and even outstanding and successful athletes weather the dearth of external reinforcement by persevering proactively, making adaptations as needed, and providing self-reinforcement in the form of an internal narrative of accolades for effort and incremental progress toward a desired goal.
Your spouse is not the opposition or competition, even if it may feel that way at times. The true opposition is the reinforcement schedules that favor boredom (under arousal) and erode interest and passion. You must create opportunities to modify these schedules—and you can!
A boredom state of mind can be controlled through the management of neurological action potentials, which are regulated through inhibition and disinhibition. The following techniques can effectively influence and regulate these cycles.
This technique is a training in self-regulation, which is a necessary part of good brain function. Self-regulation training makes your brain and central nervous system function more capably. EEG neurofeedback directly trains one’s brainwaves with the use of computers and specific, carefully calibrated software. The program is based on electrical brain activity measured by an EEG (electroencephalogram). The process exercises and tunes the brain to more functional timing mechanisms, like an operant conditioning of brainwaves, using reinforcement schedules to shape and alter brain arousal and the action potentials (inhibition and disinhibition) of neurons. Regulating the brain’s arousal patterns make you much less bored.
Results occur relatively quickly—in days for some people, in months for others, using the same timing principles of nature that allow us to grow and heal, those that permeate the entire world and form the basis of physics and biology. Timing information in our DNA controls growth and development (and possibly the onset of disease and breakdown). The “timing” of our brain and nervous system determines whether we are impulsive, impatient, sleepy, and even whether we understand a concept. By training (or tuning) the timing mechanisms, nature’s principles influence states of being and automatically correct minor and major ailments and impairments that derail the ability to stay involved, attentive, and passionate.
EEG neurofeedback effectively initiates and enables a healing process and allows you to harness your brain’s capabilities and potential, including regulating your levels of excitement and excitability. The brain is permitted to function more efficiently and proficiently due to its plasticity or ability to adapt and utilize different aspects of itself when this flexibility is advantageous. During neurofeedback training, you are able to observe your brain in action from moment to moment on a computer screen. The practitioner shows you how this information simultaneously rewards your brain for changing its activity to more appropriate patterns. This is a gradual learning process that affects and conditions any measurable aspect of brain function.
The process is collaborative and entails the client and therapist observing and altering the client’s brain patterns during the training session. When beginning neurofeedback working with a trained professional is most effective. Eventually, many people take charge of their own training by obtaining their own equipment and learning how to train themselves, like practicing at a gym with a trainer and then getting home equipment.
Thought Field Therapy (TFT) is a potent tool to defeat boredom and other negative emotions that allow maladaptive relationship patterns to develop and fester in a marriage. At its inception, TFT was primarily used to eliminate anxiety-based problems (i.e., phobias and panic) and various types of trauma. Over the years, practitioners expanded the range of applications to assist in treating many ailments, including physical maladies such as headaches, digestive upsets, and body pain. Using the body’s natural wisdom to store, manipulate, and unlock the codes that affect our conscious and subconscious thoughts, feelings, and behavioral motivations, TFT works quickly and effectively to eliminate any negative emotion and positively interrupt the linkages between thoughts and feelings to render inactive the perturbations in the thought field that caused the negative emotion. This allows for an alternative positive code that makes behavior change natural.
TFT is applied by finger tapping on meridian points on the upper body (the same meridian used in acupuncture). When applied at the appropriate locations in the correct sequences, the tapping transforms a slight physical/kinesthetic energy into signals to the brain and nervous system. Decoding those signals identifies the disturbance that occurs when the mind and body are in distress. Tapping point locations and sequences are determined by the codes. Appropriate tapping breaks the connection and collapses the negative code that set it. Garage door openers work on the same principle. A slight touch on a remote device sends an electronic signal that transduces radio waves into mechanical energy, causing a physical change that is disproportionate to the energy applied. Another example is the programming of an alarm where tapping in the appropriate code will disengage the alarm.
Tapping can be done with either hand and on either side of the body. It can be self-administered, or another person may administer it. Self-administration is conventional, preferable, and convenient, allowing for greater autonomy and self-sufficiency. TFT is easy to apply and has a high success rate. Applying TFT regularly to the negative emotions that obstruct clear thinking and derail perseverance and goal attainment will unlock meaningful behavior change. The key is to identify the thought fields that maintain these negative patterns and quickly eliminate the shackles that restrict your freedom to act flexibly and sensibly.
