Essentially, single people who want children but fear divorce and other relationship issues are deciding in larger and larger numbers to go it alone and raise a child – or children – as single parents. Many of these people believe that being in no relationship is better than a bad relationship, or simply don’t believe that marriage and parenthood have to, or even should, necessarily go together.

This thought process seems to be borne out by the picture in popular culture of parenthood getting in the way of relationships, and it’s hard to argue with this. Simply put, kids make things more difficult for couples. They cause rifts and relationship issues by their very existence. I see this firsthand as a Portland marriage counselor with my clients who have children. Their priority is their children, which often really means something like:

1. Children
2. Jobs so they have money to support children
3. Their relationship

Parenthood can’t help but displace your relationship as the most important thing in your life, and you’ll most likely have to work harder in your relationship to keep things as good as they were before you had children.

If things are just going to go south anyway, why even bother with the whole relationship or marriage thing? That seems to be the thought process, anyway.

Here’s where things get interesting, however. A separate report from Stateofourunions.org cites information saying that cohabiting parents are happier and suffer fewer bouts of depression than single parents, and married couples are the happiest parents of all.

Married Parents Are Happier and Have Fewer Relationship Issues

Now, before you and your spouse decide to solve your problems with your own little bundle of joy, take care to read carefully. Of all parents, married couples are the happiest. There are plenty of very happy couples out there who don’t have children.

If parenthood is something you want in your life, though, it seems like it’s a pretty good reason to work through your relationship issues with your spouse so that you can stay together in a happy marriage when you do have children. And while married parents do have to work harder to find satisfaction in their relationship, they also say that they feel more meaning in their lives when compared to couples without children.

It makes quite a bit of sense if you think about it. Becoming a parent, while amazing and joyful and beautiful, is also an exhausting nightmare of worry and sleeplessness and responsibility. As a single parent, you have to deal with all of that alone. But if you’re married, someone is there to share both the burden and the joy. And unlike an unmarried live-in partner, your husband or wife may be more likely to work through problems rather than simply leaving.

If you and your spouse are considering having children, contact a Portland marriage counselor today to work through relationship issues.

Portland Relationship Counselor: Sexually Healthy Marriage Secrets

In fact, experts on relationship and marriage problems have found that happy couples tend to do a number of things – sometimes automatically, sometimes with a bit of work – to keep their sex lives invigorated and humming along. These “moves” not only help to keep your sex life from petering out, but improve overall intimacy between couples.

Just do it. When my Portland relationship counselor clients tell me they haven’t had sex in months – or longer – my advice is often those three simple words: just do it. Often in our desire for sex to be “special,” we wait for an event and want it to be magical and Earth-shattering, but one common trait between happy, healthy couples is that they have sex regularly. Why? Because sex between partners makes you feel closer and more intimate with each other, which makes you feel better about your overall relationship. Now, this doesn’t mean that there’s a magic number for how often you should be having sex (some people need it every day; others are happy with once or twice a month), but it does mean that you should both be checking in with each other to make sure that you are sexually satisfied, and working to remedy it if one of you isn’t.

PDA. Touch. A lot. Especially when you’re not looking to have sex. Because if kissing or massaging always leads to sex, eventually one or both of you might start avoiding contact unless you are in the mood, and touching without sex will help maintain the closeness between you for those times when you can’t have sex.

Don’t withhold. If it’s one thing I’m sure of as a Portland relationship counselor, it’s that couples fight about anything and everything, and contrary to popular belief, this is actually a part of intimacy. We let ourselves be moodier with the ones we love because we feel comfortable doing so, and sometimes, it’s a healthy thing. But healthy couples never withhold sex out of anger or use it to barter with. In fact, kissing or cuddling during or right after a fight can actually bridge the divide between you and act as a nonverbal way of reinforcing that this fight – whatever it may be – isn’t going to destroy the love between you.

Know how to switch gears. For long term couples, being sexy with each other can get more and more difficult as life gets in the way. How do you move from paying bills, picking up dog poop, or rinsing baby spit-up off your shirt to getting intimate? Couples with the healthiest relationships tend to be playful with each other and find shorthand ways that signal to each other their desire to get intimate. It can be anything from pinching, tickling, teasing, or cuddling, to a simple raised eyebrow and acknowledgement that the kids are asleep.

