I work with a lot of parents who want to have a better relationship. Often they feel totally disconnected and have growing frustration and resentment toward each other.

I'm going to share one common characteristic these couples have.

And before I dive into that, I want to share a couple quotes from my mentor, Terry Real.

The thing is that we as people, we are inherently annoying. You ever lived with a roommate? Some of the things they do can be really, annoying. Not to mention family members...

This is also the case with our partner, especially if we have kids.

If we are not feeling connected their natural annoyances are a lot louder.

At the time of writing this, my wife's parents were in town. We were doing a lot of family stuff and even before, we spent time preparing for their arrival.

We weren't making time for each other, and our annoyances got louder. We started to become easily frustrated at each other, maybe a little bit snappy, until it's like, "Whoa, hold on."

And one way to create emotional intimacy ironically enough, is by commenting on the disconnection and offering a solution. Luckily, the solution is easy: spend time talking and connecting.

For example, "I've been feeling disconnected from you, can we make some time and talk?" And this can create emotional intimacy.

There's a book by couples researcher John Gottman called Seven Principles to Making Marriage Work, where he found that couples who maintained a healthy connection after their marriage workshop dedicated at least 6 hours a week to their relationship.

This affirms the idea that we need to have an active relationship to our relationship.

It is that simple, but it's not easy.

Often engrained negative patterns and interactions may get in the way of this.

That's were I come in.

Reach out so we can fix your relationship together!