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Tag Archives: emotions
What is Emotional Neglect in a Relationship?
No relationship is perfect. When you are in a relationship with another person, it takes sacrifice and commitment from both to make things work. Things won’t always work smoothly, though, but that’s normal. Spotting issues in a relationship, whether from the outside or inside, can be challenging.
While it is sometimes overlooked, one of the more challenging parts of a relationship is balancing each other’s needs and wants. While physical intimacy is often the main focus of a relationship, emotional intimacy is equally important. It may be surprising to hear, but emotional neglect is very real and has a damaging effect on a person’s mental health as well as the relationship.
What Is Emotional Neglect?
At its core, emotional neglect involves the absence of emotional responsiveness or support within a relationship. In cases like this, it is not about what is being done but what is not.
There are many ways that emotional neglect can manifest in a relationship. These may include:
Failure to nurture the emotional connection with each other.
Not validating one partner’s feelings.
Not allowing a safe space for expression and honesty.
Emotional neglect does not leave a physical scar. However, the effects of emotional neglect can be just as profound and impactful as physical neglect or abuse.
A big challenge with detecting emotional neglect is the fact that it is very subtle in nature. Often, it starts to take root in a relationship gradually and goes unnoticed. It often doesn’t even start intentionally. Instead, it takes root because we all live busy lives and become preoccupied with other responsibilities.
What Is The Impact Of Emotional Neglect?
When emotional neglect goes unnoticed, it can create feelings of loneliness, resentment, and insecurity. This often erodes the foundation of trust and honesty in a relationship, two of the main foundations of any relationship.
Why does this happen? There are so many different reasons for emotional neglect. Beyond life’s common hustle and bustle, someone may be neglectful because of issues stemming from their childhood or past relationships. Or, they may struggle with something internally pulling their focus away from their partner.
Can You Heal From Emotional Neglect?
Just like you can heal from physical scars, you can move forward with your partner if you feel as if your emotions are being neglected.
How Do You Say You’re Sorry?
How Do You Say You’re Sorry?
I’m blessed to have 2 elementary age children who are at school for 6 hours a day. I can get stuff done, exercise and of course, work on my business. When my children walk through the door, my world shifts and I don’t always know what I’m getting myself into when they come home.Read More
Let’s Talk About Emotions!
Let’s Talk Emotions
I am a Gottman couples’ therapist and I love working with couples. I get to see the transition from hurt, angry, distant to loving, intimate and enjoying each other. Understanding your emotions is not easy, but yes, it is possible.Read More
Emotions, who has them and why?
I saw the movie Inside Out this past weekend with my family. It was a great movie and had an even greater lesson in it which most people would not recognize but me being me, I had to recognize and share with all of you.
So if you know the movie, it is about a girl who has emotions in her head. They are joy, sadness, anger, disgust and fear. Joy is the main emotion and she is always trying to stop the other emotions from overtaking her turn. Well, sadness is the main emotion that joy has a problem with which if you saw the movie, it turns out that joy and sadness get kicked out of main headquarters because joy does not think that sadness should be a part of Riley’s core memories.
Who else believes this? That sadness is a wrong emotion and should not be a part of our core memories? As it turns out joy realizes that whenever she is around that sadness is also there as part of the emotions and that joy and sadness go hand-in-hand together. So, in order to get the emotions back on track once they got back to headquarters, sadness needed to take over and fix everything. Why, you ask would sadness need to fix everything? Because, sadness was and is the correct emotion. Why are we so afraid to be sad?
Sadness is a necessary emotion to help us get our stress out, fix our problems and get closer to the ones we love. It helps us make decisions and learn how to love, apologize and how to try again. When you try to block this emotion from your head you are missing out on so much of your emotions.
If this movie or me teaches you anything, is that emotions are okay no matter which one you feel. Just feel it and work through it and you will get back to joy eventually. If you block out sadness, anger, disgust or fear, then joy will not be real. You need all of your emotions to successfully feel and learn how to share how you feel.
So go ahead and feel sad today, but then feel anger, disgust, fear and once you are done understanding all of your emotions then you can feel joy and really mean it!
Can Relationship Counseling Work with Just One Person?
I cannot tell you how many times, I either get a call or see someone in person and the first thing they say to me is, “I have wanted to come for awhile but my partner would not come so I got tired of waiting and came myself.” My answer is always, good for you and I can honestly say that coming for yourself will help you improve yourself and your relationship. Do you believe me? Let’s look at the reasons
1. The ripple effect: I explain this effect a lot and it was introduced to me early in my schooling when you drop a rock into the water and it skims on the surface it creates a ripple. The same thing happens when you start to make changes within yourself, you and those around you will benefit from those changes, sometimes for the better and sometimes it works the opposite way and you realize you are not happy and end things. Regardless, change occurs.
