The Wellbeing 5 Project
Kyle Benson
Intentionally Intimate Relationships
The Relationship Wellbeing 5
5 Simple Questions to help with relationship wellbeing with answers from Experts, Thought Leaders, Campaigners & Advocates
Kyle Benson
Kyle is a highly experienced and trained relationship coach. His training includes relationship leadership training and qualifications from The Gottman Institute. His work has been featured many times in major media outlets including Maxim, Business Insider, The Huffington Post, amongst many others.
Kyle’s mission is to support people in cultivating a secure and meaningful relationship. His website (here) contains a wealth of articles and relationship resources to help relationship wellbeing. His approach is built on 3 areas; Intentionality, Intimacy & Relationship
Find out more about Kyle here
The Relationship Wellbeing 5 with Kyle Benson
1. What is your favourite quote, anecdote, proverb or experience that helps with relationship wellbeing?
Kyle: “Love is a constant process of tuning in, connecting, missing and misreading cues, disconnecting, repairing and finding deeper connection. It is a dance of meeting and parting and finding each other again minute to minute and day to day.” – Dr. Sue Johnson
I love this quote because it highlights that conflict and misunderstanding is an opportunity to repair and strengthen a relationship. That disconnection is bound to happen and what we do during that disconnection and how we reconnect determines the quality of our intimate relationship.
2. What is your top piece of advice for relationship wellbeing?
Kyle: We often fall in love with someone and then forget to stand in love, to willfully create it. Intentionally loving your partner means being willing to cultivate emotional connection and spontaneity. This means prioritizing time together: dates, sex, conflict, and friendship.
3. What is the one change in the world that you would like to see? (in your area of wellbeing or in the world in general or both)
Kyle: Intimate partners seeing the challenges occurring between them as an opportunity to deepen their connection as well as grow as individual partners, rather than “flaws” in a person’s character which tends to lead to more blame and nasty conflict.
4. Which resources (books / websites / videos etc) for relationship wellbeing would you recommend?
Kyle:
- Blogs: The Gottman Relationship Blog, KyleBenson.net, www.neilsattin.com,
- Books:
- Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love
- 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work
- Hold Me Tight: Conversations for a Lifetime of Love
- Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science that will Transform Your Sex Life
- Fighting for Your Marriage
- Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How it can help you find – or keep – love
- We Do: Saying Yes to a Relationship of Depth, True Connection and Enduring Love
- Sex without Stress: A Couple’s Guide to Overcoming Disppointment, Avoidance, & Pressure
- Magnificent Sex: Lessons from Extrordinary Lovers
5. What’s the one thing that always makes you smile?
Kyle: Sitting on a sandy beach next to my spouse
One Bonus Question. Is there anything else pertinent you would like to add to the conversation?
Kyle: Intimate relationships take an intentional effort to make them meaningful, passionate, and healthy. This means dedicating time, 6-hours to be exact, to your relationship each week. And if you find yourself in a rut, there are a lot of research-backed resources and clinicians that can help you. You are not alone.
Further Exploration - Kyle Benson
Website: Kyle Benson
Kyle's website containing information about him, his approach to relationships, courses, articles and relationship resources
Medium
Kyle's Medium profile including posts providing research based tools that build long-lasting relationships
Article: If love requires effort, is it meant to be?
Article from Kyle's series looking at how a relationship not being easy doesn't mean it's not to be & the toxic beliefs that can lead us to think that relationships shouldn't require effort
Social Media - Follow Kyle below
More Relationship Wellbeing 5 Interviews Below
More love & relationship Wellbeing 5 Interviews
With answers from experts, thought leaders, advocates and campaigners to help with love & relationship wellbeing