Lana Staheli - Snap Strategies for Couples: 40 Fast Fixes for Everyday Relationship Pitfalls

Snap Strategies for Couples

40 Fast Fixes for Everyday Relationship Pitfalls

Dr. Pepper Schwartz

Dr. Lana Staheli

Seal Press

Copyright 2015 Pepper Schwartz and Lana Staheli

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.

ISBN 978-1-58005-563-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Staheli, Lana.

Snap strategies for couples : 40 fast fixes for everyday relationship pitfalls / by Lana Staheli and Pepper Schwartz.

pages cm

1. Couples--Psychology. 2. Interpersonal relations. 3. Interpersonal conflict. 4. Man-woman relationships. I. Schwartz, Pepper. II. Title.

HQ801.S756 2015

306.7dc23

2014035558

Published by

Seal Press

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

1700 Fourth Street

Berkeley, California

sealpress.com

Cover design by Erin Seaward-Hiatt

Interior design by Kate Basart/Union Pageworks

Printed in the United States of America

Distributed by Publishers Group West

With love and gratitude to my man, Fred Kaseburg, and my children, Cooper and Ryder.

Pepper Schwartz

To my husband, Lynn Staheli, M.D., for a lifetime of love, guidance and support.

Lana Staheli

CONTENTS

S nap Strategies is our plan for quick and enduring answers to most common relationship issues. We help you modify your reactions to relationship aggravations so that you can stop repetitive arguments and move out of the past and into the present and future. If you take our advice, we believe you can reduce bickering, drama, and disappointment and make your relationship fun again. Conversation becomes a mutual skill, not the beginning of a clash. You build intimacy and work through problems while building love and passion for one another.

Why do we feel so sure about our advice? Well, for one thing, Lana is an accomplished coach who works wonders, quickly. With hundreds of couples over forty years of counseling and coaching on the radio, on TV, or in person, her quick assessment of the situation has changed peoples lives in minutes. She doesnt believe that you need lengthy sessions of therapy or long hours of agonizing emotional discussions. Her sharp insights and practical, effective relationship revisions have immediately changed the emotional climate of many troubled relationships. Pepper is a nationally respected relationship expert herself, but Lana is the coach that various kinds of therapists go to when they need a consult on a sticky issue. Lana is the author of Affair-Proof Your Marriage, and her book, Bounce: Be Transformed, was written to offer people a step-by-step guide to seeking joy, not just survival. Pepper has written several books (including The New York Times bestseller, The Normal Bar) and created workshops based on her research into what makes relationships happy, durable, and loving.

As friends, we have consulted with one another over the years, and Pepper became an admirer of the unorthodox and amazing methods that Lana used to save couples who were just about to kick each other out of their marriage. We decided to join forces and gather up our collective knowledge to bring you this book. From our combined years of successfully solving marital problems quickly and effectively, we have developed Snap Strategies.

Our strategies have an unusual approach that underlies everything we recommend. We are not in favor of letting it all hang out. Yes, we want honesty, but no, we dont believe honesty that is cruel does anybody any good. Things said in therapy linger long after therapy is over. We get to the heart of the matter without insults or revelations that can poison the couples future. We avoid emotional payback for historical events that are deadly if they are brought up again and again. Instead we give you practical skills to bring out the best in you and your partner. We respect emotions, but they are fluid, exciting, and unstable: They can bring a relationship down when they turn into nasty venting and accusations. We teach you to make your relationship fun again, to reignite love and passion for one another.

Our new way of transforming your relationship without lengthy sessions of therapy or agonizing discussions will steer you away from the emotional roller coaster that damages many relationships. Going against some of the prevailing therapeutic approaches to couples, Snap Strategies does not hinge on sharing all of your feelings and working through problems no matter how long it takes. We believe that approach kills more couples than it saves. Theres a common but destructive vision of intimacy that says because we are close, we can, and should, say everything we feel or believe. This is not true. In fact, intimate relationships take tender loving care, which sometimes requires a badly bitten tongue. Love and goodwill flourish when people feel safe, accepted, admired, adored, and complimented. Feedback has to be done carefully, lovingly, andmost importantlybriefly. Talking to your partner has to be choreographed if its about something important. Brutal honesty has no place in a marriage or any other kind of committed relationship.

Our rules of the road have scooped couples out of the doorway of divorce court hundreds of times. And they have made happy relationships even better, halting escalation of a problem before the issue gets so big that damage is inevitable. At its core, this approach is about living in the present and finding ways to create lifelong love, at least in part by leaving the treacheries or tragedies of the past far behind.

Snap Strategies is a compendium of rules to live by, mistakes to avoid, and ordinary and understandable reactions that need to change. We know this sounds as if its too good to be true, but it is. You will see that many of the couples in this book who look like they have an insoluble problem actually only need to reframe the problem and their approach to it to get what they need. We are practical, but we are also romantics: We are all about supporting love and saving relationships. We wont let you down.

Dr. Lana Staheli & Dr. Pepper Schwartz

THE SNAP

If there is no new news, why are we talking about this, again?