Cuddling for Greater Love and Better Sex - a Love Skill

Mini-Love-Lesson #189

Synopsis: How cuddling leads to more and better sex as well as to love itself; the fine and healthy benefits of cuddling; overcoming cuddling resistance and reluctance; plus how to give, get, start and restart better and longer cuddling are all covered in this mini-love-lesson.

Cuddling around the World

They studied over 70,000 people in 24 different countries.  It was the same everywhere.  Those who cuddled often tended to have better sex lives and better love fulfilled relationships.  Those who did not engage in cuddling much didn’t.  Not only that but those who expressed affection more often and more freely including doing so in public and those who frequently kissed passionately along with affectionate touch in a variety of ways had the best sex and all over the best loving relationships.  The easiest place to read about all this is in a book called the Normal Bar which gives an easy, fun to read overview of this amazing study from the world of social psychology.

Now, I will brag a bit.  Kathleen McClaren RN and I discovered and published in a major sex therapy Journal something very similar way back in 1982.  In our research we added training in eight types of love behaviors to standard sex therapy behavior training and got a 50% plus improvement over just standard sex therapy with couples in sex therapy.  In our second study the sex therapists we trained got similar results.  Sad to say, the field of sex therapy then didn’t seem to be much interested in love or love conveying behaviors and so nothing much came of our findings at that time.

What’s Special about Cuddling?

When we cuddle especially in spoon cuddling, or when nude, a lot of our skin gets involved.  Furthermore, our skin tends to be stimulated in a longer way than in hugs and other forms of loving touch.  This means several, larger, good things are likely to be happening in our brain and nervous system.  Neurochemically oxytocin, the chemical compound that helps us with feeling love-connected, tends to be produced more abundantly, along with other feel-good brain chemistry.

There also is some evidence suggesting we become more neuroelectrically in harmony with each other but we are not quite sure what that does for us.  The evidence suggests that with cuddling you are likely to feel more love-bonded, happier, safer, more comfortable, more relaxed and have lowered stress.
If your cuddling becomes mutually sexual, then a lot of added pleasures are possible. However, it is important that sex not occur in at least about half of the cuddling experiences or the love feelings may diminish even if the sexuality continues to be good.

Will My Sex Live & My Love Life Improve with More & Better Cuddling?

The answer to this question is probably a strong yes!  Our research found most couples could learn and maintain better love behavior, both in and out of sex, with some love and sex behavior skills’ training added together and practiced for a while.  Also behaviors which interactively expressed and demonstrated the emotions being felt, particularly feeling loving and loved, were especially important both in and outside of sexual interaction.

What About Cuddling Reluctance And Resistance?

A sizable minority of people have trouble with cuddling even though they hear how much most other people greatly enjoy it.  The reasons vary greatly and are often unknown consciously.  There are a small number of people whose epidermis is hypersensitive and for whom touch can be unpleasant or even painful.  There is a far larger group who had negative or even traumatic experiences associated with cuddling or cuddling-like touch.

So, they tend to avoid it because of the conscious or subconscious feeling-memories it brings up.  For another group it is too pleasurable and/or to easily sexual, and they tend to cut short time spent cuddling, not wanting to get sexual at that time.  Also if people grew up in a non-cuddling family, or in a family that did only very short cuddling, their habit may be to do the same.

Some couples let cuddling fade out of their regular ways of showing love to each other.  That can occur due to lengthy recovery time from illness or injury, work schedule conflicts, childcare demands and a variety of other reasons.

Starting and Re-starting More and Better Cuddling

Most people who have a problem with cuddling or cuddling longer can get over their reluctance if they go about it as follows.  First talk it over with your cuddling partner, and if you can jointly agree, follow these procedures.  Start with whatever amount of cuddling seems tolerable, side-by-side on a couch or in a bed.  Then go just a bit longer.  Then in an hour do the same thing even a bit longer than before.  Repeat going a bit longer each time, an hour apart twice more.

Usually these first cuddling experiences are to be done with only a little, soft, gentle movement and nothing sexual.  Repeat the next day at least three times with a little more soft gentle movement of hands and arms and body movement.  And again, do nothing sexual, just caressing in slow comforting ways.  If anything seems displeasurable, ask for a change into whatever would be a little more pleasurable, or at least tolerable instead of sending a stop message.

