By Jamie C. Williamson, PhD

Being lucky in love is more about action than chance.

Whether you are searching for your first love, building the courage to start a new relationship, or trying to get that “lucky in love” feeling back with your current partner, keep these two important actions in mind.

Be Deliberate in Your Search (or “re-search”)

First, you must take focused action to meet the person who will make you feel lucky to know and be known by them.  And that means looking for love in the right places.  Despite the popularity of the phrase “meet cute”, most romantic relationships don’t start from unpredictable happenstance.  Instead, they result from Propinquity:

It’s just so fun to say aloud.  Try it:  pro·pin·qui·ty

Propinquity refers to being physically or psychologically close to someone.  The Law of Propinquity explains that the greater the proximity (closeness) between people, the more often they interact with one another, the more likely they are to become friends or lovers. You meet.  You get to know each other.  You like each other.  You trust each other. Relationships develop because you have ongoing opportunities to interact.

Your best friends are likely your old school chums, roommates, current neighbors, work colleagues, committee members, or people you see often for other reasons.  And propinquity probably explains how you met (or will meet) your life partner, too.

Propinquity, not luck, pollinates your close relationships.  So, if you want to attract a partner who will make you feel “lucky in love”, decide what type of person you need, and then go where those types of people are likely to be.

And, most importantly, DO NOT keep going to the same places expecting to meet different kinds of people.  They won’t be there.

If you and your current partner love each other but want to regain that invigorating “lucky in love” feeling, then you can deliberately “re-search” for each other again, but this time in your own home.  Now that’s propinquity, for sure.

And the same Law of Propinquity applies.  But you will need to purposefully invest in meaningful conversations, share activities you enjoy, go on date nights, and actively show your appreciation for each other.  The more you turn toward each other, the deeper your trust and intimacy will be, and the more you both will feel lucky to know and be known by each other.  Soon you’ll start feeling “lucky in love” again.

Make Your Own Luck

Most of us want to appear “lucky in love” and to a lesser extent, have our friends and family see us that way, as well.

Ironically, luck is uncontrollable and unpredictable, and not at all what truly makes a long-lasting, satisfying love relationship.  The truth is that being “lucky in love” is only an illusion created by couples who master relationship work.

Couples truly “lucky in love” accept and are grateful for the good fortune that they experience.  However, they also have learned that sustaining relationship luck is a DIY project.  That is, when it comes to relationship luck, you make your own.

Initially, the “lucky in love” feeling creates a positive illusion that causes partners to overlook their differences and ignore each other’s flaws. Then, the newness wears off.  The longer the relationship lasts, the more partners learn about each other, and reality begins to erode the positive illusion.

Inevitably, the partners start focusing on their differences and each other’s weaknesses. So, of course, the predictable conflict ensures.

As this happens, the couples most successful at remaining “lucky in love” work hard at accenting their partner’s positive attributes.  They purposefully infuse their home and relationship with positive sentiments and an attitude of gratitude.

Partners who mutually express gratitude to each other strengthen their relationship, enhance the levels of perceived intimacy and mutual care, reinforce their sense of belonging, and bolster their levels of marital satisfaction.  That is, they make themselves feel “lucky in love”.

And that “lucky in love” feeling bolsters them against the unfortunate mistakes they both will inevitably make and helps them manage life’s stressors in a way that brings them closer together, rather than farther apart.

If you want to build a “lucky in love” relationship with a new partner, follow these basics and start making your own luck.  If you’re in a long-term relationship and want to get that “lucky in love” feeling back, talk to your partner about how you might start to turn your luck around.

Let me know if I can help.

I’m a FL Supreme Court Certified Family Mediator and part of the Gottman Referral Network. You’ll find me at Amity Mediation Workshop, where we specialize in “friendly divorce” mediation and use the Gottman Method in our psycho-educational “Let’s Stay Together” private workshops, designed for couples who want to restore or enhance their marital happiness.  I also speak frequently on relationship topics and author the relationship blog  “Work it Out”.

By Jamie C. Williamson, PhD

You may have heard the adage “Cheating is a symptom of relationship problems, not the cause of it”.   With notable exceptions for certain pathologies, this statement is generally accurate.

So, the time to protect your relationship from an affair is long before your partner feels the need to seek attention or support outside your relationship.