TFT is not a substitute for dealing with the reinforcement patterns that maintain unwanted habits, but when you routinely eliminate negative emotions, you discover how quickly you can erase boredom. This empowering process reveals new levels of understanding about the degree to which you can control yourself and positively affect the outcomes occurring in your life.
You may not be able to directly change your spouse’s behavior in many situations, but you’ll be able to implement positive behavioral interventions and modify the reinforcement schedules that cause and perpetuate boredom.
The ability to alter one’s thinking is a vital resource in the skill arsenal needed to prevail in life. To problem-solve effectively, you must be flexible in your thinking. All relationships—even great ones—present problems that must be addressed through objective analytical and strategic thinking, self-control, commitment, and perseverance. Good relationships are not problem-free or conflict-free. They require couples to purposefully develop the intention, ability, and flexibility to resolve or manage the inherent natural but often frustrating and contentious issues that arise in any marriage. A veteran method of changing one’s thinking is to reframe the context and perceptions of a vexing problem. A deliberate and specific attempt to recast or reinterpret an event is called cognitive reframing. When done intentionally, you use a cognitive control method to facilitate the prominence of certain beliefs and feelings over other beliefs and feelings to change a feeling and its associated perceptions. Psychologists refer to this process as cognitive behavior modification.
The technique of cognitive reframing is in widespread psychotherapeutic use. In practice and with professional guidance, the client substitutes thoughts or evaluations that have a more positive spin than the client’s habitual inner dialogue. For example, instead of complaining about how hopeless life seems or how poorly one performed, the person posits (reframes) self-statements such as:
“I will do better next time—this wasn’t such a disaster.”
“I have three things to look forward to in the next week . . .”
“My parents weren’t so bad—after all, I am functioning very well on my own . . .”
“I shouldn’t take it personally—he’s probably having a hard day.”
To apply this reframing process to boredom in a relationship, suppose your spouse is puttering around the house. Perhaps the mere sight of her still in a robe so late in the day is a letdown. She appears tense and preoccupied with getting things cleaned up, ignoring you except for the occasional grousing about all the tasks that need to be done. Though turned off by the too-familiar routine, you feel the stirrings of sexual interest.
You think, Maybe I should approach her from behind and kiss her neck. It would be easy to reach into her robe to get her aroused. Maybe sex would open things up for us.
You approach your wife and embrace her, breathing softly on her neck. She freezes for a moment, then sensing your intent, breaks away with a sarcastic comment.
Feeling rejected then angry, you retreat, and the rest of the evening progresses in stony silence and avoidance. You go about your evening activities by yourself and think, It always goes like this. Either she’s not in the mood, has some excuse or demand, or else I don’t even bother, and we end up leading separate lives under the same roof. How utterly boring and unsatisfying!
Try to reframe this scenario and add some shaping intervention to modify the reinforcement schedule. Though your spouse not at her most attractive, and she’s busy and ignoring you except for the occasional grousing about chores needing to be done, your mind drifts to sex. You hope she will respond to your advances even though your experience with this familiar routine suggests that is unlikely. You decide to try.
To gear yourself up for a likely rejection, you prepare yourself with more positive words and attitudes that will fortify your resolve and increase the likelihood that you will be glad you tried.
You think, She’ll probably be surprised and defensive with my approaching with affection, because it’s become so atypical for us to encounter in this way. If she rejects me, I’ll say I understand, but that the thought of making love to her excites me. Even if I get a sarcastic push away, I’ll shrug and smile and tell her that she still has that effect on me, and I’m her guy. At least she’ll know that I still find her desirable.
If she makes some demand, I won’t react immediately; instead, I’ll hear her demand as a genuine request. I might say, “Okay, hon, I’ll take out the garbage, check on the kids, and let you unwind. If you want me to rub your back, let me know, because I know you’re tired and working hard.”