Part of the cuddling usually is best done by being still and mentally focusing on what you are feeling, both physically and emotionally, plus noting that nothing harmful or painful is occurring.  You also silently might reassure yourself that you are ok and you are on your way to very positive feelings and experiences.  If you can do this exercise 3 to 5 times a day for a week, you likely are going to go through a period where you find your feelings about cuddling to be either mixed or just neutral, but not really negative.  Then usually you go through a period where you are starting to increasingly enjoy cuddling.  After each practice cuddle it is good for you and your partner to go do something simple and pleasurable for just a little while.

Only after both people are fairly comfortable and enjoying cuddling as a way to lovingly be with each other does it become desirable for small amounts of sexiness to be added.  This can be increased in the same way as above, every third or fourth time a cuddling exercises is conducted.  Most of the couples we worked with reported having really wonderful and enriching cuddling experiences happening after about two weeks of following these procedures.

It is important to remember that  to cuddle is for most people primarily an act of joint and mutual love interchange, and it is important that it be done with a strong love-focus most of the time.  It can be especially comforting in times of emotional pain.  Furthermore, it can be playful, serene, even spiritual, provide a sense of safety and be very important in love-bonding.  It also can be sexual so long as the love elements predominate over time.  It also is important that there be no negative talk of any kind during a cuddling experience because that can defeat all of it’s many positive effects.

If there are continued problems getting comfortable cuddling, consulting a good love-oriented and touch knowledgeable couples’ therapist is recommended.  Some massage therapists also are good with helping couples gain the benefits of loving touch including cuddling, as are some sex therapists.

Cuddling with Others

It is especially is important as a love practice to cuddle infants, children and teens except when they are in their natural periods of individuation and tend to pull away.  With other family members and dear close friends, along with anyone who needs support and reassurance it is usually a very good thing.

Getting Yourself Cuddled More and Better

The simplest way often is the best and most efficient way to get yourself more and better cuddling.  That way is to clearly but lovingly ask for it.  This can be a part of lovingly and jointly talking over how you both want to be touched which is a good thing for every couple to do.  Do not forget that asking for what you want, clearly and lovingly, is a powerful part of healthy self-love.  To learn more at this site go to the Subject Index and check out the mini-love-lessons titled “Love Hugs for Health and Happiness”, “Touching Back – A Surprisingly Important Love Skill” and “50 Varieties of Love Touch”.

As Always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question: Do You Think You are Good at Giving and Getting Various Types of Loving Touch?

Related posts:

1. Touching Back – A Surprisingly Important Love Skill
2. Growing Closeness – A Love Skill
3. Making Love OR Having Sex?
4. Sex Drive Differences and Love
5. Intercourse Absent Lovemaking – a Love Skill 

Requesting Not Expecting - A Love Skill

Synopsis: We begin with the unsaid thoughts and how they affect love relationships; then look at requesting fears; requesting as a gift; the failure of expectations; and the ‘cure actions’ that really work.

Unsaid Thoughts

“I leave him love notes but he never does that for me”, “Why do I have to always be the one who initiates lovemaking”, “I keep hinting that he could bring me flowers but he never gets it”, “I don’t know why she’s never happy when my friends come over to watch football but I wish she would be”, “When something is wrong I wish he would stop trying to fix it by giving me advice and instead just show me some care.  Why doesn’t he do that”.

Why are the people who are saying these things not getting what they want?

To each of these people one could ask, “Have you directly asked him or her to do what you want?”.  It is amazing what the variety of responses to this type question are,  “I shouldn’t have to ask, he (or she) is supposed to know”, “I have griped and complained about it, isn’t that enough”, “I keep expecting he (or she) will figure it out”, “I don’t know why I suffer in silence but I do”, “It’s just not fair”, “If he (or she) really loves me they would know what to do, wouldn’t they”, “It spoils it if I have to ask.”  All of these replies mean that the true answer to the question is “NO!  I haven’t actually, directly and clearly asked for what I want.”

Requesting Fears

Lots of people have lots of different fears concerning making direct requests.  Some people are afraid that their requests will sound like, or be taken as, a controlling demand or command.  Others fear they will sound too selfish.  Still others have an apprehension that they will hear a personal rejection in the reply they get.  There are people who don’t have enough healthy self-love to think that they are worthy enough or have the right to make direct requests   A fair number of people grew up in homes and cultural spheres where it was considered rude, immodest or improper to make a direct personal request.  Then there are those who feel that to make a clear, direct requests is unsafe because it exposes something that is true about themselves, therefore, it may make them vulnerable to harm or manipulation.

