Making Love: How to Create, Enjoy and Sustain Intimacy
By Robert Johansen and Tom Gaffaney
()
About this ebook
Making Love is an extremely important book for today’s times, given that a staggering sixty-seven percent of couples married after 1990 are divorced. Ironically, marriage counselors divorce at the same alarming rate as the national average. While these failed relationship statistics are troubling, there is hope for a better tomorrow.
Author’s Johansen and Gaffaney’s research evolved into a groundbreaking and clinically tested model that gives readers the tools to thrive in their marriage or relationship.
What Other Doctors Have Said About Making Love:
The authors have brought a refreshing and new perspective to the difficulties and complexities of the intimate relationship. Making Love offers a uniquely inspiring view on how partners can grow love for each other. I highly recommend it. - Sherry Lewis, PhD. LCSW
Drs. Johansen and Gaffaney have devised a very powerful model for effectively intervening in couples lives to improve their intimacy. Their model reduces strife while teaching relating partners intimacy-building communication techniques. This book will benefit professional therapists and lay people alike. - Diana Haberland, M.A., Marriage and Family Therapist, Private Practice
I had the great opportunity to put the principles contained in this book to a scientific test for my doctoral dissertation. The results of my research were very positive to say the least. But perhaps even more importantly, I have applied these principles with clients in my practice and have seen first hand how effective they are. By offerring an organizing perspective on the complex data couples bring to therapy, the model reduces anxiety in clients and treating therapists. The model changes our traditional views on love and marriage. I strongly recommend it. - Ian T. Johansen, PhD, Clinical Psychologist, Private Practice, Author, Private Practice
This book can change one's life. The authors have lucidly presented profoundly simple principles that enable couples to understand their own needs, hear those of their partner, and work toward continued open and nurturing communication and fulfillment. My own professional and personal growth after thirty years as a psychologist continues to be informed by this landmark addition to the practice of couples therapy." - Lester Mindus, PhD, Private Practice
Robert Johansen
Bob Johansen has been helping organizations around the world prepare for and shape the future for more than thirty years. Currently a Distinguished Fellow with the Institute for the Future (IFTF), he was IFTF’s president from 1996 to 2004. His work has been influential to IFTF clients such as Procter & Gamble, Tesco, UPS, Disney, Hallmark, KnowledgeWorks Foundation, United Cerebral Palsy, and other leading organizations. He is the author or coauthor of seven previous books, including Get There Early: Sensing the Future to Compete in the Present.
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Book preview
Making Love - Robert Johansen
Making Love
By Dr. Robert Johansen and Dr. Todd Gaffaney
Copyright 2012 by Dr. Robert Johansen and Dr. Todd Gaffaney
ISBN-13: 978-1-611-87265-1
Cover Design by Eric Lindsey
Cover copyright 2012 Park East Press and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
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Making Love
How to Create, Enjoy, and Sustain Intimacy
Dr. Robert Johansen and Dr. Todd Gaffaney
Acknowledgments
To my wife, Anne, thank you for being the loving catalyst to the ideas contained in this book. Words fall short of capturing my gratitude for your unwavering support and devotion. Todd and I will always be grateful for your practical suggestions.
To my son, Dr. Ian Johansen, thank you for your love, support, and prodding. Your labors gave the armchair theorizing of our intimacy model a scientific footing. Todd and I will always be grateful to you.
To my daughter, Lauren, thank you for your love, inspiration, and encouragement.
To my parents, Nils and Naomi, your love was formative.
—Robert Johansen
To my wife, Vi, and our family, Mat, Wendy, and Sherice, thank you for the opportunity to know myself better. I appreciate all of your loving support and ideas. It has been a long haul. Vi, you even had the time to remodel the house.
To Bob, thank you for your wise and clever feedback. Your humorous margin notes took the edge off.
To John, thank you for having confidence in our project.
Lastly, our thanks to the many clients who supported and inspired us.
—Todd Gaffaney
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I: Problems and Solutions
Chapter One: Why Relationships Fail
Character-Based Love
A Case Example
Four Pathways
Romance Is Never Enough
Low Intimacy Intelligence
Intimacy Defined
The Intricacies of Intimacy
The Intimacy Questionnaire
The Incompleteness of Childhood
The Two Brains
The Ghosts of the Past
The War of the Sexes
The Clashing of Values
Male Stereotypes
Female Stereotypes
Gender Fallout
Reflections and Questions
Personal Exercise
Chapter Two: A New Model for Lasting Relationships
Introduction to the Model
A Case Illustration
A Case Analysis
Principles of the Model
Intimacy Reveals
What Gets Revealed?