If you are having marriage problems caused by sex, don’t be embarrassed to seek help from a knowledgeable Portland marriage counselor.

While it may seem like a stereotype to attribute this “Stupid Boy” quality to the men in our lives, this is one area where studies have actually shown that there’s at least some truth to the generalization. Northwestern University researchers a decade ago found evidence that women think more in terms of one-on-one relationships than men, and more recent biological date even seems to show that women are just better equipped neurocognitively than men to pay attention to and interpret others’ feelings. Essentially, women by nature are simply more in tune with the emotions of the people around them than men are.

Naturally, these differences are bound to cause relationship issues, but it doesn’t mean that you’re doomed! I’ve helped countless clients gain the tools they need to work through these kinds of issues so that they feel better connected – and it’s not limited to men; both partners have to work to meet in the middle.

“Cluelessness” Relationship Issues Require Men and Women to Meet in the Middle

Because men and women do have different ways of processing how they think and feel, asking one partner to change not only isn’t fair, it’s usually not feasible. When I work with my clients, I have each partner work on different skills.

For men, this usually means practicing recognizing and talking about their feelings, and learning how to listen carefully to their partner. Women, on the other hand, often need to learn that things that are “obvious” to them often aren’t to the men in their lives. When something bothers them, they can’t just assume that their spouses are going to pick up on it, they need to actually bring it up – and do so in such a way that focuses on how the situation makes them feel and why it’s important rather than unintentionally attacking their significant others.

If you’re having relationship issues related to “Cluelessness Syndrome” and can’t seem to get past them contact a Portland marriage counselor today.

The vast majority of older couples I see complain to me that their sex life just isn’t what it used to be. Perhaps they’ve forgotten how to be as intimate as they once were after years of having kids around the house. Or they don’t feel attractive, so they don’t seek out sexual activity with their partner. Or maybe the fulfillment they were receiving in their career disappeared after they retired.

Whatever the reason, they now feel unfulfilled in their sex lives and it’s causing relationship issues. In the past, many professionals had been taught to explain that this is just something to be expected as they age, but new findings suggest that we shouldn’t be so quick to write off a healthy sex life.

Portland Marriage Counseling: There’s a Relationship between Sex and Happiness

Research shows that older people who have sex more than once a month are 50 percent more likely to describe themselves as “very happy” than those who haven’t engaged in sexual activity for a year or more. For those in marriages, only 59 percent of people who hadn’t had sex in a year said they were happy, compared to the nearly 80 percent who were having sex once a month. Perhaps even more interesting is that about 60 percent of those surveyed said that sex was more fulfilling after age 50 than it was when they were in their 20s and 30s!

In my sessions Portland marriage counseling, I’ve learned firsthand that sex isn’t just about sex. My older clients who engage in regular sexual activity are not only happier and more contented in their marriage, experiencing fewer relationship issues, they’re happier in their lives overall. Research has even shown that older couples who are still intimate regularly are more satisfied with their appearance than younger people, and have a better quality of life.

While there are completely valid reasons to refrain from sexual activity as we age, such as health problems, don’t give up on your sex life just because you feel like you and your spouse are too old. If you feel like you need help talking about your sex life with your spouse, try Portland marriage counseling.

Well, a Psychology professor at Ohio State decided to test that theory in a study, and discovered that those numbers might a little on the high side. The median daily number of times men thought about sex was just under 19 times a day. For comparison, women in the study reported thinking about sex 10 times a day. Still almost double, but not the huge disparity you might have been expecting.

What might be more interesting, though, is that men not only think about sex more than women, but also eating and sleeping – essentially, biological needs. Looking at it this way, we can start to see how these differences in thinking might lead to relationship issues.

Relationship Issues: Do Men and Women Intrinsically Think Differently?

Another complaint I hear from women as a Portland marriage counselor is that their male partners don’t seem to understand or know how to deal with it when they are talking about their feelings. Based on this new research, it raises the question about whether this could be true simply because men aren’t thinking about those things in their own lives as much.

