When I dragged my husband to marriage counseling, my fantasy was that the counselor would fix him so that I could finally be happy. I went to be supportive while she showed him how wrong he was and got him to change, not to work on my own shortcomings. Of course, that’s not how it works—and it didn’t work.
When I started practicing the Six Intimacy Skills, it was all about me becoming my best self, and having my best relationship followed naturally. Instead of blaming and complaining, I was stretching and growing in ways I hadn’t imagined or thought I needed. Suddenly, my husband responded to me in a much better way.
“When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.”
—Dresden James, author and TV writer
You’ve Been Lied To
If your marriage is anywhere near as hostile, lonely, and dysfunctional as mine was, I want you to know that it’s not your fault. It may not be your husband’s fault, either. It’s just that no one ever taught you the skills you need to have a happy relationship. Like everything else in life, it’s easier to succeed in a happy marriage when someone shows you how.
Before I learned what I know now about how to naturally attract my husband’s time, attention, and affection, I had bought into some harmful myths that made my marriage feel like wearing ankle weights in the middle of the ocean.
You may be subscribing to some of these same myths, because they are everywhere and often repeated as indisputable fact. But they’re not—they’re lies, like “To save your marriage, go to marriage counseling,” “You have to be honest and get the problems out in the open to work on your issues,” and “Marriage is hard work.” In this book, I’ll show you why none of that is true, and how it’s been keeping you from having the marriage you signed up for, just as it did for me.
Here’s one example: When there was a serious breakdown in our marriage, I told my husband, John, that we needed to go to counseling—because that’s what you’re supposed to do when your marriage isn’t working. Counseling didn’t make things better, but we hung in there for a long time, hoping that it was going to, eventually. We had spent more than $9,000 on our counselor when I got a rare glimpse of the inside of her marriage. I was shocked and horrified to see that she had plenty of hostility and tension in her relationship, too.
It stands to reason that taking marriage advice from someone with a troubled relationship not only won’t help, it might actually do harm. Without that glimpse of our counselor interacting with her husband, I might never have known that her seemingly happy marriage was riddled with anger and resentment—just like mine.
I felt as if I’d been getting the equivalent of personal training from a couch potato with a spare tire, or financial advice from someone who was about to file for bankruptcy.
That was when I first realized that no marriage and family therapist credential could guarantee that the bearer would have a happy, lasting, intimate marriage. Marriage counselors take a theoretical, academic approach to marriage. They’ve learned things from textbooks and in classrooms and have degrees hanging on their walls, but they don’t necessarily have the most important credential of all: a happy, passionate, thriving marriage of their own. And you’ll never know how many couples your counselor has helped—or hurt—because that information is confidential.
That’s one way that the Six Intimacy Skills are different. They were created in the trenches—with real women in real marriages—and they have worked for more than 150,000 women all over the world. You can read their stories and see their pictures under the “Case Studies” tab at skillsforlove.com.
Now that I know how to naturally attract my husband’s time, attention, and affection, I can definitely see why marriage counseling wasn’t working. You could argue that our situation is just one example, an outlier from the norm, but I’m not the only one with this particular story. My coaching clients tell the same one over and over: “We went to marriage counseling, but it didn’t make us feel closer,” “It only made things worse,” or “Now we’re separated/we’ve filed for divorce.”
In this book, I’ll show you the difference between traditional marriage counseling and what actually works to restore the hand-holding, the connection, and the physical intimacy. You’ll be able to see for yourself why counseling seldom helps. You’ll wonder why no one ever told you before.
I Felt Like Such a Sucker
For a long time after we stopped going, I didn’t connect the dots between the prevalence of marriage counseling and the high divorce rate in this country—or maybe I just didn’t want to believe that something I’d spent so much time and money on could be not just useless but potentially harmful. I figured our marriage counseling experience must have helped in some way, even though I couldn’t figure out how. After all, it wasn’t that we’d had a bad counselor; she was caring and attentive. But, looking back, I was forced to admit that while our marriage survived the experience, counseling only made our problems worse.
At first I assumed we were an exception—that our experience was not typical of the entire multibillion-dollar marriage counseling industry. But as I heard story after story of marriage counseling that left the relationship no better than it was to begin with or even ended in separation or divorce, I started to get a sinking feeling about the state of so-called “therapy” for couples or individuals in unhappy marriages.
