This is the story of Mark & Jenny’s relationship healing
Mark & Jenny were a couple who sort of believed they still loved each other.
But their daily reality wasn’t bearing that out.
Read how they moved form disconnection, anger and uncertainty into something new and rewarding.
Their story is one unique version of the many couples who come to us from across Australia and overseas for one of our individually focussed Ultimate Couples Getaways. It’s a story of relationship healing…
This is Mark
Mark was working long hours, successful in his business but paying for it through the stress he carried, stress that lead him to slump down in front of the TV at night, with a ‘leave me alone’ wall emanating from him. Which was better than the nights he had to take his anger out on Jenny by picking a fight with her. He wondered if he might be a bit depressed, but this thought was too hard to deal with so he avoided it. He did worry about his almost non existent libido, but didn’t know what to do about it. Mark felt very much in charge at work but when it came to the bedroom he didn’t have the answers and was scared to look. He dealt with his fear by being angry and keeping Jenny at a distance.
This is Jenny
Jenny was a very loving, passionate woman. She longed for more lovemaking in her relationship but she was scared of Mark’s anger and found it impossible to breach his unavailability. Feeling powerless, she carried a lot of frustration about the lack of passion in her relationship, as well as the lack of intimacy that stemmed from it. So much so that she had a luscious affair a few months ago, that ended when her lover ran away from her emotional intensity. This left Jenny even more angry and now feeling guilty as well. She’d was having therapy that helped her feel more normal and less guilty but left her still burdened with a deeper level of ongoing frustration.
Persistence Pays
Jenny urged Mark to consider coming to counselling with her. He was very resistant to the idea of exposing his vulnerabilities to a complete stranger and kept saying no. Jenny kept looking for an answer. She wanted to feel connected with Mark again and have a real relationship, not just go through the motions and look for real intimacy outside of it. Especially after their youngest son, Trent, left home at the end of the year leaving Mark and Jenny alone in the house.
Eventually Jenny found Oztantra’s Ultimate Couples Getaways and spoke to Annette and Graeme about their approach to relationship counselling. Amazed at even being able to speak to them upfront at no cost, Jenny sensed that here were two people who might have the solution she was desperate for. Otherwise it felt like the end of the road for her in her relationship with Mark. Annette and Graeme got right to the point of where she was at and what she wanted, whilst being relaxed and approachable. Jenny felt hopeful.
Something New
Mark agreed to speak to these guys because he could do it from home with minimal commitment from himself. Somehow, speaking to Annette and Graeme felt more like a conversation than any kind of therapy. Yes, a couple of the ideas they brought up were a bit confronting, but in his gut he knew that there was something in it he could trust.
His gut instinct also told him he could trust these two, especially as they could help him laugh about some of his biggest fears without him even having to mention them.
A Good Start
So Mark and Jenny booked a flight to Byron Bay and spent five days having both a holiday in relaxed and sunny Lennox Head, just 15 minutes south of Byron. They didn’t need a car, everything they wished for was in walking distance from their 
accommodation, including an abundance of great cafes, succulent fresh fish, daily walks and swims, even a local yoga class.
In a relaxed manner Annette & Graeme met them for a coffee even before the sessions started, just to get further acquainted and comfortable with the process. Mark and Jenny were able to choose the time of their sessions to fit in with their desires, with available follow up at a moment’s notice for no extra cost. It still didn’t feel like therapy.
New Pathways
The next day they had their first session – a total of 3 hrs, that went by very fast. Annette & Graeme were able to present a framework of ideas that showed them they weren’t broken and they weren’t alone. What’s more, they saw that what they’d thought were problems were actually pathways to what they both wanted.
Jenny had her beliefs about her sexuality validated. It wasn’t that she was needy or demanding, more that she was following her body’s intuition about the importance of sex for her as part of her vitality and life force, her very survival. In fact, she had felt like she was dying (or crazy) having to shut it down when sex was unavailable. She learned new ways to nurture her sexuality outside of sex that gave her a new lust for life itself.
Mark learned that whilst his libido might not be what it once was there was a whole new place in sex waiting for him that was as good as, if not better that what had gone before. And a big part of it was about him taking the time to look after himself, to relax and not see sex merely as another job he had to ‘perform’ at when he was exhausted. He found a new way to view sex as revitalizing.
Opening the Floodgates
This helped them begin to feel excited once more about their relationship. They also learned some powerful ways to communicate and feel heard about the things that were most important to them. They found so much to talk about, other than the kids and work, which had been the mainstay of their conversations for many years. Mark and Jenny started to really see each other as unique individuals, rather than a source of pain and suffering which helped them trust one another again. This opened the floodgates of desire.
Going deeper they not only recognized where some of their patterns of behaviour came from, they also learned how to get underneath the stories that kept them trapped and hurting to the love underneath. Building on the newfound love Mark and Jenny learned some simple but amazing lovemaking techniques that increased both their intimacy and pleasure. Jenny felt met by Mark in lovemaking as never before. Mark felt freer and more inspired in sex than he had for a long time. They practiced these in the privacy of their accommodation.
