Therapist Merle Yost of Unspoken Boundaries on Five Keys to Happy, Lasting Marriages

An Interview With Nancy Landrum

Alone Time This is especially important when kids come along. Every person needs time to be alone with their thoughts and not being needed. This can be an hour, a day, or a weekend, but it strengthens the trust and gives time for processing feelings.

Marriage is a complex journey that combines love, partnership, and mutual growth. To explore the foundations of successful marriages, we are talking to experienced marriage and family therapists. who guide couples through their challenges and triumphs. This series will delve into professional advice and strategies that foster long-lasting, fulfilling relationships. As a part of this series I had the pleasure of interviewing Merle Yost, LMFT.

Merle James Yost is a California LMFT in Private Practice and Open Mind Health and has been Licensed since 1995. He is a Humanistic, Somatic, Eye Movement, Desensitization (EMDR), and Reprocessing psychotherapist who works with people to heal trauma and make sense of their current situation to heal and find a resolution. He has also published six books on various topics, including management, long-term couples, gynecomastia, and self-help. He also teaches workshops on Energetic Boundaries to make people’s lives easier.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what inspired you to become a therapist?

Psychotherapy saved my life. Growing up in a cult, isolated from the world, and sexually abused for years, there was a lot to unpack about me and the world that I had little understanding of. I was severely dissociated and had limited social skills. I had been successful in business management, and while the therapy I did made me a good manager, I was much more interested in going deeper and helping people heal instead of managing them.

Marriage: This article is about marriage, but legally married or not, it applies to most couples. Also, 98% of this applies to both heterosexual and same-sex couples. No matter the configuration, any couple will benefit from the information here.

Marriage is one of the most consequential choices we make in life and the one we have the least training and understanding. Relationships are advanced self-work. We get to see who we are when there is no one else to blame, which can be impossible for some people.

What are some common misconceptions about marriage that you frequently encounter in your work?

1. Marriage will fulfill my needs. Men and women are more alike than different. But their gender socialization is dramatically different. It is like they are different species. Once you get past the limerence, social interaction can be very difficult, and putting two people in a confined space with years of programming about roles, marriage, and life will often result in conflict and disappointment. Marriage is an advanced skill that comes from both our programming by our families and whatever else that was downloaded by their community.
2. I can have all the sex that I want. While the honeymoon period can last for a while, there is usually a slowdown in sex for most couples. Differences in people’s wants and needs can clash in this most intimate part of marriage. Hopefully, there were long discussions about sex interests and expectations. In my experience, most couples have little idea of how to talk about sex. There is too much shame in our culture around sex, and it makes something so natural very difficult.
3. No matter how I act, they will be there for me. Some people have the misunderstanding that ‘no matter what,’ their spouse will be there for them. This is delusional at best. Initially, there is usually more leeway around actions and attitudes as a couple settles in together. But bad, disrespectful, deceitful behavior will no longer be tolerated. In the best marriages I have seen, when two people put the other one first and are conscious of how their actions reflect and impact their partner will have the best and longest marriages.

How can couples keep the romance alive, especially after many years together?

It is often said that couples fall in and out of love. You could say they really fall in and out of romance. Keeping that flame alive requires tending to it; otherwise, it can go out, and it is difficult and often impossible to relight it.

1. Keep the sexual connection alive. I touched on this already, but more can be said. Does your partner know your deepest sexual fantasies? Would they be shocked? Would they want to know more? Do you know their deepest fantasy? Hopefully, there have been some conversations about them, but sadly, it can feel too vulnerable to share that part of you. And what is kinky or strange to one can be vanilla to another. Don’t dump it all at one time. Test with something and see the reaction. This process deepens the intimacy through vulnerability. Vulnerability is the key to romance and keeping the spark alive. Our tastes and interests change. Keeping each other abreast of those changes allows the partner to explore with you and attempt to meet your needs. This goes both ways.

2. Often, subtlest gestures or touches can convey the deepest intimacy and romance. Creating nicknames, being held or addressed in a certain way, or a gentle carcass of a hand or the back of the neck are all ways of tending the flame, knowing where to touch them on their back, or a subtle joke that only the two of you will get.

