Esther Benbihy

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Finding Time for Your Partner Again: Part 1

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My Partner and I Have Different Sexual Interests

As you and your partner get into the swing of living together, there comes a kind of comfort and ease with your day. You learn what you’re both good at and what you can rely on each other for and a routine forms. However, as the years pass, you may find yourself getting so caught up in that routine that you forget how to make time for each other. If you’re having trouble finding time for your partner, it might be time to reevaluate how good that routine really is.

The Cause

The first thing to figure out is why you and your partner don’t seem to have time for each other. There can be many reasons. Here are some of the most common ones. You:

  • Work a lot and find yourself too tired to do anything when you’re done
  • Both want to do different things and spend most of your free time away from each other
  • Are constantly on the move from wake to sleep

Because each cause has a different set of solutions, knowing the cause is the first thing you have to figure out.

Plan for Change

When you’ve figured out what the cause of your distance is, the next step is planning for change. When you’ve gotten yourself stuck in a routine, it can be hard to actually make a change. It’s incredibly easy to start the change and then immediately slip back into how it was before. This happens a lot when people expect fast results and don’t get them. It also happens when people get fast results and then don’t feel motivated to continue because they got what they wanted in the short-term. It’s important not to let either of these become a reality for you. 

If you want to successfully find time for your partner, you have to dedicate yourself. You have to accept that you’re making a long-term change. Most importantly, you have to pace yourself. Trying to make a huge change all of a sudden is going to lead to a fast burnout and immediate withdrawal from the change.

Remove the Shame

For a lot of people, realizing they’ve gotten themselves into a routine of ignoring their partner or prioritizing other things causes a lot of shame and regret. While feeling some regret is healthy, let’s take away the shame. Falling into a monotony with your partner is incredibly common and it’s easy to do. What matters is that you’re trying to make time for them again. So, buck up and try not to feel bad. Change and improvement is just around the corner!

Unique Solutions

When it comes to the previously mentioned causes, we have to find unique solutions for unique problems. Check out our next article to see how we approach change with each of these causes. If you can’t wait to get started, give us a call and schedule an appointment with Esther Benbihy. Getting couple’s therapy is a fantastic choice when finding time for your partner.

What Are the 5 Love Languages? Part 2

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What Are the 5 Love Languages? Part 2

In our last article, we covered what the 5 primary love languages are. However, knowing what they are isn’t as useful as knowing how to use them. Today’s article is where you’ll learn what to do with these love languages to make communication with your partner easier and more fulfilling.

What’s Your Love Language?

After reading through the list of love languages in Part 1, at least one of the languages must have stuck out to you. There might even be more than one that applies. Which language do you understand? Is it physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, gift giving, or acts of service?

When you know what your love language is, you can communicate that to your partner. If your partner is willing to put a little work into your relationship, they’ll be grateful to learn your love language. After all, understanding why past actions may not have gotten through and how future acts of love can be more easily understood is a huge relief.

What is Your Partner’s?

Not so fast though! You feeling loved is important, but equally as important is ensuring that your partner is also feeling loved. If you haven’t gone through our last article with your partner yet, we encourage you to do so. Let’s see if your partner can figure out which language gets through to them.

Speaking Each Other’s Language

The most important thing about learning each other’s love language is learning to speak them. If you and your partner have different love languages, it might have been the reason why you were feeling unloved. People tend to speak their own language fluently. However, if your partner doesn’t have that same language, your love might not have been getting through to them.

Talk to your partner about the specific things in their language that work best for them. Every language has its dialects and the primary love language might not be specific enough. If your partner has a gift giving love language, they might specifically like it when you buy them flowers. Others might like food gifts or handmade gifts. If your partner likes physical touch, they might have a special focus on sex or particularly sensual touching. However, some others might not mind the amount of sex but really want more frequent casual touches, like sitting close or holding hands.

Mending Your Relationship

When you begin to understand what things make your partner feel loved, you’ll be much more capable in expressing your love to them. You might be surprised by how effective it is. While you two might have had your spark dampened for a while, the implementation of love languages may suddenly cause it to flare.

