Chris Wright: My name is Chris Wright, and I am a licensed Marriage And Family Therapist, who works with couples on their relationships. I see couples here in the Washington D.

C. area. I also have telephone clients who call from locations around the world. I lead workshops across the country on developing couples skills. What we are going to discussing here is how to have a successful couples relationship in marriage, and the key to that is your relationship skills. There s an old adage that says, Falling in love, that s the easy part; staying together for years with your hearts open, that requires skills and tools . So in this video series, we are going to be discussing the range of tools, awareness s and skills that will ensure you to have a successful relationship. Here is thing about skills. We all enter relationship with certain natural abilities, we are strong in some areas, maybe not as strong in some other areas, maybe we are deficient in some areas, But in relationships today, that the challenge is responsibilities, it becomes increasingly important to develop the full range of skills necessary for sustaining intimacy. Skills that enable you to respond each others needs so you both feel fulfilled in a relationship. Skills that enable you to work through your issues and your differences together as a team in a way that both people feel heard and honored in the process.

Couples who have these skills, they tend to do well, their hearts are open, the relationship flourishes .

Couples who don t have these skills or are missing certain skills tensions can develop and those tensions can grow and over time undermine your feelings for each other and undermine the whole relationship. Who would the have thought that this was an important back when you first fell in love. I mean, think of a couple on their wedding day, their hearts are so full, they cant imagine ever falling out of love or that the relationship could end, But people have been through the school of hard knocks, they know better, a hefty 50% of all relationships end in divorce and a percentage of those who stay together, maybe their hearts aren t as opened and they are not as fulfilled. But what s a couple to do? I mean where they go to learn these skills? It s not something you are taught when you grow up in high school or in a college, it is not even taught in adult education, it s is not even taught in graduate therapy school, so you are pretty much left to fall back on whatever you have learned in growing up in your family, what seems natural in your personality. That s why a video series like this on learning couples skills can be so helpful, so important.

Unfortunately learning these skills for most others couples is easy. It s like taking a graduate level course and how to preserve your marriage or your relationship, so if you walk through this series, you will see that this new wisdom, these skills, these new tools can make all the difference. They can create a relationship that is precious, that is meaningful, that is sacred, that is conscious, and enable you to have the kind of the relationship that you have always wished for.