Making Your Marriage Miserable in Your Mind? Maybe.

What's the biggest blocker to intimacy is your relationship?

Is it your husband's stubborn refusal to open up? Your wife's bizarre notion that dusting the top of the TV is more important than sex? Or perhaps it's meddling in-laws, clingy kids and demanding bosses who have a stranglehold on you and your spouse?

For most of us, it's none of the above.

As delightful as it would be to reprogram everybody else, the biggest barrier to intimacy is usually smack in the middle of our own brains.

Imagine my shock when I dove into "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Intimacy" (Penguin, 2005) with my yellow highlighter in hand, ready to mark pertinent passages for my husband, only to discover I was the one who "had issues."

I must have been the exact idiot author Dr. Paul Coleman had in mind when he wrote about "your inner announcer calling the play-by-play" and how the thoughts you have about the relationship when you're away from it affect what happens when you come together.

Coleman (www.Paul-Coleman.com) cites the "self-serving inner dialogue that builds a case against your partner" as the reason why you can spend your drive home thinking about past and current relationship conflicts, then arrive at your doorstep feeling like you already had a fight.

An argument with your spouse when he's not even there? Guess who wins that one?

Coleman effectively illustrates what most of us already know and prefer to ignore, that "your mind, unleashed at even a fraction of its potential, can create your own heaven or hell."

I've often said that every relationship has three dimensions: the one your head, the one in your partner's head, and the one that everybody else would see if Nora Ephron made it into a movie.

But what's not quite as obvious is how the part in one person's brain affects the other two. As a long-time student of human behavior, I've observed first-hand what countless studies prove - nonverbal communication is more powerful than speaking, and tone of voice has more impact than the words themselves.

The verbage coming out of your mouth might be, "Anything you say, dear." But if your actual thoughts are more along the lines of, "Here we go again, another round of your negative, asinine behavior, Mr. Mountain of Toenail Clippings On My Good Couch," that's the message your partner's going to take away.

You might think you're being as nice as you can with that sugar-sweet voice, but as any shrink or talk show host will tell you, your thoughts are being revealed by your tone and body language whether you like it or not.

And if your brain interprets your spouse's every look as a glare and views his or her every action through the filter of "here comes that evil witch again," you're hardly on the road to a more intimate relationship.

Coleman identifies four pathways to greater intimacy with the one you love: thought, talk, touch and togetherness. Many of us may be convinced that lacking the last three is the root of all our problems, but Coleman eloquently makes the case that our thoughts are always the precursor to success in those other areas.

Women usually want more talk, while men often complain that there's not enough touch. And overworked, stressed-out couples everywhere know that when togetherness constantly takes such a backseat to kids and jobs, nobody's happy.

But how many of us consider the mental track in our own minds when we're craving a closer connection? Yes, men would be better off it they learned that talking about feelings enhances relationships and avoiding emotions only shuts things down. And yes, women should learn to accept that a husband's desire for sex is often his way of expressing his heartfelt love.

And of course, scheduling time together is the critical to any long-term commitment.

Yet how we respond to our partner's requests for talk, touch or togetherness all depends on our own frame of mind at the time. Our internal dialogue creates the environment all our spouse's actions enter.

A friend of mine whose husband travels frequently told me, "Home alone with the kids, I continually found myself frustrated with him for being gone and then I suddenly realized - I'm creating a bad marriage in my own mind."

Imagining her clueless, hard-working hubby eagerly coming home to a wife who'd spent three days stewing about his faults. The scene would be pathetically laughable if so many other husbands across America - including mine - weren't experiencing the same thing.

Talk, touch and togetherness require time and effort from both sides, but changing your internal dialogue is something you can do on your way home from work this week.

Intimacy - it's all in your head. Now there's a thought.

Lisa Earle McLeod is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the author of Forget Perfect. (Penguin/Putnam) www.ForgetPerfect.com