An impromptu kiss for someone who prefers physical touch may brighten their whole day. Talking about your day or asking about theirs might fill the need for quality time. Saying thank you and ‘I love you’ to someone who prefers words might make them feel appreciated like never before. The power of knowing how to communicate with your partner is unbelievable when you finally understand how to do it.

If you want to read more about the love languages, click here to find the original book by Gary Chapman. It’s highly recommended and explains these much more than we can through our blog. If you’re in need of a third party, consider scheduling a counseling session.

What Are the 5 Love Languages? Part 1

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What Are the 5 Love Languages? Part 1

Communication is a vitally important part of any successful relationship. However, communication isn’t just discussing your feelings. A lot of the most important communication is nonverbal. That communication is how we express our love to one and other. The thing is, we don’t all speak the same love language. There are 5 primary love languages and we’d like to explain how they work so that you and your partner can communicate your love effectively.

Importance

The reason love languages are so important is because, if you don’t know how to speak or read a love language that isn’t your own, you may not know how to communicate your love to your partner in a way they understand. You might also be missing signals that they love you back! If someone spoke to you in a foreign language, you wouldn’t be able to understand what they’re telling you no matter how much energy they put into speaking to you. The same goes for the 5 primary love languages:

Physical Touch

If physical touch is your love language, you feel loved when your partner gives you a warm hug. Holding hands may fill you with softness and a gentle kiss might fill you with butterflies. Sex is also very important to many with a physical touch love language. It’s a way of communicating how well your partner knows you and wants to be near you intimately.

Words of Affirmation

If words of affirmation is your love language, you feel loved when your partner tells you how beautiful you are. You feel appreciated when your partner tells you how smart it was of you to pack a lunch for your walk in the park. The things that make you feel seen and loved by your partner are the words used to compliment and affirm that they recognize your value as a person.

Quality Time

If quality time is your love language, you feel loved when your partner asks to watch a movie with you. If movies aren’t your thing, it might be board games or reading together or going for a walk. You just know that it fills your heart with joy when your partner wants to do something together. Their desire to spend time with you says it all.

Gift Giving

Gift giving isn’t all about monetary value. If gift giving is your love language, you feel loved when your partner gives you things. It isn’t necessarily about the pricetag, it’s the thought that counts. To know that your partner saw something and thought of you makes you feel remembered and loved. If they put the time into making you something, you might be overwhelmed with the thought and time that went into their gift.

Acts of Service

If acts of service are your love language, you feel loved when your partner is willing to do something for you. When your partner remembers you’re out of water while they’re in the kitchen and return with a fresh glass, you feel noticed. They’ve been paying attention to your needs. If your partner does the dishes without being asked or picks up those groceries you needed on their way home, you feel loved and cared for.

Now that you know the 5 primary love languages, it’s time you learn what to do with them. Stick around for Part 2. You can even contact us if you’re interested in couple’s therapy.

How to Reconnect with Your Long-Time Partner

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How to Reconnect with Your Long-Time Partner

An age-old problem is that of feeling disconnected with a partner you’ve been with for a long time. With this problem comes a slew of theories about how to fix it. The fact of the matter is, a lot of people are way off the mark for how to fix this. The professionals at Esther Benbihy are here today to let you in on how you can get to the root of the problem and reconnect with your long-time partner.

Stoking the Fire

While one of the most common solutions to reconnecting is to rekindle your sex life, this isn’t actually a solution. If you and your partner are struggling to connect like you used to, having sex is a bandaid. Sex is a great addition when paired with a real solution. However, by itself, having sex if you and your partner are having relationship problems can actually do more harm than good. It’s easy to wish that something as simple as sex could fix everything. However, the truth is, you might have to put in a little more work than just showing up.

Building Trust

The reason why having sex isn’t a cure-all is because to have sex with a long-time partner, you really need to have a strong bond of trust between you. If your relationship has been strained or damaged in any way, having sex can actually highlight the lack of trust and connection in your relationship, leaving both of you feeling even worse. So, how do you get started on actually reconnecting with your long-time partner?

Look for Flags

The first thing you need to do to facilitate reconnection is to look for flags in your relationship. Are there things your partner has been saying bother them for years? It’s time to take those things seriously. The little things that don’t seem very big can often add up to create distance between us. If your partner is bothered by you leaving your dishes in the sink for them to take care of, start rinsing them off and putting them in the dishwasher. If your partner likes to keep lights off when they’re not being used and is bothered by you leaving them on, take the time to become more energy conscious.

