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February 2004 • Volume 3 • Issue 1
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In This Month's Issue: Learn how simple, but powerful, guiding principles and practical techniques can help you create a sense of Valentines all year!
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Jonathan D. Sherman, LMFT
Marriage & Family Therapist
Bardos Relationship Consulting
3688 E. Campus Dr., Suite 200
Eagle Mountain, UT 84043
p: 801.787.8014
e: jonathan@bardos.net
w: bardos.net
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| Valentine's All Year mini retreat |
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| Join me for “Valentine’s All Year” this Valentine’s Day, February 14th, from 9:00 a.m. to noon at The Ranches Golf Club.
Kick off your Valentine's Day in this fun, upbeat and informative mini-retreat and learn how to be more mindful and attentive of your relationship throughout the year. What better gift to give each other than to commit to enhancing your marriage by learning skills that will continue throughout the year to reinforce your love for each other? Give the best gifts: the gifts of knowledge, commitment, appreciation, communication and time together.
Please contact us at info@bardos.net or 801.787.8014 for more information.
Click here for more info and to register. Hurry...space is limited!
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Homework for Couples
By Jonathan D. Sherman, LMFT |
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 Have you ever been on your kids about their grades and homework? How about yourself? Are you making the marital grade? Are you “just passing” or getting “average,” “good” or “excellent” grades? Have you been doing your homework? The marital grade that counts is the 5:1 ratio of five positive interactions for every one negative interaction. That is 80%, or B, work. The good news is that by no means do we have to have perfect relationships. However, we cannot expect great relationships to just happen because we want them anymore than our children can expect good grades without doing their homework. To make the grade homework must be done regularly, consistently and well.
Following are just a few homework assignments to get you started. Work on them one at a time. You can find more detailed information for many of these homework assignments at bardos.net/resources.
Courtship maintenance: Schedule and keep regular dates. I cannot emphasize this enough.
Conflict management: Increase personal and couple problem solving skills by learning and practicing the Rules for Fair Fighting.
Day sharing: Simply check in with each other on a daily basis to see how each other is doing, as well as catch up on the day’s events.
Cook and eat together as often as possible. Make time to make it happen.
Homework: Do the household work together. Do not disregard the power of doing shared work just because the task may seem mundane.
United parenting: Take the time to clarify and work on your parenting strategies, plans, skills and techniques together.
Non-sexual physical affection: Make hugs, back rubs and massages a regular part of your relationship.
Sexual intimacy: Stop ignoring it. Let’s talk about it; let’s deal with it. There are way too many wrong assumptions, unrealistic expectations, inaccurate information and hurt feelings around the sexual relationship between husband and wife to be ignored. Talking about sex is smart. Fighting about sex is not. Learn to talk about it openly and sensitively.
Treasury tune-up: By mutually sharing fiscal responsibility you can learn to avoid the American Bar Association’s grim statistic that 80 percent of all divorces are related to financial problems.
Continuing education: There is no shortage of excellent self-improvement and relationship enhancement information. Read books, listen to tapes and go to workshops.
Balancing family and work demands: In the movie Hook, the adult Peter Pan is warned that, “You’re not being careful with your family!” Be careful and find that balance as soon as you can.
Secret service: Practice surprising each other with big or small acts that you know will be helpful to your spouse.
Communication: Learn not only how to listen more than you talk, but how to listen deeply for what really matters.
Learn interpersonal effectiveness skills: For example, and generally speaking, men need to initiate, and respond to, conversations more. Women need to start up conversations in a less confrontational manner (i.e., ask nicely).
Mission and vision: Develop a clear vision of what you both want your relationship to look like when you are both eighty years old and work like dogs to start creating that relationship today, this month, this year.
Recess: Above all learn to make your relationship work fun and playful.
Join me for “Valentine’s All Year” this Valentine’s Day, February 14, from 9:00 a.m. to noon. In this fun, upbeat and informative mini-retreat learn how to be more mindful of your relationship throughout the year. For more information contact me at 801.787.8014 or at jonathan@bardos.net or visit bardos.net/valentines.
More articles and tips for creating greatness in your relationships can be found at bardos.net/resources
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Valentine's All Year
By Jonathan D. Sherman, LMFT
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 Valentine’s Day all year? Why not? Why not take all the time, attentiveness, thoughtfulness and planning that goes into Valentine’s Day and spread it out through the whole year? Sounds good, yes, but is it really practical?
Guiding principle: Practical romance.
Yes. Not only is it practical, it also simply makes a lot of sense. Valentine’s all year does not need to be flowers and dining out every day. It is about splurging with our attention and with our commitments for one another. Practical romance is all about showering one’s spouse with simple, fun, deep, profound, silly and meaningful words and deeds on a regular and consistent basis and not just once a year. Valentine’s all year is not a fluffy, superficial approach to romance. At this point in my life I only have time for real, practical, solid approaches that simply work.
Guiding principle: Don’t just wish, want or hope. Decide.
To get great relationship results we must have a clear, identifiable mechanism for carrying it out throughout the year. By learning the guiding principles and practical techniques of creating great relationships we can unlearn what isn’t working and learn what does work. These great relationship principles then become the vehicle that will carry us to our destination.
