Phyllis Koch-Sheras - Lifelong Love: 4 Steps to Creating and Maintaining an Extraordinary Relationship

Its pretty easy to fall in love. What seems harder and harder these days, however, is to stay thereto have lifelong love that is as fulfilling and exciting as those initial experiences were. As psychologists and as a married couple ourselves, we have been looking for the factors that explain this phenomenon. We have examined our own relationship, talked to others about it, done extensive research and worked with hundreds of couples. After more than thirty years, we have concluded that there are four simple, though not necessarily easy, steps to achieving lifelong love: commitment, cooperation, communication and community. The path to fulfilling these steps is described in the model we call Couple Power.

Our personal and professional experiences, along with the observations and reports of our clients, friends and colleagues, have convinced us that this is an approach that really works and makes a huge difference for couples. Having already written a book for couples therapists and having taught the Couple Power Therapy (CPT) model to many of them, we were encouraged to bring Couple Power to the world. So here it is. Power to the couple!

We are aware that there are already many self-help books and articles about relationships out there. However, even the best ones havent seemed to help very much. When we looked at them, we saw that most of these publications offer simplistic solutions that dont address the uniqueness of each couple. Generally, what you get is advice on how to figure out whats wrong with your relationship and how to fix it, rather than ways to create together positive visions and solutions for your relationship. Communication skills, while important, are usually taught before you are ready to make effective use of them. This can be dangerous, as this knowledge often makes things worse rather than better. Communication is a powerful tool, but only when individuals are equipped with proper directions on how and when to use it.

The Couple Power approach to creating lifelong love is different than conventional approaches, in that it helps couples build a relationship in which they work together as a unique entity, as a committed team, one that addresses problems together, while supporting and receiving help from other couples in the process. If all couples utilized the Couple Power approach, it wouldnt be long before there was a paradigm shift in how the world views the possibility of lifelong love for couples: the norm would be for couples to stay together in fulfilling and lasting relationships. Couples wouldnt tolerate each other or compromise just to survive; they would naturally support each other in maintaining and enhancing their relationships over time, and consequently, children of divorce would be the exception rather than the rule.

This vision for couples may sound unrealistic and even radical to you at this point in our history. We are a nation built on individualism, not couplism. There is a natural tension between individualism and the kind of collectivism that a couple represents. What we show you in this book is how to bridge the gap between the two while embracingand even enhancingyour individual goals in the context of Couple, creating and maintaining lifelong love for yourself and others along the way. We are excited to begin the journey with you now.

There are several people who have helped us along the way, on our own journey to lifelong love. We would especially like to acknowledge our mentors at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Palo Alto, California, who gave us such rich and rigorous training on the Family Study Unit. Little did we know then that we would be applying that training to create lifelong love for our own relationship as well as for others. (We will discuss this in greater detail later in the book.) The organization Couples Coaching Couples, Inc., has also been instrumental in the development of our relationship and the ideas that led to the creation of the Couple Power model. We will always be active members of this organization. Many insightful people helped edit and refine this book, including Phylliss faithful critique group from the Blue Ridge chapter of the Virginia Writers Club, our supportive agent, Mary Beth Chappell, our extraordinary editor, Deborah Brody and our very special assistant and friend, Linda Childs.

Special gratitude is due to all the clients we have seen over the decades. They are our most masterful teachers. In these chapters we have included numerous stories of their lives, disguising their identities for privacys sake. We owe each of them great appreciation for making this book readable, accessible and, hopefully, enjoyable for you, the general reader. There is treasure in these pages. Read them as though you are looking for gold. We hope you enjoy the many riches available to you and your couple in all the years to comeall your life long.

As couples therapists who also happen to be married to each other, we are often asked how it is that our relationship has not only lasted for nearly forty years but has also thrived. Part of the answer may lie in the history of our relationship. We met after graduate school, when Phyllis was thirty and Peter was twenty-six. Phyllis had been married before and had been divorced for nearly a year when she met Peter, who, though hed had some significant relationships since college, had not been in any that were very serious or long lasting. Despite some differences in our ages, circumstances and relationship histories, we fell deeply in love. At the time we were training to be family therapists, and both of us were totally immersed in learning about relationships. Together and separately, wed spent innumerable hours studying and working with couples, helping them understand the dynamic between them and what was missing in the relationship theyd begun with such high hopes. But there was even more to it than that.

In a discussion of how our relationship blossomed, Peter noted, About two months after we began dating, I noticed that my feelings for Phyllis had become quite strong. When I passed her in the hall at work, I would feel flushed. Phyllis reported sitting in a colleagues office one day when Peter walked past the open door. She had an intense reaction, which was obvious to her coworker, who asked, What just happened? Who was that that just walked by? The attraction between us was palpable, even to others. One day Peter was sitting in the cafeteria in the hospital where we worked when he saw Phyllis walk in. He imagined what it would be like to say to someone, Thats my wife! In that instant, he saw the possibility of committing to a relationship and the couple known as Phyllis and Peter was born for him. For the first time, Peter could imagine a future lived as a couple.

Phyllis explained, I saw Peter at the orientation meeting for my new job. I was actually not sure then if I was going to stay in the position, as I had another offer that I was thinking of taking instead. But after I saw Peter, there was no question that Id remain. It was love at first sight for me, and the attraction I felt was undeniable. Although we didnt begin dating until a few months later, I had already started imagining a future with him. Newly divorced, I was thoroughly enjoying dating again. But as time went on, my newfound freedom began to pale in comparison to what I was feeling for Peter. This became especially clear after he had me over for dinner one night. He had me at the clam sauce, but he really sealed the deal when he serenaded me on his guitar after dinner. That was it for those other guys I was dating.