Some people fear that directly and clearly asking for what they want will take some of the mystery and romance out of the relationship.  What I find is that directly ‘asking for what you want’ takes out of the relationship many of the misunderstandings that trigger fights and hurtful disappointments.  If you rely on expectations, expect to be disappointed because that’s what usually happens.  Instead be brave enough to ask for what you want and you might get it.

The Gift of Requesting

Requesting something personal of someone can be a gift because it tells a person that they have something you find desirable and perhaps commendable.  Therefore, it shows you value them. That can be and often is taken as a compliment.

When you tell someone what you want in a clear and direct manner you give them a gift of knowing something personal and real about yourself.  You have self-disclosed a desire and in doing so you have shared a small bit of yourself.  It also shows you have been brave enough to give them the chance to accommodate or reject your request, thus, giving them a position of importance.  The simple act of requesting things like “Can I have a hug”, Let’s get together and talk”, I want to take you to the movies”, “I would like to spend more time with you, just you” or anything else you truly and personally want with or from a person, presents the person you are talking to with a revealing bit of data about yourself.

The gift of Self-disclosure also occurs when you ask for help like when you say something like “I really don’t know how to do this could you help me with it”.  Even more revealing are saying things like “I really long for your praise and compliments, would you tell me that you love me more often”, “I want to make mad, passionate love with you and I hope you want the same with me”.  Each request helps you go a little bit more ‘psychologically naked’ with the person you are making the request of.

The Failure of Expectations

It is important to know that if you are talking accurately you have a better chance of getting what you want, than if you are talking in ‘fuzzy’ ways that are open to multiple understandings, or in ways that can be fairly easily misunderstood and misinterpreted. Unfortunately a very high percentage of personal communication is much more easily misunderstood and misinterpreted than most people realize.  Expectations are particularly prone to being mis-communicated.  In couples counseling I’ve heard people say “I know what I mean, why don’t you”?  Perhaps it is because they have not said what they want as a clear and direct request.

Research suggests that when people have an expectation, or something they identify as an expectation, they do less about it and say less about it than if they identify it as a want or a desire. Thus, when you desire something called an expectation or when you have an expectation you are likely to insufficiently communicate about it in an insufficiently active way which inhibits achieving it.  After all, it was something you ‘expected’ so why should you say anything or do anything about it?

Expectation means you are counting on it, and you think it will or should happen. Subconsciously this erroneously means that you don’t have to do anything about it and you subconsciously think that other people will have the same understanding as you do, and that they also think it will or should happen.  This leads to no one being responsible for making something happen, and then in many circles everyone is blaming someone else for it not happening.  “I expected you to take me out on my birthday, and all you did is get me a card and flowers.”, “You had to know I was counting on you to show up on time, and you didn’t even go to the trouble to find out what time you should be there”, “You must have meant to insult me, because surely you knew you were supposed to ask me to dance first.”

These are but a few examples of people relying on expectations instead of making requests for what they want.  Here are a few more that are a bit more serious.  “I was counting on you to take care of the contraception thing, and now you tell me you were counting on me.”  “I absolutely thought you knew I loved you, and you just weren’t interested.”  What do you mean you didn’t bring our passports, isn’t that the man’s job. My father always did.”

The Cure

There is an old teaching that goes something like this: Expect nothing, Want everything, and Clearly ask for what you want, or Get it yourself because that’s your best chance of having it.  Especially is this true in love relationships; making clear requests about everything you want: small, medium and large, enhances communication, cooperation, team work, collaboration, mutual understanding and closeness.

If you are not used to asking for what you want directly and clearly, start practicing.  You can ask people what they heard you request to see if they really understood it.  You may get surprised at the answers you get.  Are you dependent on other people ‘reading your mind’, having a crystal ball or magically just knowing what you expect or desire of them? Do you blame them when they don’t get it right?

Let me suggest there are two places it is really best for you to know that you have to ask for what you want rather exactly.  One is in a restaurant and the other is in a love relationship.  Consider the woman who after 10 years of getting wimpy, wispy, little, quick kisses finally said, “I want hard, passionate, long, French kisses” and right away she began to get them.  All she had to do was ask.  Now, you may not always get what you want but you have a much better chance when you request in a direct and clear way.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Do you want to unknowingly go uninformed and be in the dark about what other people expect or want of you?

