Hi, this is Linda Nusbaum. It's been amazing being able to help everyone for so long, but it's time for me to retire. The site is up for archival purposes, but I've closed my practice.
Thank you.
One of the most common problems faced by couples who feel distant from each other is not knowing if they are loved by their mate. This sounds so simple yet can be the source of enormous pain and misunderstandings. Everyone wants to feel loved, so why is it sometimes so hard for people in a relationship to feel like they belong?
This is one of the worst pains for couples. It’s called a cut-off. When two people fight, they go at it and get their feelings hurt, and then one person will cut off.
Learn why boyfriends, girlfriends, and spouses cut one another off, and how to stop the problems underlying these situations.
Being criticized feels really, really awful. Anyone who’s been picked apart can tell you that.
Let’s talk about why people criticize—the feelings underlying it, what they hope to achieve, and how to keep things civil and constructive.
Learn what to do when your partner doesn’t listen to you.
It’s common to feel like your partner doesn’t listen. We just want our boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, and wives to understand us. We want them to hear us, know our deepest thoughts, and to love us.
Really, that’s all we want: to be loved, to be seen, to be heard.
Here’s how to realize that goal.
How to overcome not feeling close to your partner.
Our first impulse in relationships is to put forward our best face. We do it at work, we do it with family—especially extended family. It’s habit forming. We want to show a good face, because we want to be liked.
Sometimes, we do this in relationships. Here’s how it hurts us…
When we fall in love we have deep feelings that what we are experiencing is amazing and unique, and unlike anything we have ever experienced before. For many of us it’s a dream come true, finally. So why doesn’t this wonderful feeling last? Why does it seem that after a while you begin to feel misunderstood by your partner? How did this shift happen? Just a little while ago you were just so close it felt like you were sharing one breath?
This is the hardest part of falling in love; the after. What happens when that intense desire and pull to be together eases a bit and other things start to creep into that magical space. It just doesn’t seem right, it shouldn’t change. It should stay just the same as it was. So what’s wrong with my partner? That’s often the first question that pops into our heads.
Other questions might include, “Why does he or she act the way they do and why are they getting on my nerves? I don’t think they love me as much as they did or they wouldn’t act this way. Maybe they are falling out of love with me. What should I do? I want to get what we shared back. How do I get it back?”
As a Marriage and Family therapist, one of the most common questions I am asked by couples is, “How do we get back to the way we were?” It would be great if there was a map for people, a set of instructions everyone could follow and then everyone could go back to their loving, magical place and never worry. Unfortunately that doesn’t happen and there is no set of instructions. There is however, a way to find something else, and maybe you might find it satisfying in another way, and it could be richer and deeper and safer for you as well.
This probably sounds like just words to you, because if you are in a difficult relationship you are already working to make it better and what you are doing may not be working, so how can you think it could be richer and deeper and satisfying if that’s not what you are experiencing. I understand, but here is what I believe.
As I work with couples I know that one way to get to a great relationship each person has to begin the journey of self; what do I think, what do I feel, what makes me happy, sad, uncomfortable, lonely, etc. This is the journey of the inner-self. All of us dabble in this from birth, but to be in a healthy relationship you have to be advanced in your own knowledge of yourself in order to be a good mate to your partner.
Understanding yourself is one of the foundational keys to building a life-long partnership. You want to build something that lasts, through life, so you and your mate can walk the journey together. That means you keep the big picture in the forefront, and you don’t let the disagreements tear you apart. There will always be misunderstandings. You live in different thoughts and minds. Get to know how your partner thinks and feels. Ask questions even if you think they are silly. All of us long to be of interest to another. Show your beloved you are interested in him or her.
Try not to take your mate for granted. Too much in life doesn’t go our way. Make a pact with your partner to make the relationship the one place where you will try to be on the same page, allowing understanding of each other and coming to a common ground. No one should be winning, both of you should feel good. That’s how you make love last.
