As the New Year is upon us, we hope you take time to pause and reflect on this past year. Take a moment (or longer) to count your blessings and feel gratitude for achieving where you are together as a couple. If you are like most, it has not been an easy journey. Appreciate yourselves and each other for the effort and commitment you have put forth in your relationship. What have you learned about relationships over this past year? What has your relationship taught you about life, yourself and your partner? It is natural to focus on what is “wrong” with your relationship. However, there is more “right” with your relationship, than “wrong.” As you reflect on the challenges you faced together, were there strategies that worked well for you or behaviors that just put kerosene on the situation and made matters worse? What have you worked on that has been useful that you may want to keep practicing? What might you do differently, changes to habitual patterns that are not useful? How will you implement these changes in the upcoming year? We hope you will carve out time to sit together and discuss these reflections. Share your gratitude and appreciation for the efforts you each have made to benefit your relationship. Celebrate the successes together! Relationships take hard work! We feel blessed to be on this journey with so many of you, and we are grateful for all that we have learned from the work we have done together. Wishing you all a Happy and Healthy New Year!

We appreciate hearing your thoughts on this Pearl and your ideas for future Pearls. Please submit them to us at marrylabs@comcast.net.