Related posts:

1. Gratitude As a Love Skill
2. Dining with Heart – A Love Skill
3. Checking It Out – As a Love Skill
4. Catharsis Empathy – A Love Skill
5. Intimacy Creation – A Love Skill 

Scam Love

Synopsis: This mini-love-lesson begins by talking about vulnerability to scam love; how it is different from Spouse Acquirement Syndrome; and ends with ideas about how you can protect yourself from scam love; more.

Vulnerability

“I was incredibly hungry to feel loved, valued, wanted and not alone in a relationship.  That hunger blinded me to all the warning signs I should have paid attention to.  Consequently, I easily got seduced into thinking I had a new, real love.  Then I got conned out of a ton of money and in return all I got was broken hearted and ashamed of what a fool I was!”

Could that be you?  Unfortunately it is the sentiment of a great many people who have been scammed into thinking and feeling they were being loved, when actually they were being conned, used and manipulated by those who use affectionate, romantic, erotic and other love connected behaviors to fool you and harm you for their own personal gain.

Scam love occurs for a variety of reasons besides money.  Almost everyone is familiar with the people who say “I love you” to help others convince themselves it is okay to have sex with them.  To give themselves permission to have sex with someone, a lot of people ‘scam themselves’ temporarily thinking they love and are loved when at a deeper level they know better.  Sometimes the reasons are not entirely selfish.  Listen to Eric who said, “I just had to have a mother for my infant son.  My wife had abandoned both of us and there wasn’t any way I could make my life work trying to raise him by myself.  So, I convinced the first acceptable girl that came along that I really loved her so she would marry me and pick up where my former wife left off.  That worked for a while but now I’m trapped in this marriage I don’t want and I’m having affairs I don’t really want either.”

Then there’s Pauline who commented, “My family would have disowned me if I hadn’t hooked up with a guy.  They were on the verge of deciding I was a lesbian, which I am, so I did what it took to convince a guy I was in love with him.  I know it was wrong and when he finds out it’s going to break his heart.  He’s such a nice guy but I have to hold onto him until my sick and fragile father passes away.  So, I guess I’m going to be living this lie a while longer because it would destroy my ailing father to know I can only fall in love with girls.  If I hurt my father, at the last of his life, my family will hate me forever”.

Many a child molester has scammed many a child or adolescent into being convinced the child molester really loved them.  Sometimes the child molester convinces the child or adolescent’s parents that they have a pure, filial love for their targeted youth.  Sometimes children and other youth are love-scammed as part of a larger scam directed at gaining status, security, wealth, etc. from the parents of the love-scammed youth.

Some people do scam-love to attain status, social position and more luxurious living. Some people do scam-love to attain stability, safety and security.  Some people do scam-love because they don’t believe in real love or its value but also see the advantages it might bring.  Some people do scam-love to escape misery, abuse, poverty and sometimes just a boring, ordinary life.  Others do scam love in order to attain power and various other advantages over others.  Cults do scam-love to obtain control over members.

Scam-Love Explained

Scam-love occurs when a person sets out to purposefully deceive another into thinking that they are loved by the scammer.  It usually involves deceitful manipulation of the target person into believing that they love the scammer also.  Once this is achieved the scammer then sets out to obtain some hidden agenda goal from the target person.  Often this ends up being very harmful to the targeted person.

Here are two brief examples.  Jessica said she followed her mother’s training and examples by marrying the richest man she could find, artificially giving him everything he wanted in a woman and then divorcing him for a considerable amount of money, and then going on to an even richer man to do the same thing.  Bernard targeted Beatrice because she came from a high status, old money family and he was from a low, blue-collar background; Bernard very much wanted entry into the elite and exclusive levels of society.  As soon as he was established there by way of his wife, Beatrice, and her family he took a mistress and later divorced Beatrice.

An All Ages Phenomenon

It isn’t just the young and immature who get love-scammed.  Older people are a particular target of love-scammers.  They know that retired people who have lost their spouse are often particularly easy targets for love-scam manipulation.  Some older, retired couples also are easily conned into thinking they had just made a new loving, and ever so helpful friend who just happens later to suddenly and desperately need a bunch of money quickly.  AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons, has a fraud fighter hotline (800-646-2283) which provides counseling, education and victim advocacy for cases of their members who have been love-scammed and for other more senior citizens.

