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STEPHANIE: Right. And in most cases, the man just doesn't know that that's needed and it's not because he's trying to be neglectful. He just doesn't know that that's what you need. So it's kind of a woman's job to may be take care of that part of the relationship, and not always, it can be -- you know, things could be in reverse. But generally the woman wants to have some way of expressing emotions from a man. So she needs to make it her job in order to make it happen.

Now, one way that it could happen is a couple who has been married over 50 years said that every night before they went to bed they both wrote down five things that they loved about the other person. And they would talk about them. And the last thing they did before they went to sleep was to dwell on those positive reasons why they loved each other, and it gave both of them a reason to communicate how and why they loved each other. So that's one way to do that.

BART: So, again, the exercise is you make a commitment for every night or every Friday night before you go to bed, and it's a great place to do it by the way, in the bedroom, because that's where you want all these positive states.

STEPHANIE: Positive, yeah.

BART: And you sat, let's write down five things and share them with each other. And not just all focused in a very positive state.

STEPHANIE: And in a relationship it is somebody's job to do this, to really keep things focused, keep things growing so it doesn't get stale.

Another couple used an empty fish bowl that they had like in the kitchen, or in the central location, and throughout the day they would put little notes and little questions they wanted to ask each other, or things that they would want the other person to do for them, little ideas.
So then they had a ritual of the time. And I believe it was once a week when they would sit down and they would pull some of these things at random out of a fish bowl and if it was one of my questions that I had written for you, it would say tell me what you love about me the most. Those questions are hard to ask, but if we have them as a little, honest game --

BART: As a game, yeah.

STEPHANIE: Yeah. Then it gives us an excuse. And it's actually practicing for a man or a woman to express those things that are often hard to express. Now, in that, you could also have little sexual things that you want to know about, ideas or, you know, would you be willing to meet me in a bar as a stranger and pick me up on a date. And, you know, you could do those things if you open the discussion.

BART: Here's the bottom line, if somebody really has to ask this question, how to get my man to expressway feelings, then this realtionship really has a little bit of a communication breakdown; and they're not communicating. And that's a huge and very common problem.

STEPHANIE: Absolutely.

BART: For two people to be living in the same house, to be making love to each other but never communicating on a level. And any and all of our exercises, pick up any book in a bookstore about communication, and they're all useful at some level if you're having dialogue.

STEPHANIE: Yeah. And it's a matter of taking the initiative to do it, because it's not going to happen magically. It is more comfortable to just let things get stale and kind of dwindle. It takes some effort, but it will worth it, because that's the thing that will keep the relationship strong.