Extant research conducted over the last two decades shows that between 20 and 26 percent of married men cheat and between 10 and 19 percent of married women cheat.  As reported in Life Science Magazine, these numbers have remained consistent over the last twenty years.

The difference now is that relationship partners have a lower tolerance for cheating because attitudes about marriage have changed.  As more women earned higher education and entered the workforce, married couples began looking for their spouse to be their best friend, their confidante, their parenting partner, their homemaking partner, their wage-earning partner, and an amazing lover.

This is a lot to ask of one person. Even strong marriage partnerships can cascade downward to a betrayal if the couple is not vigilant about turning toward each other in response to daily bids for connection and, especially, when repairing their relationship after regrettable incidents.

Bolster Trust to Prevent Betrayal

Couples who successfully protect their relationship from an affair understand how to bolster trust to prevent a betrayal.  Trust is built on a solid, reciprocal foundation of predictability, dependability, and faith – the three building blocks of trust.  When trust is fully present in a relationship, partners perceive that they will behave in a consistently positive manner toward each other, that they will be reliable when it counts, and that they will continue to be responsive and caring to each other, which includes “turning toward” each other’s bids for attention AND not doing things that they know will hurt the other’s feelings.

Turn Toward Each Other When You Make Mistakes

Happily-married couples expect each other to work on maintaining relationship trust. However, they also accept that they will let each other down from time to time. When these regrettable incidents happen, happily married couples “turn toward” each other and work together to repair the damage.  This repair work involves fully processing the negative event and the feelings around it. As such, it lets the couple move past the incident, close their discussion about it, rebuild trust, and remain close.

Couples who “turn away” from each other after a regrettable incident don’t fare as well.  Instead of showing empathy, regret, and forgiveness, couples that turn away from each other place blame, become defensive, and hold a grudge.  As a result, the regrettable incident becomes an open sore between them and festers. This creates negative feelings that infect the couple’s reactions to other issues, and leads to flooded arguments, contempt, and “turning against”.

Sometimes the “turning away” is less obvious and involves simply avoiding any discussion of the incident.  Avoiding discussion of important negative incidents may initially seem to keep the peace, but soon the unprocessed negative feelings coalesce into either (a) surprisingly negative reactions to other unrelated issues or (b) avoidance of other issues, and eventually avoidance of the other partner, intimacy decay, and loneliness.

Keep Them from Asking “Would I be Happier With Someone Else?

Both types of “turning away” lead to relationship decline, create emotional distance within the relationship, and serve to justify the conclusion by one or both people that the other is “not there for me”.   This often prompts people to begin comparing their partner to real or imagined alternatives and asking, “Would I be happier with someone else”?  

And here is where the downward cascade from unrepaired broken trust to outright betrayal often begins.

It’s a long path from “turning away” from your partner when regrettable incidents occur to actively “turning toward” others to have your needs met or to find what is now missing from your relationship.  Nonetheless, the tumble to real betrayal begins when couples fail to “turn toward” each other, especially in the aftermath of a regrettable incident, large or small.

Turning toward each other to meet each other’s daily attempts to connect, especially after a regrettable incident, establishes trust and allows couples to remain close.  So, then, they never ask the question “Would I be happier with someone else”? Or if they do, the answer is a resounding “no way”.

If you and your partner have let each other down and need to repair the trust in your relationship, summon the courage to turn toward each other and fully process your negative feelings with all the honesty, empathy, regret, and forgiveness required to truly put the incident behind you.  Take action to stop cheating before it starts.

Let me know if I can help.

Jamie C. Williamson, PhD is a FL Supreme Court Certified Family Mediator and Couples Counselor who is part of the Gottman Referral Network.  She is an owner and partner at Amity Mediation Workshop, a mediation practice specializing in “friendly divorce” mediation and psycho-educational sessions for couples and co-parents.  Dr. Jamie speaks frequently on relationship topics and authors the blog “Work it Out”.  You can find her online at amitymediationworkshop.com.

By Jamie C. Williamson, PhD

Is it ever ok to lie? 

Not all lies are unexpected.  Not all lies are unethical.  Not all lies hurt others.  In fact, sometimes lying is the right thing to do.

Sometimes.  But, not usually.  Especially in a close personal relationship grounded in trust, like marriage.

Lying is only one of many forms of deception, which occurs anytime you knowingly allow someone to believe something that is not true.

