Back to top

"I love you, but I'm not in love with you."

In this podcast episode, Neil Venketramen, staff therapist at The Family Institute, interviews Dr. Cheryl Rampage, our senior academic and clinical advisor and clinical associate advisor who has more than three decades of experience treating individuals, couples and families. Dr. Rampage addresses the misconceptions that many couples have about the experience of "being in love," and explores what the partners themselves or couples therapy can do to rekindle the intimacy and introduce novelty into their long-term romantic relationship. 

Your Bank Account

Every marriage has an invisible emotional bank account. We make deposits into the account through acts of kindness, words of admiration, gestures of support, and more. We make withdrawals from the account by moments of unkindness, harsh or unfair criticism, words or actions that trigger hurt feelings, and more.

Prompt Each Other

It's a widespread complaint of women: men don't know how to listen without rushing in to give advice and offer a solution. "I'm not looking for advice," many women say, "I just want to be heard, to get something off my chest." Through some mysterious blend of nature and nurture, guys just want to find a fix.

Women: try a prompt.

Becoming a Family: Nurturing your Connection in the Transition to Parenthood

Becoming a parent is one of the most profound transitions in life an individual will experience, and for a couple becoming parents together is an extraordinary and life-long journey that bonds them together. So why is it, then, that it is so common for parenthood to decrease relationship satisfaction?

Northwestern Alumni Career Webinar Series

Love takes work. We know that to be true, yet with the demands of kids, jobs, volunteer work, and family, it is all too easy to put our romantic relationships on the back burner. In this webinar, Dr. Alexandra H. Solomon will discuss what it takes to nurture emotional and sexual intimacy in a long-term relationship. Dr.

Northwestern Alumni Career Webinars

During the past 40 years, dual-income households have nearly doubled, and female breadwinning households are on the rise. In this discussion, we will cover the unique challenges dual-income couples face from the "second-shift" to the current child-centered parenting culture that place a strain on relationships.

The Magic Touch

Would it surprise you to know that there are health benefits of holding hands with your partner as you walk down the street, or embracing when you return home at the end of the day? Or setting your hand atop his thigh or behind his neck when you're the passenger next to him in the car?

A Podcast Series from The Family Institute

In this episode of Let's Talk, Nikki Lively, Clinical Director of the Transitions to Parenthood program interviews Elly Taylor, an Australian parenting expert and the author of the award-winni

How Was Your Day?

Is there a more banal question than How was your day? When asked, we often treat it as a throw-away and reply with a quick and mindless "fine" or "okay," our eyes never leaving the computer or the television screen. We rarely expect it to be the start of a conversation.

Who hasn't at times hated a loved one?

It happens in every intimate relationship, a moment when frustration or upset or disdain grows so large that the thought crosses the mind: I hate him / I hate her. Love and hate - they aren't opposites, and it's not a zero sum game where the more of one means the less of the other. Both feelings can stir, as they inevitably do.