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Tag Archives: relationships
When is a good time to tell your partner “I told you so?”
Okay, true story that happened today and I had to reflect on it and then share it with all of you. So, my husband reached out to me for emotional support about something that happened at work and he was feeling bad about it. I had to think about what I was going to say to him, to not make him feel any worse and try to boost him up. Read More
Can you recover from an affair?
When clients come to my office, I get tears, anger and this question “Can we recover from this?” My answer? Yes! Yes you can but it’s not going to be easy and there’s a lot of work that needs to be done. Here’s the checklist that I tell my clients.Read More
End of Summer and the Empty Nest
I’ve had a nice relaxing summer so far. My two children are enjoying camp and I am enjoying them at camp! My youngest is starting kindergarten in the fall and I always said that I was so excited to get to this point in my life. Oh, all the things I can do with them both in school. See, I didn’t rush preschool and last year my little one went to vpk with a pick up at 12 pm. As rushed as my days were, I enjoyed the time I had with her and she sure learned patience by waiting for her older sister in car lines with me!
Fast forward to today when I just used her school id number to link her lunch account with her older sisters. Okay, that was real for me and I’m so excited for this time for her and also a little sad that my little girl is growing up. As I write this, I know that others are experiencing different levels of excitement and sadness with their children going off to school, whether it’s college or just leaving the house. The real empty nesters are getting ready to experience life without tending to every one of your child’s needs.
Welcome back to adulthood! What, you are sad, unable to get out of bed, do not know what to do with your days? If this is you, then let’s talk.
As happy as you are for your children to leave the house, they’re still leaving the house and you’re still at your house. What does this mean for your relationship? Are you wondering how you’re going to handle the silence in the house? Does your partner/spouse annoy you with just being in your space? Did you spend all of your time and energy on your children and then you look at your spouse/partner and realize you don’t know who they are?
These feelings are normal and they don’t need to lead to separation or even divorce. Here are some things that you two can do to spice up your relationship!
- Go on a second honeymoon.
- Pick up a hobby together.
- Find an exercise routine for both of you.
- Work on your relationship through counseling.
- Make sure you go out on dates and make your relationship special!
If this isn’t working and you feel you need more help, I understand and this is what I do. I help couples, such as yourself, to reconnect, learn how to be intimate, like each other and communicate so the other one understands.
You can and should enjoy this time of your life and I look forward to helping you get to your ideal empty nest dream!
Growing a Relationship with Growing Children
We had another great seminar last Friday. Here’s the video for those that were unable to attend. See you next time!
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!
The 5 1/2 hour a week fix to your relationship!
How much time do you think you should spend on your relationship each week? The Gottman Method for Couple’s therapy has come up with a concept called The Magic Five and One-half Hours a Week. What does this mean to you and me as people in relationships with busy lives and work, children and external stressors getting in the way of spending time together? It means that this is how much time you should spend on your relationship each week in order to keep your relationship working. Here is how to do it!
Parting: Don’t part in the morning without knowing one interesting thing that will happen in your partner’s day, and kiss for a minimum of six seconds. Two minutes a day x 5 working days. Total 10 minutes
Reunions: The six second kiss. The stress reducing conversation. Each partner take 10 minutes to talk about your day. Partner does active listening. Give support. Rule: Understanding must precede advice. Twenty minutes a day x five days. Total 1 hour and 40 minutes.
Admiration and Appreciation: Find some way every day to genuinely communicate affection and appreciation for your partner. Five minutes a day x seven days. Total: 35 minutes
Affection: Kiss, hold, grab, touch each other. Play is good. Make sure to kiss each other before going to sleep, and what ever else you think of. Five minutes a day x seven days Total 35 minutes
Love Maps: Update your love maps (means to know each other and what is going on in your life). Turn towards each other. Go out on a relationship day for at least 2 hours once a week. Think of great questions to ask your partner while on your date or just in general. Total: At least 2 hours.
Aftermath of a fight. This is a technique used in the Gottman Method therapy to resolve conflict and make sure both sides are heard. The speaker talks about their feelings, tells their story and the listener responds with understanding of what the listener is saying. Then you switch roles. This is a great exercise to use after a fight to understand both partners feelings. Total: Thirty minutes once a week.
To start out this might seem as if it is a lot of work and hard to do but try to incorporate what you can slowly and work on adding the full five and one-half hours to your week to stay connected, talk about feelings instead of problem solve, and learn how to express emotions.
If you have any further questions about this, please do not hesitate to ask.
Relationship Styles: Which one are you?
Relationship Styles
Okay, we have all heard the term “opposites attract” and when they do, conflict arises because you have two people that look at life/relationship styles. Let’s learn a bit about the different relationship styles and find out which one fits best for you!
Conflict-Avoider Style: Generally prefers little disagreement. If there is a issue, prefers to discuss the issue completely, but not try to influence partner or persuade partner or be persuaded by the partner. Feels that the passage of time will often solve problems. Will drop the topic or just agree to disagree. Generally feels that anger is a dangerous emotion and believes in protecting the relationship from anger. Believes it is best not to dwell much on the negative in life, but to roll with the punches and emphasizes the positive. Prefers having traditional roles in the relationship. Often does things separately.
Volatile Style: Enjoys a good debate and argument. It is fun, and there is a lot of humor and teasing and affection in a good discussion. Values being direct and honest, even if this is sometimes painful. Also prefers doing a lot of things separately. Definitely things that the expression of anger and most emotions is healthy and natural in a relationship.
Validating Style: Values togetherness above all things in the relationship. Prefers arguing about some things, but not a lot. Values listening before trying to persuade one another. Places a high value on compromise. Believes in expressing anger, but is very careful to buffer partner from too much anger.