 To accomplish this we cannot continue the ineffective practice of thinking that just because we really want, wish or hope for something bad enough that we will get it. That is not enough for this type of work. We have to decide and then have clear plan of how we are going to implement it in our relationships. That is the whole point of the Valentine’s All Year concept. It is designed to be not only a mindset, but also a series of specific exercises to jump start you into having possibly one of the best years of your marriage. It is designed to help you transform your relationship into what you always wanted it to be but didn’t know how. This is what real romance is all about. Not just a few days out of the year where we really focus on the relationship. But every day. All year.
Practical technique: Adopt the mindset and start the work.
I encourage you to adopt the Valentine’s All Year mindset as a means to really learn how to appreciate each other, how to deeply commit to each other, and how to communicate what is essential to each other. It takes a lot of willingness, attentiveness, time, thoughtfulness, mindfulness and practice. In short it takes a lot of work. The return on the investment, however, is huge and way worth it.
How can you apply the mindset? One way is to simply start by making a list of 52 things you can do for your spouse this year to express your love and commitment to him or her. If that sounds like a lot, just start with a list of ten. Once you start the ideas will continue to flow. Work on it until you have identified the list of 52. If you get stuck, call or email me and I’ll be happy to give you a few great ideas. Once you have made your list begin implementing one idea each week for the next year until next Valentine’s Day and just see how things have improved.
Practical techniques: Come and get ‘em!
Join me for “Valentine’s All Year” this Valentine’s Day, February 14th, from 9:00 a.m. to noon at the Ranches Golf Club. Come and enjoy this fun, upbeat and informative mini-retreat and learn how to be more mindful of your relationship throughout the year. The Three Peaks Grille there will serve a continental breakfast. For more information and to register contact me at 801.787.8014 or at jonathan@bardos.net or visit bardos.net/valentines.
More articles and tips for creating greatness in your relationships can be found at bardos.net/resources
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| Upcoming Events & Community Event Review |
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| UPCOMING EVENTS:
Valentine's All Year mini retreat (see above)
 Ongoing Free Workshops: The Relationship Wellness Series
Free monthly workshops designed to strengthen families and enrich our community.
See Calendar of Events for full details on all upcoming workshops and events.
COMMUNITY EVENT REVIEW:
“Husband & Wife Creative Dates Contest and Date Night Dinner & Seminar."
I had the pleasure of speaking to Sandra Wilkes, B.S., today about her upcoming presentation. She will be speaking on “Marriage Partnership: Enhancing Your Perspective.” She has a solid educational background on this very topic having received her education from Brigham Young University’s Marriage, Family and Human Development program. Professionally, she works in child welfare for the State of Utah’s Office of the Guardian ad Litem. Best of all, she has 31 years of practical experience from her own marriage.
There will be a great dinner served, lots of drawings and they will award the winners of the date contest.
Date: Friday, March 5th, 2004
Time: 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Place: Pleasant Grove City Library Basement
Cost: $30 per couple for dinner, speaker and drawings. Register by February 23rd and get $5 off.
Contest Details: Enter now for the Husband & Wife Date Night Contest. All entries must sent to the Pleasant Grove Recreation Department by February 14th. Must be typed, with name and phone number.
Topic #1: Most Romantic Mate: Tell why your mate deserves this award. Give a few examples of some of the things they do.
Topic #2: Most Creative Surprise Date: Give a detailed description of how you were surprised, what the surprise was and what makes it unique.
Winners of the contests will receive overnight stay at a hotel. All awards will be awarded at the Date Night Dinner & Seminar.
It sounds like a great night and I encourage you to take advantage of this excellent opportunity.
For more information call Vanessa at 785-6172.
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| If you enjoy the Bardos "Great Relationships" eZine and know a friend, colleague or family member who may benefit from or enjoy receiving it, please forward it along to them! |
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| FREE Great Relationships Packet Offer |
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| The Great Relationships Packet includes:
• "The 15-Minute Marriage Make-Over" Worksheet Exercise
• 7 Ways to Make Your Marriage Last"
• "9 Rules for Fair Fighting"
• "12 Steps to Better Marital Communications"
• "Daily Romance: Keeping the Love Alive"
• "Wisdom From the Ages: The Power and Beauty of Committed Love"
• & Much more!
To receive your FREE Great Relationships Packet simply email GreatRelationships@bardos.net and state you would like to receive it. What could be easier than that? Well...? Huh...?
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| Jonathan D. Sherman, LMFT is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Relationship Consultant specializing in creating "greatness in relationships." He is experienced in assisting people learn to improve their marriages, their parenting and themselves through skill development, life coaching, overcoming depression and anxiety, stress and anger management, and addiction recovery. He teaches extensively on a wide range of relationship topics. He is the founder of Bardos Relationship Consulting. You may reach him at 801.787.8014, jonathan@bardos.net or at www.bardos.net. |
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Copyright and Fair Use Information:
© 2004 Bardos Relationship Consulting & Jonathan D. Sherman, LMFT, All rights reserved. You are free to use material from the Great Relationships eZine in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link. Please also notify me where the material will appear. The attribution should read:
"By Jonathan D. Sherman, LMFT of Bardos Relationship Consulting. Please visit Jonathan's web site at http://www.bardos.net for additional articles and resources for creating greatness in relationships."
To Subscribe Free:
Go to http://www.bardos.net and just fill out the simple form on the right hand column. It takes about 20 seconds. As a welcome gift you'll get our free Great Relationships Packet (see details above).
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