美满婚姻的真谛

A Happy and Healthy Marriage

When couples get married, they often promise to love, honor and cherish each other. Too often, those traditional wedding vows turn out to be nothing but empty promises. Psychologist Doc. Robin Smith who often appears on Oprah says it doesn't have to be that way. Her new book "Lies at the Altar" offers advice on building a happy and healthy marriage.

Dr. Robin, good morning!

Good morning!

So great to have you here!

I'm happy to be here, Julie.

Ok. You didn't necessarily write this for couples who are married or people're thinking of getting married. It's written for everyone, (Absolutely) right?

Yeah. It's because what the book is really about, Lies at the ALTAR is talking about living more in truth than in lies. Lies about what? About who we are, and so when you don't know who you are, it's hard to create, it's actually impossible to create, to carve and to build the life and relationship of our dreams.

When you say lies at the altar, these are not intentional lies. (yes) It's not like the bride and the groom were saying, yeah, I'm gonna love / and cherish you, but I'm really not, hahaha. (no) It's, it's you think you are, but you don't know who you are yet?

You don't know who you are and often unfortunately because of t he models that we've had in our families also on television. There hasn't been anyone who has given us permission, who has shown us the way, the path into living more in the truth, so we're afraid to let someone know who we are. Because maybe they won't love us, maybe they won't choose us, maybe they'll decide, you know, that's not the person that I wanna spend my life with. What we don't know is that if I live with that kinda fear, and I live covering up who I really am, I am cheating myself and minimizing the possibility of really having a good, strong marriage.

I mean, my message is pro-marriage but it's about being married and being smart.

Do you feel that many people, men and women, not only cover up who they really are to their significant other but to themselves?

Absolutely, I mean, I think it starts actually with the cover-up to yourself being an impostor, and again not because we are bad, not because we are liars, not because we are conniving, but because we are afraid, we are afraid of knowing really who we really are, because we think we are gonna lose out when choices and opportunities not knowing that how we really lose out is by being the impostor, that is the cheater, the thief and the robber.

So how do we confront who we really are, whether it's a conversation with, you know, myself, looking at myself in the mirror, good and bad.

Absolutely. Well, there're several things, one, I always ask people tell me something great about yourself, and then tell me what some of your limitations are. People can often come