Cary Valentine says vacationing on Kauai is the perfect time and place to make your relationship “juicy.”

Cary Valentine wants all couples to have “juicy” relationships, especially while on vacation on Kauai.

“Being on vacation is a great time to strengthen your relationship. You’re happy, relaxed and enjoying each other, and while you’re having fun together, you remember why you love this person so much,” he says. “If you’re having challenges in your relationship, vacation is a great time to start the process of transformation, while you’re far away from the pressures of day-to-day life that distract us when we’re at home.”

Valentine, a relationship coach, knows the ropes of rebuilding a relationship from personal experience. He had a “juicy” marriage with his late wife Wendy, who died of a brain tumor in March 2012 after 24 years of marriage, but it wasn’t always that way.

“We lived four years in the desert in Idaho on the brink of divorce. At one point, we lived so separately, we literally had a piece of duct tape running down the center of our bed,” Valentine says. “It took so long for us to turn things around because we were afraid of our own fears and doubts.”

After years of their “dried up” relationship, Valentine says the couple worked through their challenges, moved to Kauai and enjoyed years together, completely united even during the two-year odyssey with brain cancer to which Wendy eventually succumbed.

“I want all couples to have the chance to have a juicy relationship with each other,” Valentine says. “Remember, it’s going to take some time. It took a long time for your relationship to fall apart. I believe in a three-to-six month program of coaching. I am supporting you while your transformation takes place.”

Valentine, a joyous, effervescent man, had been plagued by negative voices in his head since he was 9 years old. He tried to quiet them through therapy, slugging a punching bag and even slapping tree trunks in the forest, to no avail.

“For years I only heard thoughts in my mind that I was worthless, that I was ugly, that I would never amount to anything. I felt like Pig Pen in the Peanuts cartoons, always with a black cloud over my head,” Valentine says. “I was a negativity machine until it became so intense that one day I said to those voices, ‘Cut it off!’

“Then I asked myself, ‘Cary, did you every consider those negative thoughts are your best friends?’ ”

Those annoying voices in our heads are our best trainers, Valentine says, because they voice what we don’t want, giving us the choice to focus on the opposite: how we do want our lives to be.

“We have to catch our negative thoughts early because by the time you feel heavy or spiraling downward, you’ve agreed with the doubt,” he says. “Once you’ve caught them, turn those doubts inside out. Neutralize them, re-program in the opposite. Don’t say, ‘I’m not attractive.’ Instead tell yourself, ‘I’m beautiful.’ ‘I am smart.’ ‘I will be successful.’ This improves your life both at home and at work.”

Though relationship coaching may seem foreign to some, Valentine encourages couples to give it a try, quoting one of his favorite sayings: “When you want something you’ve never had, you have to do something you’ve never done.”

Cary Valentine is a Certified Relationship Coach, speaker and co-author with his late wife Wendy of the forthcoming book, “In Love Forever: 7 Secrets to a Joyous, Juicy Relationship.” He coaches singles and couples both in person and long distance. Contact Cary at (808) 346-6652, cary@inloveforever.tv or www.InLoveForeverRelationshipCoaching.com