And, yes…lies of omission (intentionally withholding information) are deception, too.

But, intent is a key ingredient here.  Intent differentiates between a “hard-to-overlook” deception and an “easy-to-forgive” honest mistake.  If you provide inaccurate or false information that you believed to be true, you did not lie. And, most people get that.

The motive behind the deception also influences how most people evaluate a particular deceptive act, with some motives being generally expected, some easily forgiven, and others being harshly judged.

The table below borrows from extant deception research (including my own) to illustrate that Motives for Deception fall along a continuum from Pro-Social to Anti-Social and are associated with specific goals and behaviors.

Deception designed to Benefit Others is engrained in western culture and part of our daily interactions. Most of us learned early in life that failure to engage in these pro-social actions is often considered impolite, unnecessarily hurtful, or disloyal.  We compliment our host, even if we didn’t care for the meal. We praise a child’s painting even though we can’t really identify the subject. We equivocate when a friend asks if we like her new hair style. And — although we may not substitute a lie for the truth, most of us willingly withhold information that might embarrass a dear friend, trusted colleague, and, especially our spouse.  There are certain stories we just don’t tell in order to help those we care about save face.

Similarly, people use Self-Enhancement Deception as a natural way to present their best self and manage the impression others have of them. Most of the time these self-enhancement strategies go unnoticed or, if found out, are easily forgiven because they are so commonly used by us all. We talk about our successes, but omit or minimize our failures. We blame the traffic for making us late, rather than say we overslept.  And, we pretend to know more than we do about wine, or the market, or our job – and then go study up.  Of course, when taken to the extreme of an out-right lie on a resume, routine fabricated excuses, or constant boasting, even these relatively harmless attempts to make yourself look good can backfire.

Self-Protective Deception crosses further into anti-social territory because it involves selfishness, and often ends up hurting others.  As such, depending on the issue and relationship involved, this type of defense mechanism can engender anger, create conflict, and reflect poorly on the deceiver’s character.

Self-Protective Deception, if discovered, has less of a negative impact on casual relationships than it does on long-term relationships and marriage because (a) close personal relationships are characterized by commitment and trust and (b) breaking that trust is a major violation of expectations.  Still, the extent of the negative impact of Self-Protective Deception depends on the importance of the issues, as well.  Saying you had a salad for lunch, when you really had a cheeseburger is much different than saying you were working late, when you really went to a bar with a mixed-gender set of co-workers.  Both will affect your partner’s perception of you, but the self-protective lie that has the potential to also hurt others is considered more unethical and more antisocial than the lie that doesn’t threaten others. And, naturally, when discovered, a Self-Protective Lie about an important topic erodes trust in a long-term relationship and also engenders hurt and anger, creates conflict, and erodes the relationship, as well.

Spouses may use Self-Protective Deception to protect their marriage relationship.  For example, a wife might lie about a regrettable, one-time infidelity to protect herself but also to maintain and protect her marriage relationship (and even her spouse).   If discovered, the wife has two problems:  She engaged in infidelity and then lied about it.  Explaining that she lied to “protect the relationship” won’t help much to mitigate the impact of these transgressions.

Deception focused on Harming Others can involve deliberately lying to harm someone’s reputation, to obstruct a colleague’s ability to succeed at work, or to interfere with a rival’s desire to start and maintain a relationship. These lies are considered anti-social and unethical. The most egregious and harshly judged lies, however, are those told to by people who deliberately hurt others by trying to deflect attention from themselves or shift blame from themselves to another, innocent person.

Thankfully, deception focused on harming others is relatively uncommon in satisfying, long-term relationships like marriage, because these healthy relationships are typically characterized by good will, positive regard, and cooperation, despite the occasional (and perfectly normal) conflict.

During relational distress, however, couples often exaggerate (or falsely accuse) each other of wrongdoing to gain the loyalty of their family and mutual friends.  And, worse yet, divorcing parents may lie about each other to gain the loyalty of their children.

Bottom line:  Everybody lies. And everybody knows it.  And, in certain situations, certain kinds of deception are considered pro-social, acceptable, and even desired.