3. Don’t forget to make time for each other. Time is our most precious gift. It says that they are important enough to prioritize them. In our hectic lives, taking your partner for granted is much too easy, and they keep being bumped down on the list of to-dos. It is not just for them, but we need that attention, touch, and ear of our mate. When kids come along, carving out ‘our time’ gets more difficult but even more important.

What are some common conflicts that couples face, and how can they resolve these conflicts in a healthy manner?

Common issues in relationships are sex, money, kids, extended family, friends, and work. Each reveals more about you and your spouse. How you negotiate these possible problems reveals your trust and commitment to the relationship.

Listening and hearing what the other person shares about their priorities and values can lead to solutions. It might also reveal a fundamental incompatibility. Compromise and change keep relationships together. Depending on how well a couple communicates, they may need a third party to moderate a healthy discussion. It could be a trusted friend or therapist. Being flexible, considering the other person’s perspective, and, most of all, staying calm and remembering why you are in a relationship with this person is essential. If you emotionally disconnect, it makes it much harder to reconnect.

Compromise is essential, but there are lines that people can’t or won’t cross. You must know where your lines are and know where their lines are for a successful outcome.

How important is trust in maintaining a strong marital bond? What strategies do you recommend for rebuilding trust after it has been broken?

A healthy relationship is built on a foundation of trust. Trust that neither of you is having sex outside of your agreement. Trust that you are being honest with each other and still in love. Ideally, the longer you are with someone, the more you trust them because you come to know them more deeply.

Broken trust in a relationship can spell the end. For some people, once the trust is broken, that is the end of the relationship. Again, this can reflect on the relationship you grew up watching. If trust was violated or broken in your parent’s home, then it is more likely that there would be less tolerance for this behavior in the child’s marriage.

To rebuild trust, there must be an agreement that trust was broken. There must be an honest discussion about why it happened, the impact on both parties and a shared commitment to make the changes necessary to prevent it from happening again. This requires vulnerability on both partners’ part. It is hard when you have been hurt, but it is part of the healing process.

Can you share some practical communication techniques that couples can use to improve their relationship?

1. Regular Meetings: A scheduled time to discuss anything in the relationship, good or bad. This helps because you both know why you are meeting and are committed to discussing unpleasant things. No one is blindsided or unprepared.

2. Your Time, My Time, Our Time. There is a fantasy that you are no longer an individual once you are married. There must be a commitment to the relationship; part of that commitment is shared time. But we also have other parts to our lives. Agreements about when we will be together, whether it is dinner or bowling, that shared time is essential to keep a relationship alive. It also makes clear that you are their priority. But we also have friends, hobbies, and other interests that are part of our creating a happy life. Time must be made for both. This is how it is honored and accomplished. Agreements about when Our Time occurs prevent conflict and misunderstandings.

3. Be Honest About Sex: What is working or not? What we want or don’t want. How do you want to grow sexually? Understanding that our needs and wants change as we age and go through different stages of life. There must be an ongoing conversation about sex to manage where we are and where we are going.

4. Alone Time This is especially important when kids come along. Every person needs time to be alone with their thoughts and not being needed. This can be an hour, a day, or a weekend, but it strengthens the trust and gives time for processing feelings.

5. Two Are Not One Even though the Wedding Song says that two shall become one, merging with your spouse is lethal to a healthy, lasting relationship.

We are made up of atoms, so we are just energy. The excitement happens at the contact boundary. Merging kills excitement, but our atoms in proximity create excitement. This is how you keep sex alive. This is how you know what you are feeling and are not lost in what the other person feels. Once you understand how this energy works, you can know much more about what the other person is experiencing without merging. This helps with clarity, compassion, and empathy. Compassion and empathy are not about feeling the other person’s feelings. They are about being a profound witness to their experience. That is healing. Merging confuses who is feeling what and why. It is not useful. You absorb their negative energy, and then you have to figure out how to discharge it. Merging is rude and intrusive. Don’t do it if you value your relationship.

How hard is it to practice what you teach couples in therapy?

Life is tough enough, but being in a relationship complicates everything. Psychotherapists are notorious for giving advice that they don’t practice themselves. Therapists are human; some have done much more work on themselves than others. My 19-year relationship saved me in so many ways. But I committed to grow and heal from a nightmare childhood. But my partner did not have the same commitment. He was unwilling to heal his pain. Ultimately, I left the relationship because the gulf between us was so wide it made connecting impossible. I knew I could not force him to change, and I was unwilling to feel alone in my relationship. It takes two parties to make it work. I walk what I talk.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Who has been the inspiration or model for your marriage? Can you share a story about that?