2. Your partner is always present: The goal in couple’s therapy is to stay neutral and listen to both sides equally and give sound advice. Its harder to do with one person but doable. Any of my clients can tell you that I side with the one that makes the most sense but in a couple both sides are right and a compromise is always obtainable with the right way to look at a situation.
3. Adding your partner later: This one has to do with the first two and usual happens if the person in therapy is making positive changes and the other partner wants to come and work. At least one person should be in the therapy room and be working on the relationship.
Coming to therapy is a hard, long decision that most people do not make lightly. When you are angry, you want change but you are unsure how to go about it. Therapy can help untangle things and work-out what needs to really be worked on. Trust me it works whether it’s with one person or two. Just make the call and try and see where it leads you!
Live life as you want to live.
I have been absent for quite some time from this blog writing and it goes to the heart of this post because I have been focusing more on my family than my business. Not to say that I am not giving my all but my all is redirected at this moment. I have been telling my clients more and more lately that you need to live life the way you want it to be. What does that mean and why should you do it?
If you are having troubles at work, home or with the family, think about what and how you would be happy and once you find that out, others around you will be happier. If you are living to try to please others and not yourself than you will only end up regretting it and working on pleasing them. I am not telling you to be selfish, I am telling you to be self-full. What is the difference you ask? When you are self-full you work on doing good for yourself than others will benefit from it. When you are selfish, you are only thinking about yourself.
I have realized that my live is worth living the way I want it to be. That does not mean quitting my life and starting over. It means adding happiness to it and working on myself to live life to the fullest.
With that being said, how would you describe living life to the fullest?
How to turn a negative into a positive
I have the pleasure of working with great minds and I get to help make them even better. I have an amazing client who went through a terrible break-up and she was able to turn this situation into a positive learning experience with my help of course!
Her and her boyfriend decided to move in together and he did not tell his close knit family about his move until after it already happened. His family blamed her and made her into a “scape goat”. She took the blame and tried to make the situation better but by doing that it only made it worse so she changed directions contacted a therapist and started working on herself. The first thing we decided together was to stop trying with his family and it worked and her and her boyfriend decided to break-up for a lot of reasons but mostly because of the situation with his family.
She went through the stages of grief and finally felt better. At that time I asked her to write a list of all the positives that came from her break-up and her experience with his family. This is what she came up with.
Back To School
Whether it is this week, next week or it has already happened, back to school is in full swing. My children are young, but we are still getting excited for school. We got our back to school supplies, backpack is packed and lunch is ready for tomorrow. What does back to school mean to me?
Schedule-I hear from a lot of people that their schedules are more relaxed in the summer time. As I have learned from experience over and over again, children thrive on schedule and routine. It is great for them and great for us. Keep them on a schedule and share that schedule for them as well.
Activities-Along with those schedules comes all the activities that the fall brings. Whether its sports, dance or something else there is more activities than space in this blog. Just remember that the activities need to be fun and also have time for family and play. If there is a time when the schedule becomes too much, this is where you need to cut the time. Trust me, your children will survive and be thankful in the end.
Emotions-Whether its your own or your child’s emotions can flare up around the time of drop off or even pick up. Have enough time for your child, remember that there might have been something that upset them during the day and they are letting it out after school is over. Just take time and talk, make sure they are not hungry, tired or thirsty before those activities.
As always, this is a collaborative approach so if you have anything to add, please let me know.
Affection
Okay, so I have two children and I have noticed lately that both of them show affection differently. I was curious if they really show affection differently or do I respond to them in different ways. I have one child who is as reserved as reserved can be, getting a hug out of her is a major accomplishment, then the other child is blowing kisses, reaching for hugs and always showing affection. I give them equal attention, show them equal affection and constantly tell them that I love them. I kiss and hug them all the time and when I get hugs and kisses back it makes my day. I am not a believer in pushing for affection so if I ask for a kiss and I get shut down, I am okay with it.
I was reading an article recently and the pro’s and cons of pushing for affection and I believe this is a charged issue with parents. I think about parents that give and give affection without getting anything in return such as with autistic children and then of course I feel bad about my need for affection. Bottom line for me is that I do know that both my children love me and they always know I love them, so the big question remains?
Should you force affection or take what you get?