Not only this, but it seemed like both their relationship and themselves had healed at a very deep level that was beyond words. They felt seen, held and met by Annette & Graeme in a subtle and powerful way, connecting them to strengths they’d never dreamed they had. And surprisingly there were many healing laughs along the way.
An Excited Beginning
Mark and Jenny felt like they had found a new beginning and couldn’t wait to get started. To help integrate the new changes at 
home because it takes more than just a few days to change life long patterns, Annette and Graeme 
offered a follow up Skype session at home, included in the cost.
Even though the couple worked very hard and faced some very challenging things it felt more like an adventure than therapy, with Annette and Graeme riding side saddle beside them.
If you’re looking for your own relationship adventure contact Graeme and Annette today about an Ultimate Couples Getaway on 1800 TANTRA
In doing so he unknowingly avoids his own vulnerability, the vulnerability it takes to be an amazing lover, as this involves getting more present, more fully into his body, feeling more and opening his heart.
We communicate through our approach: by completing our set tasks on time according to a mutually agreed schedule, by offering to take our daughter to gym class whilst our spouse finishes the vacuuming or by resentfully buying extra groceries on the the way home from work after a last minute call from a stressed chef. Are we communicating through willingness, cooperation, resistance or resentment?
And what kind of management style do you best respond to- being supported, validated, directed, trusted or encouraged?
Dumping blame might feel good but…
Can you think of time when you felt or ‘knew’ something in your heart that helped you, or that you needed to listen to?
doesn’t mean the heart tells you to ignore your fear, it goes beyond it to a place of deeper logic. The heart uses more simple language that may be about letting things be, letting them go or finding compassion, acceptance and understanding. Sometimes it might be about getting off your butt, holding a boundary or maintaining some tough love which is ultimately the best choice even though it might be a hard one to take. Heart outcomes are ultimately more satisfying and better for the whole, helping you break out of old ways of being.
Practical Intimacy-
This can be as simple as sitting next to each other on the couch, holding hands, lying together with arms holding each other. It can involve active touch or complete stillness. It may or may not include genitals.
Sharing our bodies through touch with a desire to experience the sensations as they arise, without any attachment to an outcome, just being in the moment. It may or may not include our genitals.
presence of the other to experience ourselves, similar to what we experienced, if we were lucky, in the first few months of life with our mother in an atmosphere of love and safety and where we all long to go back to. If we weren’t lucky enough to experience it at some level we’re always looking to do so. We can experience this in the early days of a new relationship, when we are so in love and open to each other it feels like there is a blissful sense of no separation. It can feel good to the one who is lost in the other but is generally uncomfortable for the one on the receiving end and is not healthy on a long term basis. As adults we need to move on from this childlike sense of intimacy and find ourselves more fully. We can also be intimately enmeshed with our beliefs, our family, our culture, community and society, unaware of how we give ourselves away to these parts of life.
experiencing, with empathy and compassion for both ourselves and our partners. The deeper we open our hearts the more fully we experience this kind of intimacy. This is where we start to see behind our masks and take chances of being fully seen in our naked humanity. It’s where we start to get messy, creating the cracks where the light gets in. Up until this stage we’ve been able to keep our cool exterior in place yet now our imperfections need to show. It is these very cracks that create the sense of deeper togetherness, with a feeling of connection and shared experience. Despite our illusions about intimacy this stage is not always pretty as we reveal ourselves and our Shadows come out to play. This is the stage of intimacy we love to hate! It is important to balance this kind of intimacy with intimacy with ourselves to be able to stay grounded in it.Our Hearts have a multitude of talents and is much more powerful than we give it credit for – it is a place of painful feelings, a place for healing our pain as well as a place of rest, love and inner safety. It is where our Ego self meets our Higher or Whole self, so it is both messy and a portal to Spirit.
Our sense of ourselves becomes pure awareness and feeling, ‘we’ still exist yet have a oneness with everything that is, including God or Spirit. In this heightened state we have no awareness of anything outside of the present moment, or of any personal needs. Spiritual intimacy is often experienced in sex, eye gazing, meditation, prayer and other religious experiences.
still retain awareness of ourselves in the experience.
We have all witnessed, or experienced ourselves, the surging intensity of emotion that appears to explode out of nowhere over some insignificant happening.
insignificant with an ensuing, and projected intensity that is way out of proportion to the alleged incident. When this happens, people are caught up in their own unique mixture of reactionary emotional responses and a couples communication goes out the window.
Projections are a natural response in defending ourselves when we’re feeling attacked or criticized (whether this is the actual reality or not). We project because of our own unresolved emotional baggage that is being presented to us by someone else. This someone else often doesn’t understand our emotional triggers as they are totally unique to us, as their triggers will be to them.
Unfortunately it is all too easy to put it in the too hard basket and flake out in front of the TV or your laptop instead for those few minutes of ‘me’ time.
Simply begin with sitting down opposite each other, facing each other directly. This allows your body’s energy systems to move into alignment without doing anything other than just sitting there breathing. (Holding hands is optional).