Love-Scams and Spouse Acquirement Syndrome

Romantic love-scams are similar to the false love pattern called Spouse Acquirement Syndrome, but are also different in some ways.  (See the mini-love-lesson, Spouse Acquirement Syndrome, at this site)  Usually in an acquirement syndrome a person either unconsciously or semiconsciously talks themselves into believing they really are in love with who they are marrying.  Sometimes they see this as the way marriage is done, by deceptive acquirement rather than truthful love.  In that case they may have been culturally programmed for this acquirement behavior.  In the scam-love situation there is premeditated, purposeful and planned, selfish deception with a hidden agenda and goal.  The love scammer is fully aware they do not love the person they are scamming.  Their actions demonstrating love are all false and manipulative and will cease once their hidden agenda goal is attained.

How Can You Protect Yourself?

To protect yourself ask yourself these questions.  What do you have that someone might want other than love?  How are you useful to someone who is supposedly professing love for you?  Does it seem like you are being rushed toward a committed relationship or anything else by a person who supposedly is a love source?  What do you really know about this person and their previous love involvements that didn’t come from them?  Do you know others that can tell you things about this person?  Are you going to be patient enough in this relationship to be sure that things really are as they seem?  Are you finding that some of the things your supposed lover tells you do not seem to quite be true?  Are you prone to be a rescuer, helper, fixer, etc. in relationships?

If you are getting answers you don’t really like it doesn’t mean that you’re being scammed but it does mean you might be.  Take more time, look deeper, don’t be afraid ask probing questions, and check up on answers you get.  Remember, protecting yourself is part of good, healthy self-love.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
How questioning and honest are you with yourself about what’s really going on when you are in a romantic love situation?

Empathy - A Love Skill

Synopsis: This mini-love-lesson starts with Katrina’s enlightening complaint; then goes on to explain empathy; empathy and love; empathy in erotic intimacy; and ends with a discussion of what it takes to be love empathetic.

Katrina’s Enlightening Complaint

“Dammit, stop giving me advice! For once try to feel what I feel instead of trying to fix my problem, or fix me!” Katrina shouted this at her lover, Kevin.

Kevin was speechless but looked hurt and quite confused. After a bit he managed to stammer, “I don’t know what you mean. I thought you wanted my help”.

Katrina replied, “I do, but the way to help me is to give me your empathy not your advice”.
Frustrated and dejected Kevin responded with, “I guess I really don’t know what that is or how to do it. I thought giving you solutions and advice are what you wanted and that showed I care.”
With a sigh Katrina then said, “That sort of helps but it does it very poorly. I don’t want what comes out of your head, I want what comes out of your heart! I want your heartfelt feelings. That is the medicine that helps.”

Kevin looked baffled. Katrina sighed again and said “Listen closely. Empathy means to feel the same type of feeling I’m feeling, and to do it with me. If I’m sad, be sad that I’m sad, and do it with me; if I’m angry at someone be angry at them at least a little also. If I’m happy be happy with me and for me. When you see or hear me have a feeling imagine you’re in my shoes having that same feeling and feel it too, or at least have some very similar feeling and show it on your face, and in your tone of voice and in what you say. If you don’t do that it feels like you’re indifferent to me or only sympathizing with me, or maybe having pity for me and you aren’t really connected to me.

“Especially when I’m hurt or upset, but also when I’m joyful, I want to feel our love connection and it is empathy that makes that happen, not ideas. Go into your heart and figure out, or remember when you felt the feelings I’m having, and have some of them again. That gives you a heartfelt understanding instead of a mental understanding of what I’m experiencing, and it shows me you really are with me and I’m not alone. When you do that it helps enormously and it makes me feel close to you and like we’re bonded together in real love.”

Kevin then tentatively but with a caring tone of voice said, “Right now you’re struggling to be patient with me, and under that you have some hurt that I haven’t understood. And because of that hurt you got angry with me or maybe just frustrated?”

Katrina then threw her arms around Kevin and gave him my great big kiss and proclaimed, “Wow! That’s it. You got it! That was wonderful! It is the most empathetic thing I’ve ever heard you say and it really touched my heart. You do understand don’t you?

Kevin replied, I’m at least starting to understand and I’ll keep working on it.”

Empathy Explained

Empathy, as used here, means that you emotionally understand and share another’s emotional feelings and sometimes also their experiences, perceptions and psychological personal processes. Empathy is the ability to share someone else’s emotions or have corresponding emotions similar to another’s. It implies a sense of personal involvement and personal connection which suggests that you have, to some degree, become psychologically infused with another’s feelings and that you care about their experiences.

