As I have written before, marriage was created as a business transaction to expand influence, solve family conflicts, build empires and amass riches. Long before romantic love was a thing, marriage existed as more-or-less a political institution that mediated the merging of estates and granted permission for the creation of an additional resource, children.

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I am old enough to remember the first bulletin board systems that came before the internet. There were crude games, geeky tech-focused chat rooms and a lot of chat rooms for flirting and looking for love. My first experiences with this were humiliating and soured me on the whole thing (still shaking my fist at you, Jennifer and Robin!). However, even I have come to see that online dating is real venue for making connections of all kinds. An estimated 1 in 4 relationships start in an online dating app these days, and I’d wager the percentage is higher here in San Francisco, where tech thrives and millennials abound.

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David Silberstein invented the Couple’s Dialogue, which details instructions for engaging in conversations likely to elicit deep empathy and genuine, focused listening. I will list the steps in the method here and talk a little bit about some of the hang-ups you might encounter using this tool as well as the many benefits of sticking with the (at times very awkward) process.

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I have a number of clients who worry about being co-dependent in their relationships. Usually a friend or lover has labeled them as such and they bring this term to therapy, often also experiencing a fair amount of distress in their personal relationships. This word, co-dependent, usually comes along with shame and often a feeling of being “broken.”

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