In this replay, the rebuff is reframed. You are reinforcing yourself by being graceful and constructive, rather than sullen and reactive. You are shaping behaviors of teamwork, cooperation, understanding, and bids for affection that your spouse may find harder to overtly refuse. You still may not have sex that night, but you are breaking the negative cycle by introducing a positive spin and engaging in a manner that promotes respect and a safe emotional arousal instead of resentment and avoidance that reinforce negative thinking and boredom.
Prayer is the primary method for seeking solace and comfort from God by confiding, baring your needs, fears, confusion, frustration, and guilt as well as your hopes. A personal relationship with God is a potent tool for changing your response to circumstances and other people, as well as yourself. Prayer is a humble way to use power.
Prayer may seem unnatural or something other people do, but when you’re stuck, frustrated, or bored, we all need something or someone to help us relieve our discomfort. Looking beyond yourself for solutions is logical. Even if you think prayer is superstitious, or you are not convinced of God’s existence, ask yourself how rational it is for you to suffer when you actually have choices about how you experience any circumstance.
Prayer is a way of mobilizing forces beyond your control. You can pray for strength, enlightenment, excitement, and change in yourself and others. You can pray anywhere, at any time, in any situation. That, along with your intention, provides the freedom to set new reinforcement schedules and make positive change!
God hears your prayers, whether you know it or not. Prayer is even more powerful when two people do it together. Praying with and for another person is the ultimate appeal to well-being.
As you become more engaged with whatever you do, whether these are activities of your discretion or routine responsibilities such as work and family, you will reinforce the behaviors that can revive and intensify the appeal that first attracted you to your spouse. You can learn and practice cognitive techniques that buttress your interest in the daily obligations and responsibilities that you may now endure and associate with boredom. Whatever you do in other areas of your life to counteract boredom will easily transfer to your married relationship.
Obviously, it’s advisable to practice healthy habits—exercise, maintain a good diet, get quality sleep on a regular schedule, and avoid smoking (anything) and becoming habitually buzzed or intoxicated. In addition to the known deleterious effects, drugs and alcohol essentially condition the brain to be bored when it’s deprived of the transitory excitement these highly addictive substances provide. Healthy lifestyle habits promote arousal and mitigate boredom. I assure you: nothing you can see, do, ingest, inhale, or participate in can match the harmonious sense of being alive and “in the zone” that derives from being madly in love with your spouse. When you can access this state on a regular basis, you’ll laugh, rejoice, pinch yourself, and scratch your head over how you ever survived with anything less.
The preceding information may be a lot to assimilate. But you have the potential to elevate your satisfaction and the quality of important relationships and reach the targets and behaviors to move toward those ends.
Look at old photos and videos. You and your partner were younger and you both looked different. Remember the enthusiasm and optimism. Embrace the challenge of endurance and longevity. Your relationship has survived despite the scars, so acknowledge that you must have done many things right.
Become aware of and sensitive to the tone and tenor of your communications. How much and how frequently do you blame, complain, and insist on agreement or getting your way?
Use “I” messages such as, “I would like you to . . . ,” or “I would appreciate if you . . .”
Make bids and ask for acknowledgment or agreement such as, “I’d like to spend some time with you without either of us complaining. Can we do that this evening?” or “If I give you some time to get rested, and I finish some of the chores, can we have some intimate time together?”
Focus on qualities you admire and offer uplifting and constructive comments. Even if at first it feels like you are forcing or pretending, with practice, that will feel easier and more genuine. Accentuate and highlight positives. Tell more of the nicer truths.
Of the many ways to remain attractive to your mate, I can think of no better habit to develop and maintain than an attitude and demeanor that shows genuine appreciation, which is a key element in the marital happiness equation. The intention and commitment to please your partner applies equally for men and women. If you cannot emotionally let go of whatever your partner may have done wrong to offend you—and you feel that must be redressed before you can forgive or try to please your spouse—you’re on the wrong track. The antidote for this is to deliberately make the decision to free yourself from the burden of your resentment. The temptation to respond with aggression or vengeance is counterproductive. Your role in a healthy and committed relationship is to remain constant, even in the face of resentment, hostility, or lack of reciprocation. Demonstrating with deliberate steps to appreciate and express the desire to please your partner is the far more positive alternative. Developing such a habit of will invigorate your attraction to and desire for your spouse.