None of this means that members of the opposite sex should give up on each other, however. While the potential differences in the way we think may cause more relationship issues, learning about them gives us the opportunity to be more understanding and work harder to come together in ways that work for both partners. Perhaps if women engage men on a more concrete, physical level, and men can seek out their feelings when talking to their wives and girlfriends, everyone will get along better. It certainly seems simple and straightforward – which is exactly the problem I have with it.

We’re More Alike Than We Think, Says Portland Marriage Counselor

While the simplicity of saying men think more about their biological needs is nice, the truth of the matter, like most relationship issues, may be a bit more complex.

The lead author of the study admits as much when she says that whether a participant was male or female wasn’t the best way to predict who would think about sex most frequently, rather “you’d be better off knowing their emotional orientation toward sexuality.”

And later she says that women who tested higher on wanting to appear socially acceptable tended to report fewer thoughts of sex, which indicates that they are under-reporting their sexual thoughts because of what they think of as “typical expectations for women” – namely, that women aren’t supposed to think about sex as much. Interestingly, as they tried to meet societal expectations, those expectations for men – 8,000 sex thoughts a day?! – were proven to be incredibly overblown.

If you feel like you and your significant other are having relationship issues due to societal pressures, contact a Portland marriage counselor today.

Improve Your Marriage with This Relationship Advice

Schedule regular date nights. This is a piece of relationship advice I’ve offered on this blog many times before, and that’s because it’s so important to stay in touch with your partner. Remember, it’s not about what you do or how much you spend. It’s just about taking the time to be together and have a good time.

Take vacations just the two of you. Think of it is an extended date night. It doesn’t have to be long. Just a weekend will do, but make a point to spend some time alone, just the two of you, away from the distractions of daily life and the interruptions of your children. Plus, the grandparents will enjoy some time alone with the kids.

Schedule intimacy. This becomes particularly important if you have children. Maybe before it was not something you needed to worry about. You just made time when the mood struck. But once kids enter the picture, you may become too busy and exhausted to really notice how much your love life has suffered. If scheduling lovemaking doesn’t seem romantic to you, consider that you are making a commitment to keeping the love alive in your relationship. What’s not romantic about that?

Set boundaries with the opposite sex. Don’t spend time alone with members of the opposite sex, and step back from any relationships that get close to an emotional affair. Intentionally maintaining this distance, even when our relationship is strong, can help you to avoid temptation when you go through a rough patch.

Having a healthy marriage means investing time and making the right decision along the way. If you are having trouble or haven’t been taking these steps to protect your marriage, you can get relationship advice in Portland marriage counseling.

Sadly, they might not be too far off from the truth. Research into how gift-giving affects relationships shows it to be a bit of a no-win endeavor. When you know a person well (like, say, with a spouse), they expect a good, thoughtful gift, and if you get them something they don’t like, it reflects badly on the relationship. But good gifts do little for the relationship beyond affirming how similar you both are.

Portland Marriage Counseling Tells Us That It’s Not the Gift, It’s the Baggage

A particular gift, in and of itself, is neither good nor bad. Negative feelings about gifts and gift-giving are what cause relationship issues, not the gift itself. And this can happen from both directions. If you really wanted to buy your partner an expensive gift but couldn’t afford it, you’re likely going to believe your partner is disappointed regardless of how they really feel. Or if you have spent a lot of money and your significant other knows you can’t really afford it, their reaction to the gift is almost guaranteed to be laced with guilt.

Other problems I’ve encountered in Portland marriage counseling include people not feeling worthy of expensive gifts or believing they can’t please their partners and giving up entirely because of this. But these fears – whether they be financial, related to self-esteem, or something else altogether – are preventing you and your spouse from having a truly connected giving and receiving experience, and there are things you can do.

Planning Gift-giving Together in Portland Marriage Counseling Reduces Stress

As with most relationship issues, the best way to reduce the stress involved in gift-giving is to talk it out and make a plan. This doesn’t mean that you have to tell each other what you’ll be buying, but oftentimes setting rules and boundaries together can help.