Reactions
Blaming: Inevitable and Destructive
Analyzing Our Stories
Need Management
Need Identification
Need Legitimization
Need Representation
Viewing Our Partners in a New Way
A Case Example
Character-Based Love (Already used this heading earlier)
Self-Generated Love
Application
Change Ourselves and Change Our Relationships
Intimacy Is the Best Vehicle for Change and Growth
The Long and Short of Need Management
Summary of the Model
Intimacy Reveals Us
Managing What Is Revealed
Managing Our Needs
Application of the Model
Personal Exercise
PART II: Building Lasting Relationships
Chapter Three: Love Under the Microscope
Romance vs. Marriage
The Highs and Lows of Romantic Love
The Lows
The Worst Low
The Origins of Romantic Love
The Biology of Romantic Love
Infant Love
Infant and Romantic Love
Romantic and Character-Based Love
Character-Based Love
Origins
The Language of Self-Generated Love
Shifting Our Thinking
Benefits of Self-Generated Love
A Case Example
A Case Analysis
Language Metaphor
Personal Exercise
Chapter Four: The Basics of Intimacy
Intimacy Is Unique and Difficult
Managing What Is Revealed
The Fear of Intimacy
Our Needs Define Us
Our History of Needs
I Fear What I Need
Managing Needs and Fears
Making Friends with Fear
Knowledge
Exposure
Redoing the History
The Psychology of Risking
Risking Intimately
I Risk, Therefore I Am
Risk for Intimacy—Quiz
Strategies for Risk-Taking
The Safety in Risking
Need Management and Intimacy
Personal Exercise
Chapter Five: Overcoming Emotional Wounds
Vignette
Past Relationship: Our Parents
Present Relationship: Our Partners
Crossing the Bridge from Past to Present
Emotional Wounds
A Case Example
The Importance of Past Relationships
Imperfect Parents
Imperfect Childhood
Unmet Needs
Surveying the Damage of the Past
Survey Results and Analysis
Learning from Emotional Wounds
Becoming Your Own Parent
Learning to Think and Act Effectively
A Case in Point
Reworking Our Conflicts
Strategies for Overcoming Emotional Wounds
Personal Exercise
Chapter Six: Men vs. Women: The Longest War
He vs. She—The War Between the Sexes
An Acceptable Addiction
Post-Romantic Stress Disorder
Mismatched Priorities
The Male Mistake
Masked Men
The Emotional Side of Men
Over-Sexed
Funny Guy
Mr. Angry
The Feminine Perspective
The Feminine Mistake
Damsel in Distress
Rigid Expectations
The Emotional Side of Women
The War of the Sexes
The Union of Opposites
His Problem
His Solution
Her Problem
Her Solution
Summary
Personal Exercise
PART III: Starting Over
Chapter Seven: Love Affairs
Cheating
Why Do People Cheat?
Escape from the Self
A Case Example
Treatment Options
Stop Blaming Our Partners
Analyzing Our Stories
Managing Our Needs
Need Identification
Shifting Our Thinking
Magical Changes
Personal Exercise
Chapter Eight: Divorce and Starting Over
Terminating Relationships: The Right Reasons
The Wrong Reasons
Poor Need Management
Common Denominator
After the Breakup—Single and Alone
Managing the Emotional Fallout
Examining Your Previous Relationship
Positive Stories
Negative Stories
Starting Over and Reconnecting
Need Management Inventory
Starting a New Relationship
The Myth of Compatibility
Beyond Compatibility: Who vs. How
Self-Generated Love
Using the Model for Starting Over
A Case Example
Attracted to Whom?
Personal Exercise
Need Management Inventory
Need Identification
Need Legitimization
Need Representation: Balance of Self and Other Respect
Expression of Need and Feeling
Prioritizing of Needs
Evaluation: Self vs. Partner
Glossary of Key Terms
References
Introduction
Making Love is not an instructional manual on human sexuality. It is instead a recipe for how couples can create, enjoy, and sustain intimacy.
The Revealed Relationship
Intimacy is the most powerful and unique relationship we will ever experience. The magic of intimacy is its power to reveal who we are—all of our flaws, foibles, and imperfections are drawn into the open. Nobody knows us better than our intimate partners. They provoke us to experience the parts of our personalities that are not fully developed. Now here’s the dilemma—what do we do? On the one hand, we can get defensive, withdraw, or argue. Intimacy suffers. On the other hand, intimacy makes possible our fullest maturity as a person. It is the new womb of development.
Two Kinds of Love
Do you remember the first time you fell in love? How did you explain your passionate feelings? Typically, we attribute our attraction to the traits found in our romantic partners. He’s so intelligent.
She’s so sexy.
We fall in love with who we perceive them to be. In this book, we refer to this as character-based love.
Character-based love places the source of our love within our partners. Our love then becomes too dependent on our partners, and we lose control of our affections. Worse, when our partners’ traits change or disappear—and they will—what happens to our love? Character-based love is seriously flawed.
