Enhancing
Love and Relationships:
The Magic 5 Hours

Wanting to have a better sense of security as you face blended family challenges together?

The news, the books, the magazines all talk about making sure you invest your money wisely to sustain yourself in the future. This article is all about investing wisely, and at not too great an expense, in your committed relationship to each other.

Dr. John Gottman, co-author of The Seven Principles for Making a Marriage Work is a leading relationship expert who has studied real marriages in his Love Lab (The Gottman Institute) for over 30 years. His research with couples at all stages of marriage, has proven highly accurate in determining what ingredients keep people together and what behaviors blow people apart.

Dr. Gottman conducted a follow up study on Love Lab participants and found, to his surprise, that couples whose relationships continued to be strong and loving were devoting only an additional 5 hours a week to their marriages. The Magic 5 Hours included the very simple actions of kissing each other goodbye each morning, engaging in a stress reducing conversation at the end of the workday, communicating affection and appreciation, and going on a weekly date.

Action Step

Couples in blended families, juggling jobs, biological and step kid schedules and the unending chores and stresses associated with running a household (and ferrying kids back and forth between households), have almost no time to invest in their marriage. We invite you to play with the Magic 5 Hours and try to add them to your busy marriage. It's worth it to nurture your relationship after the honeymoon is over.

Look at where you can start to invest in each other throughout the day, and during the week. Some ideas to get you started include:

• Arranging for a phone coffee break with each other, where you make it an appointment in your calendar that you keep daily, for even 10-15 minutes.
• Going for a walk together after dinner (while the kids clean up)
• When the kids are in bed, take 30 minutes to be together -- a cup of tea or hot chocolate, a glass of wine or a cold beer (only one, as more will not serve you well in this exercise), a foot rub, a cuddle on the couch -- solely for the purpose of reconnecting and finding out who this person is you are married to and sharing your life with.
• Come up with your own ideas -- this is the kind of work that is worth it! And, ladies, let your men know how much this would mean to you, and don’t worry if he resists -- stay true to what you want, and you will have it.