My clients have come up with a wide variety of stress-reducing measures. Some like to set dollar amounts for gifts that both have to adhere to. Others write down lists of things they want, and each partner is allowed to purchase only one gift from that list. This way there is still a bit of a surprise, but each person knows they will be getting something they want. And a few forego individual gifts altogether and instead purchase something that will be a present for both partners like a vacation or day at the spa.

If you and your partner are experiencing gift-giving stress and anxiety and feel like you need further help, seek out Portland marriage counseling today.

The best way to handle these situations is to talk about it. For many of my clients, this is the last thing that they want to do. After all, who wants to talk badly about the family of his or her spouse? But as a Portland marriage counselor, I can tell you that whether the relationship problems are between you and your in-laws or you and your spouse, they still have to be dealt with or they’ll just grow worse over time.

Relationships Problems: How to Talk about the In-Laws

So you know that you need to bring up your in-law issues with your partner, but you don’t want to exacerbate relationship problems you’re already having. Unfortunately there’s no guarantee that you won’t offend, but there are ways to approach the situation to minimize hurt feelings on both sides.

Show respect and appreciation. Let your spouse know that you are grateful for all of the helpful things your in-laws have done, and always be respectful when talking about them, even when bringing up the negative.

Don’t blame or criticize. Instead of complaining about how annoying it is that your mother-in-law is always cleaning your house when she’s there, tell your partner it makes you feel like the two of you aren’t doing a good enough job. Instead of yelling because your partner is always spending time with her family, explain that you feel like you barely see her and you miss her.

Set ground rules. Once your feelings are on the table, tell your partner that you’d like to set boundaries for your in-laws that both of you can agree on. Be willing to compromise. Instead of his family coming over four times a week, maybe it can be twice a week – but make sure that your partner understands that your feelings should come first (and vice versa) and create a password to end their visits should you become overwhelmed by them. This is also a great time to reciprocate, asking if your spouse has issues with your family and wants to set any ground rules for them.

Veto power. Even if you’ve agreed on something like two visits a week, there are days when it can just be too much. For these times, you need the power to say no. Likewise, there may be special circumstances beyond your agreement when your spouse simply needs to see his or her family.

You may want to seek out the advice of a Portland marriage counselor if you feel the discussion is becoming too intense, or your relationship problems don’t improve.

Couples where both spouses were materialistic scored poorly on nearly all measures of relationship health, such as communication, conflict resolution, and responsiveness to their partners. Even though these couples often had higher incomes than non-materialistic couples, money was a bigger source of conflict. And couples where both partners were materialistic were worse off than couples where only one partner was materialistic.

Seek Relationship Advice for Financial Disagreements

This is good news in this economy when many of us are struggling with job loss and lower wages. Our financial health doesn’t need to be tied to our relationship health. If you find yourself placing a high value on material wealth, it may be time to take a step back and look at the big picture. What’s really more valuable to you: your things or your relationships?

Even for couples that are not materialistic, money is a common source of conflict for all couples. (Another study found 1 in 3 is guilty of financial infidelity, which can put a strain on your relationship.) Open, honest, and regular communication is key. If you are having frequent financial disagreements, seek Portland marriage counseling for relationship advice.

But that media-reinforced ideal wasn’t set by your spouse, and it wasn’t set by you. So why are you letting it get between you? If you aren’t feeling as sexy as you used to, talk to your partner about it. It’s likely he or she is going through something similar. After all, you’re both aging. Share what you find sexy about your spouse, and ask that he or she do the same for you.

Another way to feel more confident in your own body is to take care of it. Eat healthy, exercise regularly, and visit your doctor regularly. Consider this not just good medical advice but also good relationship advice. As a Portland marriage counselor, I’ve seen that when my clients are feeling more in control of their bodies it helps them to feel sexier too.

Talk to a Portland Marriage Counselor to Improve Your Self-Image

Your body is constantly changing from the moment you are born until the day you leave this Earth. Learn to be grateful for these changes and to appreciate all the stages your body goes through. If you find yourself disbelieving that your partner finds you sexy, consider that this is likely more a reflection about how you feel than how your partner feels. In this case, it may be helpful to talk to a Portland marriage counselor.