Andrew G. Marshall - Can We Start Again Please?: Twenty questions to fall back in love

ACCLAIM FOR ANDREW G. MARSHALL

What he has told me has made me reassess my relationship behaviour entirely.
KATY REGAN, Daily Mail

As if someone has just thrown a warm blanket around my shoulders... it all makes sense.
HANNAH BOOTH, Guardian

Marshall exudes calm; his voice is gentle and measured.
TIM DOWLING, Guardian

Andrew G. Marshall offers deeply insightful, helpful, and practical tools for dealing with most of the challenges we face.
JED DIAMOND, PH.D., author of The Irritable Male Syndrome

With advice on how to recreate intimacy while retaining a sense of self...
His insightful advice makes it hard to disagree.
Psychologies Magazine
(on I Love You But Im Not In Love With You)

An insightful and gracious walk through creating positive change in your life.
ROBERT J. ACKERMAN, PH.D., Editor,
Counselor Magazine
(on Wake Up and Change Your Life)

PREVIOUS TITLES BY ANDREW G. MARSHALL

I love you but Im not in love with you:
Seven steps to saving your relationship

The single trap: The two step guide to
escaping and finding lasting love

How can I ever trust you again:
Infidelity from discovery to recovery in seven steps

Are you right for me? Seven steps to getting clarity and
commitment in your relationship

Build a life-long love affair:
Seven steps to revitalising your relationship

Heal and move on:
Seven steps to recovering from a break-up

Help your partner say yes: Seven steps to
achieving better cooperation and communication

Learn to love yourself enough: Seven steps to
improving your self-esteem and your relationships

Resolve your differences: Seven steps to
dealing with conflict in your relationship

Make love life a prairie vole: Six steps to
passionate, plentiful and monogamous sex

My wife doesnt love me any more:
Love coach guide to winning her back

I love you but you always put me last:
How to childproof your marriage

My husband doesnt love me and hes texting someone else: Love
coach guide to winning him back

Have the sex you want:
A couples guide to getting back the spark

What is love? 50 questions about
how to find, keep and rediscover it

Wake Up and Change Your Life:
How to survive a crisis and be stronger, wiser and happier

I cant get over my partners affair:
50 questions about recovering from extreme betrayal
and the long-term impact of infidelity

Its not a midlife crisis, its an opportunity:
How to be forty- or fifty-something without going off the rails

Andrew G. Marshall is a marital therapist with thirty years experience. He trained with RELATE (the UKs leading couples counselling charity) but now leads a team in private practice in London and Sussex offering the Marshall Method. He is also the author of eighteen other books on relationships and contributes to the Mail on Sunday, Sunday Telegraph, The Times and womens magazines around the world. To date, his work has been translated into over twenty different languages. To receive regular updates about Andrews books, articles and events subscribe to his newsletter at www.andrewgmarshall.com

On the surface, everything seems fine. Every Valentines Day you make an effort you buy each other little presents and cards, dress up, enjoy a special meal and then go to bed with a warm glow inside. There are other memorable times of the year like a busy family Christmas or relaxing summer holidays, when you have enough time to unwind and reconnect. However, on a day-to-day basis, your relationship can be more about raising children, paying bills and doing chores than love. No wonder you sometimes ask yourself: Are we just going through the motions? Why do romantic gestures feel like such an effort when, at the beginning, we were constantly doing special little things for each other? And that nagging question; can you ever recapture that spark when youve been married decades?

Fortunately, I can reassure you that its entirely possible. How do I know? Ive spent thirty years as a marital therapist helping couples deal with the complexities of love. At the root of all the unhappiness I see, there is one problem: we know how love starts but only a hazy idea of what comes after happily ever after. Understand this process and you can transform your marriage from something disappointing into something wonderful. You can fall back in love again.

In this short book Im going to help you understand the issues and then show you how you can turn around your relationship, whether youve been married for three years or thirty and whether you want to improve whats already good, or feel you and your partner are dangerously out of touch. Ive got lots of practical advice road-tested by the three thousand clients Ive helped in my career and skills to teach that will not only protect your love from the grind of daily living but deepen your bond.

First you need to understand what happens from the tentative first I love you through to spending a lifetime together. Relationships go through six specific stages and understanding them is key because for love to last it needs something different at each one. And whether youve been together since you were teenagers, or met later in life, your relationship will go through the same stages (though secondtime around the middle stages are shorter).

1.Blending(From six to eighteen months)

This is a magical time when it feels like youre walking on air, cant think of anything but your beloved and even his or her failings are endearing. Psychologists call this limerence and its not just in your head. Research has shown this emotional high is caused by chemical changes in the body. By scanning the brains of those in the first flush of love, neuroscientists have found that bonding hormones like oxytocin and dopamine are at their height during this stage. To give you an idea of the power, researchers at Bar-Ilan University found oxytocin levels were double for new couples compared with singles. However, the seeds of later problems can be sown during Blending because any differences between the two of you are overlooked as you fuse into one couple. And if theres a row it feels like the end of the world because unlike settled couples, youve no experience of falling out, disagreeing and making up together.

Targeted Tip: For those starting a new relationship later in life youre probably feeling like a teenager again, which is exciting, but its likely you also feel vulnerable. To give you confidence to overcome any disputes, it helps to think back to the first year of a past relationship and think about what you argued about and how you solved those problems.

Even if you have been married for decades, you can still get a boost of limerence although it lasts for a much shorter time when you kiss and forgive after a serious argument. So although, like new couples, you are worried about being honest (because of the potential fallout) if you do raise hot button topics, there is a double benefit. Nothing can be solved if you dont talk about it and making up again brings back the sweetness of stage one love.

2.Nesting(Eighteen months to three years)

Limerence is beginning to wear off but theres still enough left for you to want to hitch your destiny to a comparative stranger. Although, in my experience, it has declined by about 25%, that feels more comfortable after the almost manic edge of love in stage one. Sexual desire moves from something constant onto a more settled level. Youre aware of life beyond the bedroom and creating a home together becomes the new way to express your love. In fact, long-term tracking by the University of Texas suggests eighteen months to three years is the optimum courtship period for a happy marriage. Meanwhile social biologists believe that our brains are wired for a three-year peak to help us find a mate and care for the babies when they are small and helpless.