By Philip Chanin, Ed.D., ABPP, CGP
Board Certified Clinical Psychologist
Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
www.drphilchanin.com
philchanin@gmail.com

“Virtually all of the couples I meet, both in my clinical work and in workshops and seminars, are appreciation deficient and learn to become appreciation proficient. Partners seldom let each other know how much they appreciate the effort or the good qualities they enjoy in each other; they often don’t even let themselves feel how much they treasure the many wonderful aspects of their partners, or the richness of their lives—until, through age, illness, or other life circumstance, they face the possibility of their loss…Failure to take pleasure in the good things in your life dishonors the gifts or accomplishments that deserve appreciation. It also dishonors your right to be happy.” (The New Rules of Marriage: What You Need to Know to Make Love Work, by Terrence Real, p. 238)

Real is interested in helping partners to cherish their progress: “Cherishing progress, learning to take yes for an answer, is a fundamental principle in all healing. It’s your capacity to let the healing work…the single most effective means of eliciting more of something is by cherishing it when it appears. Set limits whenever you must. Reward whenever you can…Whenever you want to engender more of something in a system, simply pay a lot of attention to it…Daring to rock the boat is an appropriate strategy to help your partner take you seriously. But once instances of change begin to occur, you need to amplify his progress. Continuing to rock the boat once your partner ‘gets it’ is the relationship equivalent of selling past the sale.” (pp. 246-247)

Real continues his discussion of cherishing: “We don’t take pleasure in one another and we don’t give pleasure to one another nearly as much as we could because, as a culture, we simply don’t much value it…Cherishing, pleasure, and joy are what make a relationship worth fighting for these days. The sense of being cherished, and of being able to cherish—this is the very core of positive intimacy. It’s what gives us the strength to withstand troubled times; it’s what gives us the motivation to stretch and grow.” (p. 248)

Real adds, “As central as this issue is, we often don’t take the time or effort to cherish one another. We don’t stop for a moment and let ourselves have the pleasure of enjoying deeply the wonderful things that keep us bound to one another. In large measure we don’t cherish simply because we’re given the message in all sorts of ways that our desire to either receive or bestow the nurture of cherishing is somehow frivolous, sappy, or unnecessary.” (p. 248)

Real believes that “Women generally understand that positive feedback, compliments, and attention are like the water that keeps a plant growing. Most women understand that cherishing is not merely something to feel, but something to do. One of the casualties of personal empowerment has been a decreased desire on women’s part to give their men many of the small, thoughtful rewards that now seem to belong to quieter and simpler times…For most men, unless they’re courting, cherishing has always meant something you have in your heart rather than something you do.” (p. 249)

Real continues in this vein: “When you lose sight of cherishing, the cost to you, as an individual, is the madness of not being able to relish what you’ve worked so hard to attain…I believe that the constructive power of cherishing is so great that it equals all of the preceding strategies combined. All of the other strategies focus on eliciting new behaviors that you want, but cherishing has the power to amplify those new behaviors once they appear…There are two great reinforcements that encourage your partner’s positive efforts: Acknowledge and cherish his efforts; demonstrate, through your actions, an increased desire to be pleasing in return.” (pp. 249-250)

Real is frank about the obstacles to intimacy in our culture: “If you’re like most of the couples I know, nurturing your own relationship comes about dead last when it comes to allocating your time. After work, the kids, family and friends, a dash of hurried self-care at the gym or a yoga class, what you mostly are by the end of the day is beat…There are 168 hours in a week. How many of those do you give directly, specifically, and purposefully to your relationship? I’m thinking of long walks on the beach holding hands, cell phones off, kids ensconced elsewhere, your work concerns merely a door that you closed once you got home, plenty of time for talk and for sensuality.” (p. 251)

Real summarizes: “We live in a society in which intimacy is idealized in principle and devalued in fact. The demands of work, family, friends, community, and self-care are dizzying in today’s world. More than ever before, we seem hell-bent on improving our lot in life, which is fine so long as we stay rooted in what is most dear—which is one another.” (p. 251)

