With Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com and Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com
Cathy: Have you found that your relationship might be a little stagnant? Or that you’re not growing as fast as you would like?
Reid: What? I thought everything was fine. What are you telling me?
Cathy: Actually, digging into some of the deeper stuff in your relationship, having the conversations that you don’t normally have, can help you both grow. It can also deepen your relationship.
Reid: That sounds scary.
Cathy: It is, sometimes.
Reid: I’m Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com.
Cathy: I’m Cathy Vartuli, from TheIntimacyDojo.com.
Reid: Yes, dig deep my friends and bring proper tools.
Cathy: Yes.
Reid: Sometimes digging deep into your relationship, having those conversations that you may be avoiding or even just pondering, about certain things, and then putting them out into the open, is usually enough to freak people out.
Cathy: Yes.
Reid: We’ve all been raised in a culture, for the most part, we’re not supposed to be rocking the boat.
Cathy: Keep everything kind of still and okay. Maybe we’ll make it through till we die.
Reid: Yea, and if everything is good, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Cathy: It can be really powerful and really, actually delightful to start exploring who you are, who your partner is and what the relationship between you is. It can bring a lot of inspiration and delight to your romantic life.
Reid: Yea, this is my opinion. You have a better bet of keeping the relationship healthy and staying together, if you are willing to have the difficult and scary conversations. If you are willing to explore a little bit. Certainly, if you’re starting to think or feel that the relationship is getting stagnant, to shake it up in a responsible kind of way. Which usually means sitting down and having a conversation about what shaking it up might look like. Not just, surprise honey.
Cathy: Let’s shake it …
Reid: We’ve adopted a new baby, or something. Right?
Cathy: Don’t do that.
Reid: Some people shake things up by surprise. Yes, that’s a way to shake it up. But it’s not usually the smartest way to do things. If you want to create newness and variety in your relationship, you can have more, often more success, wrangling each other as a team, and then exploring and brainstorming what those new things you might want to go out and explore would be.
Cathy: Yes. Some good ways to pick topics that you might want to delve into, take a relationship course. You have Relationship10x.com, which is amazing.
Reid: Go to a workshop.
Cathy: Yea, pick up a book on relationship …
Reid: Read a book together.
Cathy: Yea, reading it together can be really sweet. Maybe you just spend a little time together going through stuff, and asking each other questions. It doesn’t have to be, we’re going to dismantle our relationship and throw everything out. It can be, we’re going to pick this topic. Discover what we each want about it and what we both feel and what’s best for the relationship.
Reid: Even having a conversation about a hobby that both of you might want to try together. Learn something new together. It’s okay to have your own hobbies. My brother has his golf. His wife has her thing. What’s a shared thing that you guys can do together? Besides just child rearing. A lot of people’s shared project is the kids. What ends up happening is that’s an 18 year, 20 year, 30 year project. What are little side projects that you guys can do that are fun and boost your creativity and the connection between the 2 of you?
I, being a sex and relationship geek, like those little projects, personally, to be in the areas of communication, sexuality and skill sets. That’s what I like to tinker with. You don’t have to be like that. If you can’t come up with something, I would recommend, go take a communication workshop together. Go do some sort of either an on line course, or read a book together. Read a chapter before you go to bed. One reads to the other person. The next night, the other person switches and reads a book.
Something like that, especially in today’s emotional and relationship climate, and how thing are shifting and changing in the world. When in doubt, I would say, make that side hobby a little bit of relationship geekery. It’ll probably pay off in the long run. A lot.
Cathy: Yea. For those of you with kids who are, oh my god, I don’t have time. I need to invest my time in my kids. Remember that they pick up on what you’re doing. Your energy around things. You’re actually role modeling valuable relationship skills. If you’re learning better communication, you’re also being more communi … You’re teaching them good skills and communicating with them in a better way. It has beautiful ripple effects through your whole life.
Reid: Cool. Leave some comments below. Let us know what are the things that are working for you, in creating and deepening your relationships and keeping them fresh.
Cathy: Yea, what are you discovering about yourself?