Whether it is a marriage or a long-term monogamous commitment the same set of questions are ever-present: what is yours, what is mine, and what is ours?

First, realize there’s no such thing as blended. It’s more like stirring up pot roast with lasagna and calling it a new dish.

Watch/listen to this short video

Jerry Sander, LCSW Interview

Our marriages ended; everything is different. We wrote this post together after we did our Podcast for LoveWork – Skills for a Relational Life.

What determines our happiness in relationships? How can we go from ‘survive’ to ‘thrive’? How can we not end up alone, together? What about passion, romance, fighting, and fixing?

We are in a constant flux of harmony, disharmony and repair. But if we can keep the disappointments in perspective and not take them as opportunities to blow them out of proportion….we can minimize the damage we’re prone to do to them.

Divorcing after age 50 lands you in a surreal set of social and emotional adjustments. My world exploded in minutes — even though it took decades for the fuse to fully ignite.

Can couples really LEARN to be more relational in a weekend? I wondered that myself, when I signed up for Terry Real’s Relational Life Therapy Boot Camp. My wife (my co-adventurer) and I were in equal parts skeptical and willing to find out when we committed most of the entire weekend to find out.