We were mentored by an older couple who had been together for many years. They gave us a foundation to build on. Socializing with other couples also helped us see how they worked together. My therapists were also guides to making our relationship as healthy as possible.

Is there any particular book or concept that helped you overcome a turning point in your marriage?

I found the Five Love Languages to be very useful. It gave benchmarks about communication and how it could work. We all have our own ways of expressing and receiving love. Knowing how that works and how you want to receive and give it can be a game changer. Again, both parties need to know what the other wants. Communication is the key.

I also found that remembering that we each have our own reality was crucial to staying compassionate and connected. We spend all our time inside us, and sometimes it is hard to remember that we are not the center of the world. Being in love helps a lot. When it is waning, it makes it harder to care about the other person’s reality.

I remembered that even though I was a psychotherapist or a manager at work when I got home, I was neither of those. I was just another flawed human doing my best to live in harmony.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

Through my books and workshops, I have attempted to share my insights and knowledge with the world. My next book, my seventh, is my memoir. I had a horrific childhood, and my healing journey has given me a great capacity for empathy and compassion. I know what is survivable. My workshops teach where our boundaries come from and how they work. My workshops on sexually abused males help men be present and vulnerable, making healthy relationships possible. New research is suggesting that boys are more often sexually abused than girls. Neither is acceptable, but we have an epidemic of wounded males who do not have permission to have their pain and thus cannot heal it. This destroys a lot of relationships. My goal is to help men understand they were not the only ones to be sexually assaulted and that it is okay to be in pain and you can heal it.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I would do away with the concept of a victim identity. We have all been victimized. No one gets through childhood or adulthood unscathed. And we need to acknowledge and heal those wounds. To live as a victim is a dead end. People treat it as a get-out-of-jail-free card. They just give up, which is justified because they were victims. In a world that seems to compete to be the biggest victim, it does nothing to advance our lives or the world. And I think that is tragic. We can heal wounds, both physical and emotional. But there must be a willingness to face the pain and regain your power and life. I wrote an entire chapter about this in my 6th book: Facing the Truth of Your Life. It is called Victim Identity Disorder. It has changed a lot of lives.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quotes”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My favorite life lesson quote is from a book called If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him by Sheldon Kopp.

“Real change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of changing.”

This quote is the foundation of my life and work. Sometimes, people must feel more pain to be willing to heal their lives. I have seen it happen repeatedly.

The other quote is from Maya Angelou.

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

People reveal themselves in big and small ways, and most of the time, they don’t even realize it. But paying attention and believing them will save you a lot of pain and energy. Perhaps I cheat as a professional observer, but most people are broadcasting at high volume who they are. Don’t give them the benefit of the doubt — act according to take care of you.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)

Mark Cuban and/or Steve Kerr

I would be honored to spend time with either of these men. While they are famous and wealthy, they are grounded and still connected to their humanity. Each gives back to the world around them because they see that is the point of being alive. We have too many people who feel they are above the rest. I don’t need anything from either of these men; I simply respect and admire them profoundly.

How can our readers follow your work online?

If you would like to know more about me and my work, the following links will tell you more than you want to know.

https://merleyost.com (my books, podcast appearances, psychotherapy practice and more)

https://unspokenboundaries.com (my boundaries workshops)

https://merlism.com (My clairvoyant work)

https://merleyost.substack.com/publish/home (a preview of my 7th book)

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

About the Interviewer: At 79 years young, Nancy guides couples to transformative relationship skills, specializing in strategies for stepfamilies to succeed. Nancy brings her MA in Spiritual Psychology, personal experience and research proven strategies to guide couples to healthy communication skills and relationship happiness. Nancy has contributed to multiple media outlets including Huffington Post, Psych Central, and Woman’s Day magazine, to name a few. Nancy coaches in person, on Zoom, in her online courses at www.MillionaireMarriageClub.com , on “Relationship Rehab” TV and Talk and has authored eight books, including “How to Stay Married & Love It!” and “Stepping TwoGether: Building a Strong Stepfamily”. Nancy’s goal is to lower the divorce rate globally.