The real life of love is in action. Love is a verb. However, when you express your love in language, you are acting out your love in a way that partners get, pretty much immediately. When you say “I love you” with the right tone of voice and in the right timing, you can speak those words directly into the heart of your mate.

But what to do when the words won’t come?

Imagine handing your mate a greeting card. Your mate takes the card in hand, saying “What’s this?” You point to the card and say, “Just read it” Your mate slides a finger carefully under the flap, looking at you sideways, pulls out a card with a scenic picture on the front. Your mate opens the card, reads the words — words you have written in your own handwriting, not printed, handwritten — and tears well up. Your mate makes a slight noise, that little moan deep in the throat, and suddenly you are enveloped in a powerful hug.

Nice image?

How would you like cheat your way to that outcome? No magical language skills required. No genius talent for writing necessary. Less than 10 minutes needed standing at the greeting card rack. Practically guaranteed results.  Here’s a tip that works for even the most tongue-tied, non-romantic, can’t-ever-say-it-like-you-feel-it among us.

Step one. Find a blank card with a pretty picture on the front.

Step two. Find another card with some romantic text inside. Using the camera on your cell phone, take a picture of the romantic text. If your phone has no camera, call your voicemail number and read the text into a message you can pick up later on.

Step three. Put the romantic text card back in the rack. Purchase the blank card with the pretty picture.  (If you want to support card-writers and their publishers, purchase both, but don’t give your mate the card with the writing on it!  That works against you.  You can actually lose points by giving a card with printed words.)

Step four. Sitting in your car,  write your message into the blank card. Here’s the part where you have to use your own sense of personality and style. If the romantic text doesn’t sound like it could possibly have come from your mouth, just rephrase it. Substitute a word or two here and there, words that you would use, words that your mate would recognize as you. Add a sentence of your own, if you like. Sign your pet name.

Step five. Seal the card and deliver.  (If you purchased the printed card, make sure there is no way, absolutely no way, that it could end up in your mate’s hands.  You have been warned.)

Of course you can put your own sentiments inside the card. That’s the ideal, of course, and you can’t go wrong by writing something to the effect of the greatest gift that your mate brings into your life together, or a reason your mate deserves to be happy.

But when your own tongue gets tied around romantic sentiments, when you don’t have the soul of a poet or the gift of a bard to choose words that sing a soulful ballad, you’re not really stuck. There’s a whole industry waiting to provide you with resources for romance.

It might feel like cheating when you start, but it’s really more like practicing. It’s watching an expert and copying the expert’s moves. If you do this often enough, you will eventually get good at writing your own thoughts from scratch.

If your mate calls you out on the method, just say, “I’m practicing by imitating experts, because you deserve the absolute best!”

Mark Rogers, Ph.D.

After a marriage crisis, it’s hard to rebuild trust, for both mates.

For the offendee – the mate who feels betrayed, deserted, abandoned, or discarded – trusting feels unsafe, the last thing they are inclined to do.

For the offender – the mate who strayed but who now wants to be trusted – it feels like their partner’s trust is impossible to get back, no matter how earnestly it is desired.

Rebuilding trust is only hard, not impossible. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that it is a long-term project, and no matter how badly both mates want it, it will take a long time before it starts to feel robust and resilient.

Step 1.

Both of you decide that trust is worth working for.

Step 2-A.

The offender volunteers to tell the truth when asked, with only one exception allowed. Questions must be answered, in full, when they are asked, no matter how painful the process.

The exception to truth-telling is simple to describe: don’t answer any questions that will create movies in your mate’s head that will be impossible to erase. That usually means questions about specific sexual behaviors.

Step 2-B.

The offendee commits that truthful answers will not break the relationship. Much as they might not like to hear them, truthful answers give you real soil in which to grow the new relationship.

Step 3.

Offenders commit to becoming reliable.

Step 4.

Offenders commit to becoming predictable.

When you commit to becoming predictable, you are saying “No surprises from me; you’ll know what I’m going to do because I don’t ever shock you.”

Step 5.

The offendee commits to an end to the questions and a beginning to trusting.

The biggest hang-up about trust is that we want it to be all-or-nothing, and it cannot be so once the crisis has broken it. However, just because it isn’t all-or-nothing doesn’t mean it can’t be grown, even from the ashes.

Suppose that you were listening to the radio, and you heard an announcer say over dramatic music, “There’s magic when you’re mad that can make everything … every single thing… better… immediately. Instantaneously! … Instantly better…Are you interested?”

Would you be? Interested?

When you are in the middle of a screaming match, there’s magic that will calm things down.

When you are doing a slow burn, there’s magic that will release the tension without an explosion.

When your partner is raging, there’s magic that will smooth the waters.

Here’s the magic wand, the magic potion, the magic bean – someone says “I’m listening.”

That’s it. Just that one little thing.

“I’m listening.”

All it takes to defuse a drama is for one person to stop the back-and-forth of hand grenades and say “I’m listening.”

When the volume goes up beyond the normal range of conversation, all it takes to dial it down is for you to shift your contribution from the volley across the net to saying “I’m listening.”

If you say “I’m listening,” and then start to, you work magic on the madness.

You make it possible for your partner to ‘just talk’ instead of having to shout to be heard.

You make it possible for you to see another side of the issue, from your partner’s perspective, rather than insist that you are the only one entitled to be right.

You give your partner nothing to push against, nothing to overcome, nothing to resist, and then s/he can stop domineering.

When you say “I’m listening,” and then you stay quiet for at least three sentences, your partner doesn’t have to keep hammering on the same point.

And you can holster your verbal sidearm as well.

Magic for the madness – just to begin listening.