Q:	What paths have you both taken to bring you to this spot of therapist and author?
A:	When we met twelve years ago in graduate school, Seana's background was in writing, editing and marketing, and Maurice had been published in a national psychological magazine. We found in each other our complete match, with an extra dose of intellectual chemistry and a similar mission in life. This made us bound and determined to do everything in our power not to let the gift of our incredible love fade away. At about the same time, we began counseling families and couples together as a team, first in the USA then in Asia, where we'd established a private practice. In working with couples from more than fifty world cultures, we saw the devastating effects of the traditional model of relationship on everyone. It then became both a personal and professional passion for us to discover the natural laws that create successful relationships today and an overall new model.
Q:	There are so many relationship books out there — a "flavor of the week" almost. What makes yours different?
A:	Whereas others give sometimes excellent advice and teach communication skills, ours offers a whole new model of love — an actual manual for successful relationship in the 21st Century. The New Couple is comprehensive and systematic with a built-in fail-safe mechanism and a new language of love partners can learn to speak together. This means they'll finally be able to intelligently discuss what is and isn't working in their relationship. Whatever the problem, they can look it up and find out what to do about it. Singles can use the New Couple model to perform "autopsies" on their past relationships to understand what went wrong and how to avoid similar heartache in the future. Again, it can serve as a manual for their next relationship. They might even chose to show it to prospective mates. The New Couple is designed to put all partners on the same pagee.
Q:	What is the current health state of relationships in the U.S.?
A:	It's a very exciting moment for relationships in our culture. We can say quite dramatically, and in truth, that the state of the world is a reflection of the state of the modern couple, that fifty-percent of American marriages end in divorce, and that among those that stay together few are truly satisfied. And with the ever-increasing number of "trial marriages," "serial monogamists" and "scared singles," it's obvious that people are on the verge of momentous change. We're hitting bottom with the traditional model of relationship which has been obsolete for generations. And we define traditional as any relationship in which partners don't learn basic relationship skills or attend to the personal issues we all bring into our couples that have nothing to do with our partners. The only answer is a new model that asks partners to embrace learning and healing as the new lifestyle of love.
Q:	What do you hope your book does to address this?
A:	We offer a new model of love that meets the more advanced needs of today's partners — that is, for lasting emotional intimacy, self-love and mission in life. The Ten New Laws of Love give everyone the information they require to succeed in love. They offer an essential hedge for today's partners, many of whom see the potential loss of personal identity and dreams as the biggest challenge in committing to another person — a challenge even greater than the typical fears of abandonment, divorce and failure.
Q:	Your book is based on "The Ten New Laws of Love." The word "laws" is very black and white. Can you elaborate?
A:	Natural laws are by definition black and white. If you drop an apple anywhere within the Earth's atmosphere, it will behave according to the law of gravity. If you smoke, drink excessively and don't exercise, your body will sooner or later suffer; these are the laws of physical health. Similarly, if a relationship is not prioritized, if partners don't have chemistry or understand the basics of emotional integrity, if they can't deeply listen to each other, aren't working on their areas of low self-love or dependencies, the health of the relationship will sooner or later suffer. The Ten New Laws of Love are logical and natural.
Q:	Many would argue that a relationship should not be so much work, it should just flow.
A:	How much work is it to fail in our relationships? We don't grudge anyone their experience; if they can succeed in their relationships by just letting things flow, they have something to teach us. But if they are like most of us, just letting things flow gets most of us into quite a tangle! We understand the conundrum; everything in our lives these days, from staying in shape to succeeding in business to keeping our kids competitive in school requires strategizing, thinking, education, training. In frustration, many of us simply feel that our home lives should be a sanctuary from all this trying. None of us has enough down time. Truth is, though, there's no better de-stressor than a healthy relationship, and it's only something we call the "trance of tradition" that would have us believe we can succeed in long-term love without personal development.
Q:	Why are some people claiming that "marriage is in" and that the traditional model worked after all?
A:	Our book demonstrates our strong belief in committed monogamous relationships. They fulfill our need for emotional intimacy — but success lies in the approach. As we've said, we're hitting bottom with what doesn't work, and since there's no future model, we're grasping behind us. How could this possibly take care of our more evolved needs? This is precisely the dilemma we are hoping to ease. Back when relationships were based on survival and being survived, emotional intimacy, self-love and mission in life were not considered essential. Fortunately, we're much more sophisticated than that these days!
Q:	What are the three stages of a relationship?
A:	Intoxication, power struggle and co-creativity. Blissful intoxication normally lasts from two weeks to two years. Then we find ourselves in the power struggle. This, like the terrible twos, is supposed to happen, though romantic fantasy tells us not. Most couples never learn the skills or do the healing necessary to resolve this second challenging phase until death or divorce parts them. The last stage is wondrous co-creativity, where we've understood the roots of all our major conflicts and largely addressed them. We can then bask in our emotional intimacy and focus on our individual and joint projects, adventures and missions. The New Couple was written specifically to assist couples make this all-important leap.
Q:	What are the basic skills taught in New Couple model?
A:	New Couples know to "deeply listen," that is, from the heart, and how to resolve conflict, which includes couple agreements and a ten-minute technique for resolving anger and getting back to trust. They are also emotionally literate, in other words they are learning to be aware of and to express their feelings to each other as a matter of course. It becomes the natural way they communicate.
Q:	Your Third New Law of Love is emotional integrity. What does that mean?
A:	Emotional integrity is taking responsibility for the rocket fuel of our emotions — especially anger and fear. New Couples learn the difference between acting feelings out destructively and expressing them healthily. Its power to keep our friendship alive is truly amazing!
Q:	What are some examples of acting anger destructively? How about fear?
A:	We all know that violence, yelling, throwing things, slamming doors and name-calling are acted-out anger. What New Couples have learned is that garden-variety criticism, sarcasm, teasing and all forms of judgement are also anger being expressed destructively. Fear's a tricky one, but it's extremely helpful to realize that all so-called control-freak and neurotic behaviors — like asking our partner for the umpteenth time if he or she remembered to lock the door — are actually acted-out fear.
Q:	How can we build self-love and love with our partners at the same time?
A:	When we build self-love we are automatically increasing love in our relationships. We don't grow apart from our partners as a result of increasing our self-love unless the relationship is unhealthy in the first place.
Q:	What does our childhood have to do with our romantic relationships?
A:	All relationships suffer when our unfinished pasts spill into them. For example, it's common for those of us whose families didn't pay adequate attention to us growing up to feel unappreciated or neglected by our mates, regardless of what our partner might or might not do. It's a case of mistaken identity. New Couples learn to identify when we're "over-reacting," "overly sensitive" or otherwise out of control — getting our buttons pushed — and to then ask ourselves, "When have I felt this way before?" When we can answer this question, the problem is half licked. And it helps us develop compassion for our mates like nothing else.
Q:	What do you mean by the "new mixed marriage"?
A:	People who would be attracted to a New Couple kind of relationship don't always end up together. Sometimes one mate is very interested in learning relationship skills and personal development and the other simply isn't. We call such unions "new mixed marriages." This could be a kind of spiritual crisis for the couple, and asks us to pay intense attention to raising our self-love and to get clear about our own healthy conditions for relationship. We highly recommend that single people hold out for that special someone with whom they vibrate on all levels.
Q:	How can I learn more about The New Couple and put it into practice?
A:	Use the book as a manual for your relationship if you're in one, or as a prep and guideline for a future relationship if you're between partners. Also, check our seminar, speaking and seminar pages for information about our talks, classes and seminars.