How a couple resolves important issues when each partner holds a strongly different perspective is a key component of a successful relationship. Without this skill, at best, couples find themselves going around in circles and feeling frustrated by the stalemate, rather than feeling like members of the same team who share common goals and each […]

Oh, it’s been such a long, long time Looks like I’d get you off my mind Oh, but I can’t Just the thought of you Turns my whole world misty blue So begins the song, ‘Misty Blue,’ written by Bob Montgomery, and recorded by several artists, beginning in 1966. The words so aptly capture the […]

Is your spouse your best friend or soulmate? Is such a connection essential for a good marriage? Before considering these questions, it is important to recognize that they tap into relatively new notions about the marital relationship. In Marriage, A History (2006), Stephanie Coontz points out that although people married for love in past generations, […]

Sigmund Freud posed the question “What do women want?”  Although I make no claim that I can answer that question for all women, I have some ideas, based on my work with them.  Women want to feel fully alive and creative.  They want to have loving connections, but at the same time, to function as  independent, whole, unique […]

When I’m sitting with a couple, deadlocked over a particular issue, I frequently ask if they discussed this topic prior to tying the knot. Typically, they say they never considered doing so and imagined all would work, given their love for each other. In the short term, failure to have frank talks about issues that […]

Physical attractiveness, shared interests, compatibility, kindness, and sense of humor are common features that people look for when selecting a mate.  But societal, cultural, and psychological factors also influence with whom one falls in love and whether that love culminates in marriage.  In this article, I will discuss partner choice from a psychological perspective. In […]

People have different ways of relating, which are called “attachment styles” in the field of human behavior.  Beginning in the late 50’s, John Bowlby pioneered the study of attachment behavior.  He identified it as a basic human need with an evolutionary basis that insures survival of the species.  Which style a person adopts, in part, […]