It suggests that when another person has a strong feeling you can imagine, or fantasize, or remember your own similar feelings and you can emotively place yourself in their position – feeling what they are feeling or at least something very similar. When you empathize you have a sense of being in another’s place, along with them, feeling what they are feeling at least to some degree, sometimes quite strongly.

Personal empathy differs from personal sympathy in that the sympathy means to either have a feeling of harmonious affinity for someone or to have a sorrow for another’s suffering condition. Feeling sorry for someone can be done while feeling emotionally apart and distant from another. Personal empathy is a much more intimate, connected feeling. Sympathy is similar to and sometimes synonymous with pity.

Empathy and Love

Healthy, real love is very much about connection. Empathy demonstrates loving connection in love relationships often better than anything else. Demonstrated empathy also delivers love’s healing effects more effectively and with more impact than just about anything else in many relational situations, especially when someone has been hurt or harmed. Empathetic expression communicates that your loved one is not alone, that someone cares about them, right there and right now in whatever they are experiencing.

Loving empathy communicates to your loved one that they are highly valued and personally cared about. When empathetic love is received well it seems to stimulate all sorts of neurochemical and biological healing, enriching and energizing processes in the recipient but also to some degree in the sender of empathetic love.

Sending love by empathetic expression also is one of the most efficiently powerful ways to get love across to someone else. The facial expression of love-filled, empathetic understanding sometimes only takes a second but may make a world of difference in another person’s life. Loving empathy expressed in the tone of voice of a single word or sentence, likewise, has been known to revive, revitalize and re-motivate a person in dire straits.

Expressing empathy with a gesture or a simple touch is been known to abolish despair and despondency. Love-filled, empathetic gestures like a thumbs-up or other hand motions sometimes can create powerful, connection feelings and enormously energize a loved one’s efforts. Love-filled empathy expressed with the sounds and looks of joy also often can be tremendously encouraging and bonding in all sorts of different types of love relationships.

Empathy in Intimacy

One of the greatest joys in true ‘lovemaking’ can be having a strong, empathetic connection and experience with the person you are making love to and with. Taking joy in another’s joy and experiencing erotic ecstasy because this person you love is experiencing an erotic ecstasy can provide what seems like a magical and mystical, spiritual and oceanic connection of two souls with the universe. Empathy also can join together two truly loving people in incredible tenderness, joyous gentleness and/or in powerful passion.

What It Takes To Be Love Empathetic

Becoming empathetic and expressing empathy well first takes allowing yourself to feel your own feelings. Many people suppress or repress their emotions, emotionally distancing themselves from their own inner wisdom and guidance systems as well as from other’s, and try to live emotion free. Some allow only a few emotions, especially the emotions of power to be the only ones they value. All that gets very much in the way of being empathetically loving.

To have a good sense of what someone else is feeling takes having a good sense of what you yourself are feeling and are able to feel. Once you let yourself fully experience your own feelings, as you are born to do, you not only can get your feeling’s guidance messages but you also can go a long way to empathetically understanding the feelings of others. It helps if you consciously go to the trouble of studying emotions and what they are all about.

Reading about emotional intelligence can help quite a bit. Check out Emotional Intelligence by Dr. Daniel Coleman. Then comes learning how to identify in others what they are feeling, and being brave enough to join them there in their feelings. When someone you love is agonizing over something remember when you agonized over something, and let yourself feel that again at least to some extent. Then show in your facial expression, tones of voice, gestures, touches and statements that you are there with them in the feelings they are having. There is much more to learn about empathy.

You might want to read The Power of Empathy by Dr. Arthur Ciaramicoli & Katherine Ketcham. You also may wish to read the entry on this site titled “Catharsis Empathy”.
Hopefully this mini-lesson on empathy as a powerful skill in doing healthful, real love, will get you started or get you further up the trail of being highly love-effective.

As always – Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
What do you think of this old folk saying “A day without tears and laughter shared with someone you love is a day wasted”?

Related posts:

1. Catharsis Empathy – A Love Skill
2. Connection Matching – A Love Skill
3. Growing Closeness – A Love Skill
4. Checking It Out – As a Love Skill
5. Non-Defensiveness – A Love Skill 

Respect - As a Love Skill

Synopsis: This mini-love-lesson starts with a discussion of the necessity of respect in love relationships; and then talks about the nature of respect in love, respect within couple’s love; what is to be respected; and ends with the benefits of respectfulness.