One of my clients, Stephanie, told me she went to a marriage counselor every week for a year. During the sessions, she told the counselor everything that was wrong with her husband. Each week the counselor listened carefully, sympathized, took her money, and said, “Same time next week?” Stephanie’s marriage never improved. In fact, after a year of counseling, she was seriously contemplating divorcing the father of her four children.
After Stephanie learned the Six Intimacy Skills, she made changes that resulted in a dramatic improvement in her marriage—within a couple of weeks. Suddenly her husband was going out of his way to be thoughtful, showing a lot of affection, and spontaneously doing the things she had nagged him to do for years.
That was over a decade ago. Stephanie’s marriage has remained loving and happy since, and she still gets tears in her eyes when she talks about how tragic it would have been had she continued focusing on her husband’s faults in counseling every week, or acted on her impulse to throw him out and find someone new. There’s no question in her mind now that he is—and always was—the man of her dreams.
Christine met and married a terrific guy she was crazy about after adopting the Six Intimacy Skills. She also gained insight about the demise of her first marriage when she looked at it through this new perspective. Back then, when she revealed to a marriage counselor that she and her husband had been sleeping in separate beds for a year, the counselor told her, “Can’t you see your marriage is over? It’s dead! You need to get out of there.” The counselor made no attempt to help Christine improve her marriage, nor did she ask her if she wanted to leave—she just insisted that Christine should. She even implied that Christine was naïve or stupid for staying in her marriage for as long as she had. In Christine’s vulnerable state, it was hard for her to argue with this strong-minded counselor who seemed to know best. She went home and announced to her husband that she wanted a divorce. He said he was willing to work on the marriage, but Christine refused. “It’s over,” she told him, repeating what the counselor had said. She tore apart her young family, even though deep down she sometimes wondered whether the marriage could have been saved.
Another client, Bridget, told me, “I worked really hard on my marriage in couples counseling, but I felt hopeless that it would ever change, so I told my husband I wanted a divorce. At first he tried to talk me out of it, but then he became resigned to the situation. Now I’ve asked him if we can try to reconcile, but he refuses.” After Bridget discovered the Six Intimacy Skills, it was devastating for her to realize that the hard work she had done was the wrong kind of work. “I can’t accept that there’s more I could have done to save my marriage,” she told me, filled with grief. “It’s just too painful.” Bridget didn’t get the help and information she needed, and it cost her dearly.
These stories are both real and representative of what I hear from women every day.
Marriage Counselors Are Marriage Cancelers
Of course, in any profession there are a few bad eggs—the mechanic who “fixes” what isn’t broken, the plumber who overcharges for parts, the dentist who pushes expensive unnecessary treatments. Marriage counseling is no different: There are a few bad eggs out there who knowingly take advantage of their clients, but they make up only a small percentage of the people in the field. Most marriage counselors are good people who genuinely want to help. Unfortunately, it ultimately doesn’t matter whether your counselor’s intentions are good or bad; the entire premise underlying marriage counseling is toxic.
For one thing, there is no respectful way to complain about your husband in front of a stranger. No matter how carefully you word your grievances, you will still be putting down the man you chose to marry in front of someone who doesn’t know him, while he sits there and listens. I’m guessing you wouldn’t feel especially warm and open after hearing him outline your shortcomings, either. It’s humiliating and adversarial. That’s the very opposite of creating the emotional safety that intimacy needs to thrive.
The results we’re collectively getting from marriage counseling tell the story: Marriage is down. Divorce is up. In most developed countries, the chances of having long-term marital success are only as good as the chances of getting tails on a coin flip. One law firm that specializes in divorce refers to marriage counselors as “marriage cancelers,” because so many of their clients are fresh from the office of a marriage and family therapist or psychologist.
You might argue that marriage counselors have a nearly impossible job, because by the time a couple arrives in the professional’s office, the marriage is already broken. You might think it’s too late to save most relationships when there’s so much hurt, blame, and anger built up. But my experience is that almost all marriages are completely fixable, no matter how long the couple has been separated and no matter how hopeless it seems. I see marriages come back to life after one or both parties have filed for divorce. I see women who came to me skeptical and believing their husbands would never be able to meet their needs return smiling to gratefully admit that my Six Intimacy Skills really did work.