Yes, you can be a combination of one, two or even all three. The important point here is that both you and your partner need to know how each other deals with conflicts and which style fits your personality and based on your style is how you deal with conflicts.
Which style are you?
Gottman Couple’s Method Rituals in Relationships
To learn a bit more about the Gottman Method and what it means, I want to share an exercise that I thought was helpful to include in my own relationship. When we think of rituals, at least when I thought of rituals, I thought it meant holidays, birthdays, etc. Never did I even think about day-to-day rituals and how helpful they can be. Here is how it works.
Go back into each person’s memories of your families and ask about the rituals of connection surrounding these events. If there is resistance of one partner or another, then work through it and talk about this resistance and figure out how you can listen to what your partner has to say. If there are bad memories, the idea of bringing things up might be upsetting. A supportive listener is sometimes all we need.
In each ritual, it is important to know what each person is supposed to do and when. This includes entry into the ritual, the roles each person will have in the ritual, and its ending.
Leave Taking: Come up with something that both of you can do that is rewarding and will make leaving a connection time. For example: Kissing before walking out the door.
Reunions: When coming back home, come up with one thing to talk about the day.
Mealtimes: Come together at meals and share events of the day. My family does highs and lows. Name one great and one bad thing that happened each day.
Eating out: This can become a family ritual and tradition such as where you go for birthday dinners. Find a connection and enjoy time out together.
The reunion stress reducing conversation: Each person gets at least 5 minutes to talk about something stressful about their day, not about the relationship.
Bedtime: Get into a routine of bedtime even if you do not go to sleep at the same time. At least a hug and kiss from the person going to sleep first.
Morning Rituals: For most families, mornings can be hectic. Find a system that works for you and stick to it.
Dates and Getaways: Very important part of a relationship. If finances are an issue then find out if you can swap with another family date nights, such as you watch their children then they watch yours. Or do date night at home.
When one person is sick: Discuss what you need and how you would like to be taken care of or left alone.
Celebrations: How does your family deal with pride, praise, celebrate success and acknowledge and reward achievement? Find out how each partner feels about this and create a culture of praise that works for you.
Rituals surrounding bad luck, failure, or exhaustion: How do you support, heal, and renew each other in bad times?
Rituals surrounding entertaining: The idea of a home and bringing friends into it can lead to important rituals of connection for a couple and for children.
Rituals surrounding keeping in touch with family and friend: Family events, reunions, and so on can be great or a source of argument. Are friends over involved or do you not have any? Talk about how you both feel about family and friends and come up with something that works.
Rituals surrounding initiation and refusing love-making and talking about it: It is just important to talk about sex as well as the rejection you feel when your partner ignores your advances. It is okay to schedule sex and equally important to talk about it. Find a system that works for both of you and enjoy it!
Vacations: How does your family introduce a need for a vacation? How are they planned and what is the vacation like. Does work come along on vacation? Does family or just you and your partner? Talk about how you would envision your vacations.
Connections surrounding birthdays, anniversaries, etc: What traditions are set up for these? Is someone always disappointed? Here is where finding out about past family traditions could greatly help your conversation.
Ok, is that enough for one day. Seriously, I wrote all of them down and some of these, you might already have in place and some of them, you have not even thought of. Try to figure out how you can talk about each one. They are all important but if it is too challenging to incorporate all of them, then you can pick the 5 most important ones to both you and your partner and talk about those.
This is easier to do in a therapist’s office, but can be done at home with time, compassion and great listening skills. If you find yourself needing help with these, make the call and come in for a session to get started on your new relationship!
Communication is the Key
If you have ever been in my therapy office, you would have heard me say these words…
“If you are thinking about it, then say it!”
Communication is so important in a relationship and the only way the relationship moves forward. I have had couples come to me and say that the true meaning of love is being able to finish each other’s sentences. I tell them that leads to assumptions and fights!
I think we have all been out to dinner and see couples who just do not talk and when things are good, you joke with each other that will never happen to us! Well, fast forward a few years with life, stress, family and all the other things that can come into your life you are now that couple that has nothing to say to each other. What do you do?
My clients will tell you that I am constantly giving them tips on how to communicate to avoid a fight and here is a communication exercise that I gave to a couple recently and I thought I would share it with all of you.
How do you start talking when all you have been doing is fighting and talking about kids, house, etc? I call this the communication game. You and your partner pick different topics to talk about each night. Some of the ones we came up with are:
- Humor
- Family
- Goals
- Intimacy
- Emotions
- Listening
- Board game night
These are just examples on how you can start communicating again. Try doing this for 15 minutes each night. If you need to add a fight night, then do so, if you need to add 2 fight nights then that’s okay as well. The trick is to get talking and reconnecting as a couple.
As always, your feedback is greatly appreciated!
Coupling and what works
When I work with couples, I eventually get asked this question “Are we a good couple, will we make it?” My answer usually is this: if you are trying and putting effort into your relationship then yes it will work, if you expect your partner to change while you do nothing then no. The phrase that I use is “it takes two to tango”.
I also reference work performance reviews all the time. Let’s say that you have a job outside of your house and each year you expect to get a raise and promotion without putting any effort into your job, would you still get a good review? The answer is no, the same works with relationships, they take an enormous amount of effort in order to work.
Here are the few things I think all couples should do:
-set time to talk about your relationship. Come from an “I” place where you say how you feel and not blame your partner.
-take time for yourself so you can recharge and be a happier person for your relationship.
-communicate all the time, when you stop talking your relationship breaks down, talk, talk, talk!
Of course there are more and I would love to hear from you how you think relationships work.