Real is realistic about the obstacles to sensual intimacy: “Having children eviscerates romance…In most of the families I have encountered, during the child-raising years—which is quite a stretch by any account—the couple’s relationship is, candidly, largely sacrificed. The unacknowledged truth that everyone knows and few name aloud is that for many, many couples, having children just rips the guts out of romance. And by romance, I don’t just mean sex, as important as that is. I mean all of the many ways couples cherish their connection, all the ways you treated each other when you first fell in love.” (pp. 252-253)

Real addresses our child-centered culture: “We have never been so intent, as a culture, on giving our children every advantage that we can. So now both parents feel overwhelmed. Between school, camps, sports, tutoring, lessons, playdates…on and on, we worry over, work for, and put more effort and energy into our kids than any generation before…the cost to our relationships is inarguable. We have only so much to give; there are only so many hours in the day.”

“We can all remember, fondly and longingly, if perhaps dimly, the ways we used to nurture each other. But for most of us, between the twin tasks of doing well for our families out there in the work world and doing well for our children back here at home, an enormous amount of the nurture we used to give each other goes elsewhere…You cannot sustain the intimacy you enjoyed in the early stage of your relationship unless you are willing to cherish each other in some of the ways that you did at that time. You will not feel like lovers unless you are willing to behave like lovers.” (p. 255)

Real describes the rewards of being fully present to our partners: “What I’m calling romantic or lover’s energy comes from the experience of facing each other, attending to your partner and to the relationship itself. It is the exciting, warming, and erotic experience of being available to each other in the present. This is always what the ‘other woman’ or ‘other man’ offers in an affair—interest and attention. This is what wooed you when you first fell in love. And this the experience that dries up when we fail to nurture the relationship. Here is a description of five tactics for cultivating lover’s energy in your long-term relationship: 1) Reclaim romantic space; 2) Tell the truth; 3) Cultivate sharing; 4) Cherish your partner; and 5) Become partners-in-health.” (p. 256)

Regarding reclaiming romantic space, Real writes, “In order to be romantic, you have to push back the demands of everyday life enough to create a space to be romantic in. You need time, a place, and energy. The simplest way to clear that space is by going away…Your children will manage to live without you for a short interval, and you need the time to reconnect with each other…Taking off and physically leaving is a macro-level tactic. Smaller, micro-level tactics focus on reclaiming space in your everyday lives…I can’t tell you how many couples I tell to schedule sex…Or, if that feels too pressured, then schedule ‘sensual time’ together, which may or may not become sexual. Couples regularly schedule date nights every week or couple of weeks, time that’s just for the two of you.” (pp. 256-257)

Regarding cultivating sharing, Real writes, “Sharing—intellectually, emotionally, physically, sexually, and spiritually—is what intimacy is; it is the stuff of intimacy itself. Sharing occurs in so many aspects of our lives together: sharing a physical activity, such as hiking or tennis, or the love of a place, like the mountains or the ocean; sharing a project or a cause, or church, or an important value; sharing books, friends, and ideas.” (p. 258)

Regarding cherishing your partner, Real says, “In order to feel like a lover, you have to act like a lover. Cherishing our partner is what we do as lovers and start not doing in long-term relationships. We say that we get busy, but what we really get is lazy…Make an effort to treat your partner graciously. I’d like you to try to be at least a little more like you were when you wooed each other—in other words, on good behavior. Smile. Show your partner you’re happy to see him. Offer your partner the same warmth you’d offer a valued colleague or friend.” (pp. 258-259)