There are proven, practical ways to turn your marriage into the one you’ve always wanted, even if it’s been dead for years. But most marriage counselors don’t know them. Marriage counseling often focuses on your partner’s weaknesses. This book will show you how to focus on your strengths and feminine gifts instead.
If you’re a marriage counselor or therapist, I know you and I are on the same team: We want to cultivate and support stronger, happier marriages. The fact that you’re reading this tells me that you’re open to new ideas and always looking for ways to better serve your clients and help them achieve success. I admire that. I invite you to train with me to explore the Six Intimacy Skills in depth and learn how to share them with those who come to you with troubled relationships. If you’re ready to deliver more effective results, visit the “Become a Coach” tab at skillsforlove.com. You won’t be the first marriage counselor who has joined our ranks.
Of course, you don’t have to be a marriage counselor or a psychologist to join my team of coaches. Most of my coaches are regular women who were so inspired by their own relationship transformation that they felt driven to help other women have the same experience. So far I have coaches in North America, Europe, and Asia, and I’m training new ones every year. No matter who you are, I invite you to join my mission to make your relationship more intimate, make your work more inspiring and effective, and end world divorce.
How to Know If Your Marriage Is Fixable
I’m a huge advocate for marriage, but there is such a thing as a divorce I endorse. Here are the types of men with whom you are not safe and therefore cannot reasonably hope to have an intimate, passionate, peaceful relationship with:
- A man who is actively addicted to drugs, alcohol, or gambling
- A physical abuser
- A man who isn’t capable of being faithful to you
Those are the deal-breakers. Your safety comes first, and these kinds of men are acting on compulsions that supersede everything else—even their desire to love and protect you. If you aren’t safe, consider ending the relationship and creating the space in your life for a good man, the kind who will treat you the way you deserve to be treated.
If, however, you decide that your relationship with such a man is at least 51 percent good, and you decide to stay in the marriage, know that I trust you as the expert on your own life to decide what’s best for you. However, I can’t promise that you will have all the intimacy, passion, and peace that is possible for you and that you deserve.
If your husband does not fall into one of these categories, then you have a good guy, someone you are safe with and loved enough to marry. Of course he’s not perfect, but you can have a wonderful relationship with him. If you’re not enjoying that right now, this book will show you why, as well as what to do to create the relationship you deserve. You’ll start by implementing simple skills, and over time not only will your perspective change, your husband will respond to you differently.
Sometimes a client will try to add something to my list of deal-breakers because she’s unhappy in her relationship and convinced that it’s because there’s something wrong with her man. She’ll throw in addiction to food or cigarettes or insist that verbal abuse should be on the list. Some clients are convinced that mental illness is a deal-breaker. It’s rare that I talk to a woman who doesn’t have some kind of psychological diagnosis for her husband—one she got from a professional or one she came up with herself—that explains why he is so difficult and the marriage is so hopeless. But over time, these clients shift their perception and discover an astonishing path to improving their relationship despite their previous conviction that it simply wasn’t possible. These concerns—though painful to live with and not to be taken lightly—don’t have to stand between you and a happy relationship.
Even if your husband is not in any of the deal-breaker categories and doesn’t have any of the other serious issues mentioned above, you still might feel that your situation is hopeless. My experience of working with thousands of women in dozens of countries for the past sixteen years is that nearly everyone feels that way in the beginning—including me. However, what I’ve observed is that any woman who has a good guy also has the power to make the relationship amazing, just by learning the skills that contribute to intimacy. Most guys are good guys, and they genuinely want their wives to be happy.
But let’s suppose for a moment that I’m completely wrong, and your husband truly is an (awful, impossible) exception. Until you try the Six Intimacy Skills, you’ll never know for sure whether your marriage was doomed by his character flaws or whether you simply didn’t have the information you needed to make things work. If you experiment with the suggestions in this book and on the companion site at skillsforlove.com, I can promise you’ll find out where the problem really lies.
You Can’t Work on Your Relationship
So, let’s get down to business. In reading this book, I’m asking you to set aside everything you think you know about relationships. That’s what I did, back when my marriage felt hopelessly broken and I went looking for answers. I won’t lie—it wasn’t easy.