What matters most is intention. It’s hard to fight or to stay angry with someone who shows their positive intentions and desire to please. Relinquish grudges and the need to be right. Forgive, let go, and embrace humility. No point being right (win the battle) if it leaves you isolated and defeated (lose the war).
If you have tried many times and have not found the right avenues to accomplish this goal after some period of time in a tempestuous marriage, one or both partners may have become difficult to please or may seem to have unrealistic standards. Though this is quite common, don’t be deterred! Persevere with your positive intentions. Ask your spouse directly and repeatedly for specific behaviors on your part that will provide pleasure and satisfaction. Be confident in the knowledge that, perhaps after a period of testing, your partner will be able to ultimately, even if wary at first, recognize the integrity and consistency of your intentions.
Ask about your partner’s feelings, thoughts, and experiences. Listen actively and don’t interrupt. When it’s time, share your feelings and views. Consider what you will say—don’t withhold, and neither of you have to blurt out everything you think.
In romance, as in life, putting the interests and needs of others ahead of our own is the way to live. Diametrically opposed to human selfish nature, sacrifice and service get us further in what really matters to us than any other posture or philosophy. Every religion espouses some version of the Golden Rule. Putting others first is difficult and requires self-discipline. Fortunately, God aids our efforts.
It’s tempting and easy to find fault and habitually highlight the (true or not) inconsiderate or possibly malicious intentions of the ones we have trusted and loved the most. Unless you have confirmed proof that you have been undermined in some way, practice giving your loved one the benefit of the doubt. In many cases, you will be glad you tried this instead of jumping to conclusions and condemning their behavior.
If you are used to feeling slighted or ignored, it’s easy to succumb to confirmation bias—the tendency to selectively perceive and interpret whatever fits into your preconceived notions and beliefs, usually based upon past experiences and grievances. Try to replace such cynicism with more trust and the attribution of your partner’s better intentions. This pays off in peace of mind and developing a more generous and trusting spirit.
Don’t you want others to assume your best intentions?
Boredom, resentments, and the barriers to passion and intimacy frequently have traceable roots in broken promises. A spouse’s perception of non-dependability often stems from “little things” that go unattended and thus grow into significant irritations and resentments. One partner promises to perform certain tasks and then “forgets.” When confronted, the person becomes defensive or dismissive, minimizes the importance of the oversight, and suggests that the other has blown it out of proportion. A partner may be unavailable (physically and/or emotionally) and make excuses or rationalizations about their obligations and commitments. The net result of these behaviors and attitudes is a lack of confidence, trust, and respect in the other person.
So how can you deal with the demands and expectations that frequently exceed your capacity to follow through exactly as your spouse might want?
First, make it a priority to keep your word! Say what you mean and mean what you say. For many, this may require saying yes to most everything, because they want to please their partner. But living responsibly and maturely necessitates prioritizing your time and effort. Identifying and respecting limits on your commitments is a sobering reality, but getting better at this will provide more sanity and confidence. When a spouse knows they can count on you, your “attractiveness quotient” increases.
Next, acknowledge your mistakes without making excuses. To accept and own what you have done frees you from the stranglehold of contesting and defending, and paves the way for more open and positive communication. Acknowledging a mistake does not equate with culpability or disregard your own opinion of what happened. For example, let’s say your spouse blames you for “not being in the mood” when you both had set aside time for a romantic interlude. Rather than fending off your spouse’s advances, it’s okay (actually, it’s better) to say, “You’re right, honey, I did promise to make love. In fact, I’d been looking forward to it, but I’ve just had a grueling day, and I’m not feeling very frisky. I know I’ve let you down. Let’s make another date.”
Or in another context, “I did promise to help with the kids and their homework. I guess I just got caught up in recharging myself after a draining day at work. I simply have no energy, but I see that I left you—again—to pick up the pieces. I’m sorry. It’s not that I don’t care or realize that I should help. I simply got overwhelmed, and I know it’s not the first time.”
You can preserve your dignity while acknowledging your oversights. Such honesty cannot help but impress your spouse and pave the way for the next necessary step.