The thing is, these little things that your partner cares about are a part of who they are. When you ignore these things, even if they seem little to you, it communicates that you’re unwilling to compromise. It communicates to them that they’re not worth the effort to you. If you want to really begin to reconnect, you need to figure out what these things are and make an effort to do better by your partner. These little things are ways for you to communicate your love. When you’ve done that and successfully reconnected, that’s when sex can be a real help in healing your relationship.

How to Spot Flags

Finding the things that you can do to communicate your love to your partner can be kind of tricky. That’s because there is no one size fits all. Everyone is different in how they send and receive signals of love. We at Esther Benbihy highly recommend taking a look at the book The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman. Or, if you’re patient and don’t have much time for books, check back in next month. In our next article, we’ll dive into the 5 love languages and what they’re all about.

Give us a call if you’re in need of relationship therapy. We’re even accepting over-the-phone clients to encourage social distancing during the COVID-19 emergency. Being stuck in quarantine is a great time to reconnect with your long-time partner.

4 Ways to Rebuild Your Marriage

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couple-therapy-toronto

Your marriage has trust as its basis. However, broken trust can damage a marriage beyond repair without professional intervention and hard work. What can you do to restore your marriage? From going to couple therapy in Toronto to learning how to truly connect to your spouse, you can help mend your relationship.

1. Don’t Do It Alone

In today’s web-saturated society many couples feel that they just need to Google “how to fix my marriage” and find all the answers. The truth of the matter is that your relationship deserves the help of a professional who trained as a psychotherapy, sex therapy, and relationship therapy. You can find healing with couple therapy in Toronto. Your therapist will act as a mediator and guide to help you build trust, improve communication, and ultimately help address the issues that brought you to this point in your life.

2. Rekindle the Romance

Over time relationships suffer from a roller coaster of emotions. The fiery passions from early in our relationship may wax and wane as work, responsibilities, children, and bills take away our attention. Too often couples forget to prioritize each other. Instead work, stress, after-school activities, hobbies, and even exercise take the place of our spouse. This leaves room for emotional attachments with members of the opposite sex outside of your marriage or even affairs. How can you rekindle the romance? Try these simple date ideas:

  • Surprise your spouse with babysitting and night out on the town
  • Find a hobby you both enjoy together like the cinema or camping and make a point of engaging in the hobby once a week
  • If possible, be sure your bedroom is clutter free, kid-free, and private to help facilitate togetherness and connectivity
  • Plan a weekend getaway where you only focus on each other
  • Take weekly walks, just the two of you, and talk
  • On cold nights, cuddle together and enjoy a hot cup of cocoa. Just enjoy the physical closeness
  • Make a life list of goals for this year and the next five years to help focus
  • Encourage each other to compliment each other at least three times a day
  • Try something new and exciting together like salsa dancing classes
  • Cancel activities that take you away from each other like unnecessary after school activities, business meetings, and social gatherings. Instead, for the next few months, just focus on spending as much time together as possible doing things you both enjoy.
  • Don’t forget the importance of physical intimacy. Connect physically with each other regularly. If this is difficult, you may need to speak with our sex therapists about overcoming challenges in the bedroom

3. Reevaluate Your Social Circle

You might want to look at the makeup of your social circle. Are your friends or family recently divorced or single? Take the time to develop friendships with married couples in healthy relationships. Why? You can find that marriage is easier in community. Find an older couple for mentorship. By surrounding yourself with friends that have committed to marriage, no matter the difficulties, you can find help and hope for your own marriage.

4. Be Realistic and Honest

Many couples enter marriage believing they can change their spouse. However, that rarely happens. Instead, resentment builds over time, cracking the foundations of marriage. With the help of a marriage counselor, be honest and vulnerable with each other. Discuss your expectations for the marriage. Discuss the situations that led to the break in trust. Your therapist can help mediate strong feelings and make the experience positive and fruitful for both of you.

Follow these simple suggestions, along with professional marriage therapy, and you may find that you and your spouse can rekindle the romance. Enjoy the journey together.