Valentine's Day is a day for those who are in love to celebrate — and for those who loved and lost — well, we’ll get into that.
The biggest question many in Las Vegas have: How do you find it? Do you do the checklist method, or do you believe it has to be a gut feeling, love at first sight? Is Las Vegas really that much more difficult than other cities to meet someone? And if you lost someone, how do you get past it — is it really just time that heals; is it hopping in the sack with the first likely suitor who comes along?
We had two people with us who provided some answers to your questions. Professor Katherine Hertlein and Assistant Professor Vaida Kazlauskaite are both with UNLV’s Couple and Family Therapy Program and joined State of Nevada host Joe Schoenmann to dish out advice.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
I’m recently single. What do I need to work on before jumping into another relationship?
KAZLAUSKAITE: That's a really great question. I think just focusing on yourself and whatever that means for you, prioritizing your own mental and physical health. So whether that means going to therapy and just processing some traumas, or it means that you establish a routine of going to the gym and eating more healthy, right? So you have to fill your own cup, fill it to the brim, so that when you are ready for a relationship, it spills over to your relationship when you're healthy, mentally and physically. Your relationships will be healthy.
My wife and I are always slammed. How do we maintain our relationship?
HERTLEIN: It is really important for couples to carve out the time. And I know I'm not helping [the caller] with his time pressures and time problems by saying find more time. But it's absolutely true. But you've got to be really creative. The couples that do the best that are the most successful are flexible and creative. So for example, this might mean while everybody is slammed with their schedules, maybe you take a little time to send your partner little sweet text messages throughout the day, as kind of a way to build up a little foreplay, a little excitement, a little bit of intimacy, so that you can still feel connected throughout the day, even if you don't have that chunk of time to be able to go out in the way that you used to, until such a time where your schedules lighten up and you're able to carve out that time.
I went out with someone and want to take my time, but also want to rush into it. How do you hold back the urge?
HERTLEIN: It's really about intimacy development in whatever way that can happen. What's key about intimacy is that number one, when you make disclosures to that other person, those disclosures have to be personal, they have to say something about you … Secondly, the receiver has to respond in a way that is warm, caring, and validating, so that Person A who made the disclosure has to notice the compliment, do whatever they need to do to reinforce that kind of response. So make sure that you are making disclosures in a way that might be piecemeal, in a way that you feel uncomfortable with the pacing, but it's ultimately going to bring you closer to that goal of greater intimacy.
Is Las Vegas a more difficult place for relationships?
HERTLEIN: What I've observed is in terms of the relational issues that I see, it's about the same from the other places that I've worked, which were Illinois and Virginia, in terms of the way in which people sort of regard meeting people in Las Vegas. My clients have often said, it's much more difficult to meet people here. So I'm not sure why they've said that. But that has been the comment I've heard a few times.
I’m trapped in a relationship, and my partner is dependent on me. But I like someone else. What do I do?
KAZLAUSKAITE: First and foremost, this comes up all the time, you have to set boundaries for yourself, right? So what is important for you? And how are you going to achieve that? So if you and I hadn't had a happy relationship, how long would you stay there? And how fair is that for you? How fair is it for the person that you're dating? Does she even know that you're not interested anymore? Does she feel like she's being dependent on you? It just sounds like an unfair situation for the both of you guys. So again, sitting down and having those hard conversations and setting those healthy boundaries for yourself, I think would be step number one.
What’s the science of love?
KAZLAUSKAITE: Oxytocin is released when we are being physical. When we are feeling loved. That's definitely a hormone that gets released. And we are feeling like we're in love and we feel so close and connected to them. You know, people always talk about their partner smell. That's definitely a thing, right? Like my partner smells so good to me because we are connected, that oxytocin is being released.
Guests: Vaida Kazlauskaite, Ph.D., assistant professor, couple and family therapy program at UNLV; Katherine Hertlein, Ph.D., professor, couple and family therapy program, UNLV
