Like everything else, relationships go through cycles and phases…sometimes relationships face really long, long, harsh, lonely droughts, or painfully drawn-out intense periods, or perhaps you’re currently enjoying the “pink cloud” effect of a new love! Wherever you find yourself, I am here to help you get ready for Spring, the time to come out of the darkness into the light, renew, fluff up, or just take yourself in a fresh direction! Here’s your checklist so you can get started right away.

Relationships of the romantic kind typically fall into three categories: ME, THEM and WE.

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There you are, in line at the grocery store when a very attractive person brushes up against you accidentally…or so you think. How can you be sure? You can’t right away, so you look again and try and make eye contact this time. First, to see if what you thought you saw was an attractive person, and then next (if you still think so), to see if the brush might have been deliberate. But how can you tell with a look? Maybe they were off-balance, or the person behind them bumped into them, or maybe they are nearsighted and left their glasses in the car. Before you make another move, I know you realize a lot is at stake here; what you do (or don’t do) in the next 30 seconds could change your life…forever.

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There are literally hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands of ways we can behave, things we can do that could be considered loving. Yet it is from where the gesture comes that distinguishes the loving act from the empty gesture.

What good, for example, is it if you hold your tongue in an argument, wanting credit for displaying self-control or hoping to get some payoff (like sex), while ultimately you have contempt for your partner and find their behavior regularly intolerable? Very little, it turns out!

If your goal is to display your love or affection my suggestions are these:

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How responsible communication can lead to a great Valentine’s Day!

Rob, 35 Huntington Beach, CA, asked Maryanne:

Last year my wife flipped out when I bought her lingerie for Valentine’s Day. The truth is, I still don’t know why. She just got angry and said “Isn’t it obvious?” and that was it. Any advice on what I get her this year that won’t set her off (and that we both can enjoy), which is what I thought the point of Valentine’s Day was?

Maryanne’s answer:

Rob, that’s a great question. Some guys might have just blown it off and thought, Hmmm, maybe this year I’ll get her some lingerie in a different color. Sounds like you’re guessing that is not the answer, unless you like being told off and sexually frustrated.

In terms of what you can get, you need to get clear on what both your expectations are about Valentine’s Day, and the more explicit the better. Because likely her reaction last year is not only a symptom of what’s really going on but has now had a chance to fester, becoming a resentment for you both that is like poison in a relationship. So, getting clarity is what should be first on your list!

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Have you ever heard the phrase “Keep doing what you’re doing, get more of what you got,” made popular by Werner Erhard? Either way, you will soon see why this truth begs an introduction to what I call your “tomorrow-me”! That’s the YOU that’s here today representing the you of tomorrow (and the next day, and so on). It’s the you that observes and reports on all the thoughts, feelings, actions and reactions you have today and will have to live with; the you that intervenes and tries to help you think them through and make the best choices and decisions.

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‘Tis the season, they say, to pop the question, November and December accounting for 26 percent of marriage proposals according to a survey sponsored by the Fairchild Bridal Group, the publisher of Modern Bride. Yet the main reason people end up getting married isn’t because of any seasonal phenomenon, it’s simply because someone asked! Which brings me to what inspired this week’s blog; a young man named Emmanuel. He’s a 23-year-old, ex-soccer player from Spain, who had a promising career but crushed his leg beyond repair and then decidedly embraced a path as a singer/song writer/musician. He loves his mother, his job (setting up bands with high-tech equip and renting us a karaoke machine for our Xmas party, in between playing at his own gigs), his band, and has an ex-girlfriend who wants to get married. In my opinion, that was like having a partridge in a pear tree. So of course I said so…

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What if all paths actually led up the mountain no matter what choices you made, what your attitude was like, how much money you made or lost, how many times you were married, if you got sick or devoted your life to a cause? No matter which way you turned, a hundred or a thousand times, it all led to the same place?

What if you prayed backwards? Stood at the place before you were born, where every prayer you would ever pray was already heard and all you had to do was lean in and listen to what already was so. And all you had to do to know anything would be to sit quietly and listen to yourself, to that Divine wisdom right inside you?

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Are there signs 2011 will be better than 2010?

“Maybe…”

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I know, most of us cross our legs when we think about GOD and sex simultaneously, so surely it’s a stretch to imagine praying could be spicy. And then there are those of us who a long time ago made the separation between church and mate and don’t give it a thought.

But why not? What if we did at least entertain the notion? Why must we make the leap from the puritanical to the profane when there’s all this juicy, sacred soul-filled stuff in the middle? Maybe it’s time we take another look at what it means to pray, and how it can and does pave the path for a richer relationship experience. Versus letting another type of opportunity to create sacred connection slip away because we are filled with shame, guilt or have purposefully limited our scope of prayer to be solely petitionary (or pointless) rather than a means for enhancing intimacy.

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