Three Times a Week for a Five-Hundred and Seventy-Two Weeks

Ester Perel, the Belgian-American relationship and sex therapist, talks about the stages relationships can go through.

Romantic Stage: This stage is characterized by intense attraction and idealization of the partner. Couples experience high levels of passion and often overlook flaws. The focus is on connection and unity.

Power Struggle Stage: As the relationship matures, differences and individual needs surface, leading to conflicts. This stage, though challenging, is crucial for negotiating boundaries, habits, and roles within the relationship. Perel emphasizes the importance of navigating this phase without losing individual identity, as it paves the way for personal growth and understanding.

Stability Stage: If a couple manages to navigate their conflicts effectively, they reach a stage of stability and security. Here, the relationship feels more predictable and comfortable. Perel notes that this stage brings peace.

Commitment/Recommitment Stage: This stage involves committing to the relationship despite knowing each other’s flaws and differences.

Cutting Board Solutions Stage: The cutting board solutions stage happens only after 11 years of staying in the Power Struggle Stage on a single topic.?

If two strong-willed people marry - one with OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) and the other with ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) - and the OCD person happens to be trained to cook in the Army, the ADHD person has limited cooking skills, e.g., burns microwave popcorn, toast, and French press coffee, then the cutting board solution stage could take up to 11 years. But fear not! It is doable.?

Step One: Marry with a commitment to be an entrepreneurial couple, running the family business together. (Look into getting a reverse Siamese twin operation and become joined at the hip. Eat, sleep, travel, and work side by side in perpetuity).?

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Step Two: Commit to Conscious Living and Conscious Loving relationship skills training, take and complete a series of workshops, read all the books, supplement the on-site work with online classes, and become certified Big Leap Coaches.?

Step Three: Delve deeper into Marshall Rosenberg’s life’s work, based on Gandhi’s non-violent teachings inviting us into conflict-free conversations, and study with Louise Evans in training in her Five Chairs Five Choices weeks-long workshop in a villa in Tuscany with participants from around the world. Read, study, research, practice conscious principles, and recommit to them when you drift and devolve into your unconscious patterns designed to protect you from the pains of childhood trauma.?

Step Four: When stressed, devolve and forget everything you learned and invoke the most unattractive and dys-regulated habits and act out patterns of deceased parental role models?

Step Five: Act out "Power Struggle Stage" behaviors, focusing on "The Cutting Board Fight."

"The Cutting Board Fight" goes like this:

OCD partner says: “Please don’t put ________ on my cutting board.” (Deliver this reasonable request with the patience of a saint).?

ADHD person says: “Sorry”! I’ll try to remember.” (Deliver this reasonable response with a dubious tone as you know your ability in this regard is untrustworthy).?

Repeat this pattern with as many variations as you can imagine?

Three Times a Week for Five-Hundred and Seventy-Two Weeks.?

THEN, one day, treat the cutting board problem as a simple problem to be solved mutually - not struggling over and through ad infinitum - and agree to put the cutting board up and out of the way when not in use.?

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