I started asking women who had been married for a long time about their secrets for a happy marriage, and their answers were like nothing I had ever heard. Their advice didn’t even make sense to me at first.
One woman told me that she tried never to criticize her husband, no matter how much it seemed that he deserved it. That was a new one for me, and I was sure I could never manage such a thing. Another woman said it was a huge relief for her that her husband handled all the finances for them both. As a career woman and a feminist, I couldn’t fathom that working for me, either. I asked them both, “Have you got anything else?”
Other advice I got was less dramatic but still hard to swallow. I couldn’t see, for instance, how accepting my husband’s shortcomings wasn’t “giving up” or how calling a girlfriend instead of arguing wasn’t being dishonest. But over time, desperation won out and I decided I was ready to give their suggestions a try. After all, I reasoned, I didn’t have anything to lose. I told myself I could experiment, and if something didn’t work, I’d just throw it out. Through this process of trial and error, I began to see that when I took certain approaches, I reliably found myself enjoying greater intimacy and connection with my husband. I also saw that when I reverted back to my old, well-worn habit of trying to improve him through constructive criticism…well, let’s just say the results of my little marriage experiment were very convincing.
For the first time, I saw a pattern that had eluded me. I had been convinced that my husband was being actively stubborn or distant or lazy, but as I experimented with these new approaches, I came to see that many of his actions were simply reactions to what I said and did. All at once, the consequences of my old approach were clear, as though I had on a new pair of glasses. And while I didn’t think I’d been such a bad wife, it was startling to realize how much of the conflict and tension in our marriage had been my own doing. By applying these insights, I gained a new way of looking at the problems in my marriage—and a new means of solving them. Instead of feeling like a victim of my husband’s lack of interest or hostility, I felt empowered to make my relationship what I wanted it to be. Instead of complicated and tedious, that relationship began to seem simple and straightforward. I could see the causes and the effects, and I was able to use my newfound skills to make our marriage sweet, playful, and passionate. My husband transformed back into the man I fell in love with.
I was astonished to learn that there’s no such thing as “working on your relationship.” There’s only working on yourself—and then your relationship improves. No matter what he was doing or not doing, the Six Intimacy Skills I’d developed showed me how to trust and respect my mere mortal husband, which felt surprisingly good. As I practiced the Intimacy Skills, I became more dignified, humble, and grateful.
I Had the Power All Along
Because we haven’t gotten into the details yet, your mind may be running wild, but don’t get the wrong idea: The Six Intimacy Skills aren’t about bending over backward to cater to your husband’s every whim. If anything, I was spending less time thinking about my husband and more time thinking about my own needs and desires. My husband, in turn, found me irresistible. This was the surprising pathway to becoming a wife whose husband can’t do enough to make her happy—from putting gas in my car to telling me how beautiful I am.
I didn’t recognize the empowerment in the Intimacy Skills at first because it came disguised as accountability. Where I had previously looked to my husband to do the things that I believed would improve our relationship, practicing the Six Intimacy Skills meant looking only at what I could do differently. It meant being willing to suspend longheld beliefs about the way I thought things should be and to take an uncomfortably unfamiliar approach to our conversations. I began to take responsibility for my own behavior and the damage I was doing, no matter how justified I felt in screeching, nagging, or rolling my eyes. I reluctantly found the humility to admit that I don’t always know what’s best.
I felt terrible when I realized how much I was doing to squash the emotional connection in my home, especially because at first I couldn’t figure out how to stop. But being accountable for what I was bringing to the table was also exciting, because it meant I was no longer helpless and hopeless. Blaming my husband for being defective and believing that he just “wasn’t good at relationships” may have consoled me in my loneliness, but it never matched the thrill of having butterflies in my stomach again, or the return of passion and playfulness. Focusing only on what I could control showed me that I had more power than I’d ever dreamed.
When you practice the Six Intimacy Skills, your relationship will begin to feel easy and fun again. You are going to feel more like yourself, and you’ll like yourself more. (And watch how quickly the chores get done, without having to remind your husband to do them.) But I know that at first it can feel like walking off a cliff. Making the choice to set aside everything you think you know about relationships in general—and your relationship in particular—can be scary. It means looking inward, giving up your long list of accumulated resentments, and trying something new. But I know you won’t regret it—it’s been eighteen years now, and I never have.