But, before you lie to anyone about anything, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do you have your partner’s best interest at heart? Are you trying to help someone save face? Or trying too hard to make yourself look good?
2. Will the deception help both you and your partner, or is it a selfish lie?
3. What are the possible repercussions of your lie? If your lie is discovered (and the big ones usually are), how will it affect your partner’s feelings? Your relationship? Your own credibility? Your own reputation? The professional and personal well being of the subject of your lie?
4. Could there be unintended consequences of your lie? Remember, if you lie to gain the loyalty of your children, you may hurt your former spouse, but you also deny your children a loving relationship with their other parent.
5. How hard will it be to maintain the lie? If you exaggerate when talking to strangers on the plane, that’s one thing.  You’ll never see them again.  But, when you lie to your co-worker, close friend, and especially your spouse, you will have to continue lying over and over again.
6. How will the lie change you? If you tell polite, prosocial lies you’ll probably feel good about yourself and others will, too. If you deceive someone you love about an issue that is important to your relationship and you have to keep telling more lies to cover-up the first ones, you may become unrecognizable, even to yourself.

Once you’ve thought through these questions, I suspect you’ll be able to formulate your own answer to the question “Is it ever ok to lie?”

If you’re reading this post after a lie has already impacted your relationship, try sharing it with your partner to start a conversation (not a series of accusations) about motives.  The Motives for Deception grid will help you understand each other and separate small transgressions from big ones.  Most couples can keep small transgressions in perspective.   The big transgressions require more sincere regret, genuine forgiveness, a new relationship map, and a sincere effort to “work it out”.

Let me know if I can help.

You’ll find Dr. Jamie C. Williamson at Amity Mediation Workshop, where we do Marriage Mediation designed to help couples find solutions and reach agreements that re-establish trust.

By Jamie C. Williamson, PhD

Like most actions in a close, intimate relationship, trust follows the “norm of reciprocity”.  You will trust your partner, if you sense that your partner trusts you, and visa versa.

What this means is that, if you act overly jealous or suspicious, you will not likely end up in the place of your dreams with a trustworthy partner. Instead, you’ll engender defensive responses from your partner and likely start down the very road you wanted to bypass.

The best way to discover if you can truly trust your romantic partner is to behave in a trustworthy manner, and also demonstrate that you trust your partner, as well.

If you do this, and your partner reciprocates by behaving in a trustworthy manner and by demonstrating trust in you, then you know your relationship is built on a solid foundation of predictability, dependability, and faith – the three building blocks of trust.

But, of course, for this trust norm-of- reciprocity to operate, you have to know how to demonstrate that you are trustworthy, so you can model if for your partner.

To demonstrate that you are trustworthy, you need to be predictable, dependable, and faithful.

Are you predictable?   Do you keep your partner guessing about your mood or your feelings?  Are you kind one day, insensitive the next?  Do you display and withhold affection to get your way or punish your partner?

If you answer “yes” to any of these or similar questions, your partner will be unlikely to trust you completely and to be “all in” when it comes to behaving in a consistently positive manner toward you.

Are you dependable? Do you call when you say you will call? Do you do you part of the household chores when you are getting ready for guests? Do you take care of the kids when your spouse is sick? Do you do your part without being asked or reminded?  Do you anticipate your partner’s needs and meet them, without expecting something in return?  Are you “there” for your partner?

If you can answer “yes” to these types of questions, then your partner likely thinks of you as dependable. If not, your partner probably wishes you would change.  These issues probably create conflict in your relationship and your partner may be thinking of trading you in for a grown up.  If you don’t want that to happen, learn to be more dependable so your partner can count on you and build trust in you.

Are you faithful? Do you openly and frequently express how you feel about your partner to your partner and others in your family and social circle?   Do you take the time to listen to your partner’s concerns, even when you are involved in your own issues?  When out at a party or with others, do you behave in ways that let your partner know you are loyal?  Do you avoid doing things that you know would hurt your partner’s feelings?

Or do you just do what feels right to you and expect your partner to just deal with it?

If you answered yes to this last question, then you are probably sending signals that your partner cannot trust you to be continually responsive and caring. You are communicating to your partner that you care more about your own fun, comfort or popularity than you do about your relationship.   This will erode your partner’s trust in you and discourage your partner from being trustworthy, as well.

If you are having trust issues in your relationship and want to “work it out”, remember that if you demonstrate that you are predictable, dependable and faithful, you will strengthen the trust your partner has for you and, in turn, encourage your partner to be more trustworthy.

Make this “norm of reciprocity” work for you.

And, let me know if I can help.