At the beginning of every couple’s therapy session, I ask each partner to take turns telling the partner about what you have appreciated about him or her since your last session. Real writes in a similar vein: “As you communicate to your partner, I’d like you to become aware of the proportion of positive to negative feedback you’re giving him…Appreciate each other at least once a day. At the end of the day, tell your partner three things you appreciate, either about something current or something longstanding…Appreciate little things; they don’t have to be earthshaking. Write notes telling your partner something positive about him or his behavior that matters to you. Leave a message or an email. Every single partner who enters therapy with me feels underappreciated.” (p. 260)

Real elaborates: “While it is important to tell your partner the difficult truths about your experience of him, it is no less important to share the pleasurable ones.” Here Real quotes Mahatma Ghandi: “We must be the change we wish for in the world.” Real adds, “The discipline of cherishing your partner calls to mind this profound spiritual truth. In terms of your relationship, the pragmatic action plan stemming from Gandhi’s principle is this: If you want to evoke more of something in your relationship, give it. If you want to be cherished more, be more cherishing. If you want more laughter, joke around. If you want more respect, be more respectful.” (p. 261)

Real introduces what he calls “Guerrilla cherishing.” He writes, “It means finding particularly effective acts of cherishing that have a big impact while not demanding a great deal of time.” He then gives examples of what he calls “smart generosity”: “Give your partner something you know she’d like. Don’t just buy a CD; buy the new CD of an artist you remember her being interested in. And don’t choose the easy gift that you always get. Instead, try listening for something she mentions wanting.” (pp. 261-262)

Here Real admonishes men: “Like it or not, most women, particularly those of my generation, feel like their partners will do things for them only when given instructions. Chances are that your partner will love it if you show initiative about something, such as setting up an evening or a weekend together. You work out the babysitting and other logistics. Give her the present of feeling taken care of…Break out of the rut. Break routine. Arrange to go skydiving or skinny-dipping. Think like you did when you first met. Be adventurous. Help out. ‘Women make passes at men who wash glasses.’ Or, said differently, Get off the couch.”

Real encourages couples to look for opportunities to stoke desire: “Be more romantic at the micro-level. For men: Tell her how great she looks, or rub her neck, or just hold her without sexual pressure. For women: One of the things that many women stop doing when they transition from being lovers to being long-term partners is demonstrating erotic interest. For men, usually the most arousing thing you can do is to be aroused. Men get turned on by your being turned on…You needn’t go to the extreme, but you will get incredible mileage by keeping a little erotic energy in play throughout your day or evening together. It may take some effort, but extremely small gestures now and then on a regular basis will simply win him.”

“Remember teasing? Ask yourself, when did you stop teasing? How nice it was to play around with the power of your desirability, It’s one of the great gifts women have…Take a few seconds to breathe in your mate’s ear, or kiss him passionately; touch him erotically, or say something wild. That should help get the juices flowing…once you have reasonably healthy boundaries, act like a lover. It should cost you no more than a few minutes a day.” (pp. 262-263)

Real describes the fruits of doing this work: “As your relationship practice grows stronger, as you learn to bring yourself into center more quickly, have healthier boundaries, trade passive immaturity for proactive maturity, your baseline begins to shift. You start spending more and more time feeling untroubled…over time, you start feeling more and more clear about how to deal with (life’s) challenges. Over time, almost without noticing it, you realize that whole periods have gone by—hours, days, weeks, even months—without feeling knocked off kilter. Your relationships start feeling less complicated and difficult.”

You become more forgiving of yourself and consequently less defensive. You begin to experience what in the past would have felt dark, gnarled, and confusing as clear and straightforward. Sure, tough issues will come, but you start to have faith that you’ll be smart about them and they’ll work out. Yes, you’ll screw up sometimes, but these mistakes no longer tip you so easily into thinking that there’s something fundamentally wrong.” (pp. 275-276)

This book’s final section is entitled “Cherishing abundance.” Real asks, “What do I mean by abundance?…Intimacy is our natural state, or birthright. When you’re centered, with nothing to apologize for or hide because you are trying your best, you live with integrity…As your relationship practice grows stronger, you will become more and more aware of the abundance inside and around you.” (p. 277)