Necessity of Respect in Love

In adult-to-adult love, a sense of respect for whomever you love is thought to be essential if that love is to survive and thrive.

There is much evidence to suggest that when respect is lost the love or the love relationship itself will be in danger of being lost. There may be some vestiges of love that remain but without respect adult-to-adult love is not likely to grow, or motivate the connecting and enriching aspects of love. There seem to be several forms of false love in which respect may be absent (see the entries on False Love). Healthy, real love, however, is seen to generate a sense of respect and, likewise, respect is seen to generate a greater possibility of love occurring and growing in adult-to-adult relationships.

The Nature of Respect in Love

In a love relationship when we respect someone we hold them in honor, look up to them, see their attributes and qualities, have a high opinion of them and highly prize them, tend to treat them as very special and with a kind of deference, we are proud of them, speak well of them, take their wishes into account, tend to be more thankful and appreciative of their ways of being themselves and we also give importance to what they value as important.

Couple’s Love And Respect

“I think I started falling out of love with him when he kept asking me to tell lies for him. They would be the kind of untruths that made him seem to be more than he really was. You know the type, where he insists I say he caught a bigger fish than everybody else when actually he didn’t catch any fish at all. Then he wanted me to lie in ways that cheated others out of their rightful share of things. That’s when I started losing respect for him. I tried to talk to him about it but he just got mad at me and gave himself the excuse that these kinds of lies were what everyone told. Well, they weren’t lies I told. That kind of deceit just made him seem, well, smaller in my eyes. After trying to present the positives of truth-telling and getting back only negative responses, I just didn’t want to be with him anymore.” I have heard similar stories, time and time again, in the type of counseling that helps people overhaul their approach to finding, starting or trying to improve their love relationships.

“It was not so much the fact that she kept getting horribly, sloppy drunk. It was the fact she wouldn’t do anything about it like go to AA, or find a counselor, or something, anything. As she fell deeper into alcohol she seemed to get more and more hypercritically religious. Maybe she thought that was going to fix it, but it didn’t. Slowly I just wasn’t attracted to her anymore. If she didn’t respect herself enough to own up to her drinking problem then pity was about all I could feel for her”. There are many ways that people lose respect for someone they are in a love relationship with. Sometimes it has to do with abuse or neglect. Sometimes it has to do with self-abuse and self-neglect. But in every case where respect is lost the love relationship suffers.

What’s to Be Respected

In healthy, real love what is respected usually has to do with a sort of ‘character strengths factor’. This is an internal thing like courage or kindness in one’s approach to others and to life itself. Things like integrity and steadfastness, being trustworthy and honorable, deeply caring and being passionate about a cause can rank high in garnering respect. Loyalty and a sense of honor along with an adherence to one’s own ethics also count for a lot. Talents, competencies and abilities can amass considerable respect also. However, external type factors like wealth acquirement, possession of status symbols and the defeat of others in various forms of conflict tend not to work when it comes to the respect that goes with deep and lasting love.

External factors like those may attract more envy, jealousy and hostility than respect. Having a passionate appreciation of beauty, nature, life, the rights of others, spirituality, benevolence, health and well being are what get strong respect with quality lovers. Being able to love well, love much and be lovable may be the most important factors when it comes to respect.

Respectfulness And Its Relational Benefits

Once you have a sense of respect for someone you love, it is important to add being able to demonstrate and convey that respect. Showing that you respect a person’s qualities and ways of being themselves helps to reward them for those qualities, which may cause them to increase and grow those qualities and other qualities too. Showing your respect also usually has a bonding influence which draws you closer together emotionally. Communicating to someone you love about what you respect in them also tends to help them focus on what they respect in you and others.

Hopefully this little discussion of ‘respect as a love skill’ will help you hone your own ability to sense respect and show it to those you love. There is a lot more you can learn about respect and love. To do some of that, check out the entries “Catharsis Empathy As a Love Skill” and discussions about “Affirmational Love”.

As always – Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Think of someone you love and what you respect about them. Now will you tell them or send them a written message that conveys that respect today?

Related posts:

1. Growing Closeness – A Love Skill
2. Talking to Feelings First, Then Topics – A Love Skill
3. Checking It Out – As a Love Skill
4. Intimacy Creation – A Love Skill
5. Gratitude – As a Love Skill