Remake broken agreements. As noted, our world and our relationships run on the basis of agreements—explicit and implied rules, as well as specific pacts made by individuals. Some fundamental examples: An explicit rule in marriage is that you have only one wife or one husband (at a time). An implied rule is that you don’t cheat on your spouse. A specific agreement could be a pledge to clean up the house, spend according to a budget, or be home or ready at an appointed time.
The critical concept here goes beyond simple communication. It involves bringing accountability to fruition through action and caring. Remaking your broken agreements (which may vary from apologizing to resetting the original agreement to making a different plan) builds your integrity, fortifies your accountability and dependability, and allows practical needs to be fulfilled through cooperative planning and compromise.
Separate the person from the deed. Cumulatively, a person’s choices and actions constitute and reflect that person’s character. However, discrete behaviors—such as occasional errors or oversights—do not equate with the person’s value himself. Recognize (and point out) whether or not a failure in follow-through is typical of a person’s behavior pattern. For example, suppose your spouse seems preoccupied and unavailable, is away from home longer than expected, and you begin to fret and ruminate. You might say, “Lately, you seem more into yourself, and I sense you’re pulling away. You’re coming home later on a regular basis. This isn’t typical of you. I’m concerned, but perhaps I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. What’s going on?”
If your spouse is habitually breaking agreements, you may want to confront this issue because it is a reflection of their character and can be a destructive influence on your partnership. In this instance, a calm powwow between you and your partner is vital.
Hold your spouse accountable for their actions according to the rules and character you each abide by. You might say, “I thought we agreed that you were not going to yell or raise your voice. Do you remember that we made that agreement?” (Wait for an answer.) “So, are you denying that you made a commitment to stop yelling (or drinking, or spending, or being late), or is it just that you slipped up? Are you willing to reconfirm the agreement and try again? Is there anything I can do to help you keep your word on this?”
Remember that accountability is somewhat different from responsibility. Whereas responsibility also involves obligation, authority, and liability, accountability is a foundation that establishes recognition and ownership of one’s actions and their consequences. When you acclimate to being routinely accountable and holding others accountable (recognition of facts, not blame), you lay the foundation for keeping your word, and being responsible dependable, and trustworthy. You’ll be amazed at how your own accountability keeps you from being bored. It’s a constant wake-up call.
As competent and caring as your partner may be, no partner can meet all of your needs. Is this because your wants and needs are so vast and/or reasonable? Probably not. But you may be blind to your hidden and assumed expectations that your loved one can and should fill or attempt meet your expectations. You and your partner bring baggage, intense desires and wants for the relationship, and for each other, to make most of life’s pain and dissatisfactions go away. Ain’t gonna happen—for anyone. We must all do a lot of growing up. Unfulfilled expectations are a part of life; we must navigate between dreams and fantasies and the adjustment to what others can give us.
In line with the previous caveat, you must take responsibility for achieving and experiencing your own wholeness. Only when one can be secure within ourself and our identity (not totally self-sufficient) can we be free and able to give and receive maturely and with love, compassion, and enough objectivity.
Let’s face it: some people are more inclined to take, while others are more inclined to give. It’s virtuous to be generous and selfless. You likely know where you stand on this spectrum and where your partner is. You can request and negotiate balances of power and service, but basic character is hard to change. Very few relationships are evenly matched in this regard. Accept your own character, make needed changes where you can, and give up resenting your partner.
Though conflicts are inevitable, they don’t have to remain showstoppers. Most conflicts are resolvable. Discover the furtive negative influences of traumas and grievances on logjams and use appropriate methods to address each of them to resolve conflicts.
You needn’t let erosion and boredom continue to deaden your relationship and satisfaction. Even if your partner is dragging or withdrawing, doing your part will bring relief and self-fulfillment. You will then feel better about yourself and be far more attractive to your spouse.
Take my online tests, read my book, Staying Madly in Love: Guide to a Happier Marriage, and feel free to contact me for more information or help.
Read my advice on these important areas:
https://marksteinberg.com/webpages/writings/Traumas_and_Grievances.jsp. https://marksteinberg.com/webpages/articles/savage_emotions.jsp https://marksteinberg.com/webpages/articles/marriage-inside-and-out.jsp
— Mark Steinberg, PhD