Alternatively, self-generated love presupposes that what we feel for our partners ought to be our own creation. It should not depend solely on the traits in our partners. Love develops from the kind of people we are when we are with our partners. If I like who I am when I’m with you, then I like you too.
The centerpiece of self-generated love is effective need management. Our focus should not be on need gratification or on partner compatibility (many self-help books stress these ideas). The key is to create and maintain respect for who I am in relation to you. This requires careful and well-practiced need management. I must identify, legitimatize, and represent the needs I bring to my relationship. This is the way I grow love for myself and my partner. I am self-generating love.
If you need help applying the concepts in the book or would like us to present the model to you or your group, please contact us at 714-651-8853, or e-mail us at rjohansenphd@verizon.net or tgaffaney@cerritos.edu.
Part I
Problems and Solutions
Chapter One
Why Relationships Fail
Relationships fail. Intimacy is difficult. Oddly enough, it’s easier to cure most forms of cancer than it is to heal a dying relationship. The divorce rate for couples married after l990 is a staggering 67%! Even marriage counselors divorce at or around the national average. While these statistics are sobering, there is hope.
Character-Based Love
Our relationships fail because the love we have for our partners is character-based. Simply put, character-based love is the attraction we feel for another person based upon his or her personality traits. This is the usual way we fall in love. Not surprisingly, character-based love is most prominent throughout the dating process when we least know our partners. During this romantic phase, we are passionate about our partners because of the type of people we perceive them to be. We idealize them. They are kind,
intelligent,
physically attractive,
fun to be with,
and so on. We love them because they possess these traits. The belief is that these character traits are sufficient to create and maintain our affections over a lifetime.
We explain the love we feel for our partners as the direct consequence of their character traits. Character-based love places the source of our love outside ourselves, and so we lose control of our affections. Without our being fully aware of it, the source of our feelings is turned over to our partners, making them responsible for the creation and maintenance of our affections. This very common mentality unfortunately forecasts the erosion of intimacy.
It is important to note that, when we place the source of our love outside of ourselves, it prevents us from looking inward and developing the kind of skills we need for intimacy. To make matters worse, when we ascribe positive traits to our partners, we simultaneously but unwittingly make them responsible for gratifying our needs. We reinforce our belief that they are the primary source of our love. However, when they fail to meet our needs—and they will—we blame them for not caring. We accuse them of having changed. In this sense, character-based love is the wellspring of poor personal need management.
Take a moment and reflect on the idea of character-based love. Ask yourself, what attracted you to your partner? What traits did you admire? Did these same traits form the basis of your love? If so, has your perception of these traits changed?
A Case Example
Jeff and Heather fell madly in love with each other. Jeff couldn’t take his eyes off of Heather’s voluptuous body. Sealing the deal, Heather was financially well-off and had an engaging personality and an infectious laugh. Since Jeff came from humble beginnings, he was insecure about money. Heather seemed to be just the solution he needed. She was the perfect match. Now, here it comes: Jeff s love of Heather is character-based.
The greatest pitfall of character-based love is that we project the source of our love onto another person. We externalize the origin of our affections. In effect, our love is dependent upon how we perceive our partners. If they change—and they do—what happens to our love?
Here’s another example. When Maria first met Reuben, she described him to her friends as confident,
positive,
and a take-charge-kind-of-guy.
She was drawn to these traits. Now, let’s jump ahead in time five years. Maria and Reuben are having marital problems. Maria now describes Reuben as dominating and controlling.
Why did her initial attraction reverse itself? Did Reuben change, or did Maria’s perception of Reuben’s traits change? Either way, the source of her love was external and not under her own control. It was character-based. Maria and Reuben are in trouble; their relationship is at risk.
Maria and Reuben are a typical couple. The way they met and the problems that surfaced between them represent the norm and not the exception. Maria and Reuben fell in love the same way that most of us do. They found traits in each other they liked and presumed they were reasonably and sufficiently compatible. Unfortunately, their character-based love is at best incomplete. At worst, it spells disaster. At this point, let’s deepen our analysis of character-based love and its role in the demise of our relationships.
Four Pathways
Character-based love encompasses four major pathways leading to relationship failure. Each of these pathways explains in its own way why intimate relationships are difficult and often fail.
First, romance is never enough; it is the quintessential form of character-based love. The initial passionate forces of attraction are important, but not sufficient to sustain us through the rigors of an intimate relationship. Romance has us fall in love with the traits in our partner. While this is commonplace, the danger is that the source of our love lies outside ourselves. It’s not under our control. This type of love assumes that our partners will never change, or that our perceptions of them will never change.
Second, we suffer from low intimacy intelligence. Character-based love seduces us into concluding that the reason for our love lies in the traits of our partner. Because of this belief, we fail to develop the real intimacy skills necessary to navigate and sustain a long-term relationship. Without these internal skills, the difficulties of intimacy can be overwhelming.
Third, we fail to overcome childhood emotional wounds. These early emotional