Learn more about relationships by watching Linda’s live web show: Feel Better Live every Thursday at 6:00pm PST. Click here to learn more.
Send Linda your questions! You can reach out to @feelbetterlive via Twitter, post questions on FeelBetterLive’s wall on Facebook, email me, or call (562) 708-4606. Whether you send them now or during the show, Linda can answer your questions live on Feel Better Live.
You are invited to watch the debut of a new show: Feel Better Live. It’s being hosted by Linda Nusbaum, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who specializes in helping couples. The first show will air tomorrow, Thursday, February 21st at 6:00pm and continue every Thursday at 6:00 from then on. It’s free and you don’t have to sign anything to be a part. All you have to do is visit the Feel Better Live Stream Page (feelbetterlive.com/watch-now/) by clicking here.
*Note, if you press play before the scheduled show you will be able to watch a promotional video.
So why should you watch? The show is designed to help people in their relationships. We all have many relationships in our lives; with our mates, with family, with children, at work. Often we run into difficulties and sometimes these challenges leave us feeling terrible. Let me help you work through your worries. Send me your questions and I will answer them live during the show. Don’t worry about identifying yourself, you can remain anonymous if you choose. You can start now by sending in your thoughts to feelbetterlive@gmail.com
I can’t wait to hear from you and have you be part of our new show. Me and my team are thrilled to be hitting the air.
See you soon!
It’s not uncommon for people to walk in a creative way and try something new. Often this can be scary and yet exhilarating. As many of you know I used to be a broadcast journalist. I covered stories across the country and globally. For many years I loved this work. As with all jobs however, sometimes they just become too routine, or they don’t feel as good as they once did.
There were many reasons why I become a therapist ten years ago, and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I am very happy here, and now I am bringing back my old skills in a new way with a live weekly broadcast. Only this time it will be on the web, and it is designed not for me, but for you.
As a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who specializes in relationships I have a private practice in Long Beach, California where I work with couples and individuals. With this new live web show I can help many more people. I created this live broadcast to provide help and happiness to people in their relationships.
The format is designed to answer your questions about your issues. You will be able to email, tweet and call-in during the show. I also invite you to send me your thoughts and questions now so we can answer them when we begin taping.
I have put together a terrific team of people and we are all excited to begin.
FEEL BETTER LIVE will be coming to you in the next few weeks. Watch the link below to learn more.
I often work with couples who impress upon me how they just don’t know what went wrong in their relationship. They started out so loving and happy and then they woke up somewhere down the road, years later and they just don’t have that happy feeling anymore and they don’t know why.
They tell me it’s because they may have fallen out of love for their partner. They also tell me they are not sure if they can get “it” back.
The “it” is the feeling couples experienced when they first got together, that loving, wonderful state that makes us believe we will always feel fantastic with our person.
We sign up for the relationship and believe that we will always feel this way with the person we have chosen. Only we don’t. We start to notice things about them that we don’t’ like. They start to nag us or complain, or ignore us and we don’t like that.
These are the normal patterns that set in when a couple moves beyond the first phase of bliss. It’s what we do about these differences that determine how the relationship survives.
If we have some experience in relationships we might have some communication skills to speak about our feelings with our beloved. If we are fairly young in the relationship world we might just be beginning to discover ourselves and what we want and need for happiness, so we may not know how to communicate those things yet.
Each person brings their habits from their singlehood; how they took care of themselves, how they communicated with others, how they feed themselves and clean up after themselves. These are habits people bring into a relationship that were most likely formed in their childhood. Each person in a couple brings their own set of comforts around these issues.
When we are in a blissful state of loving our partner, no one thinks about the socks left on the floor. Such a little detail would be meaningless and laughable in this state of love. But just wait a few years after one of the partners has been picking up dirty socks for the other and is so tired of doing it they will scream if they have to pick up one more dirty sock from the floor.
Then the couple comes in to counseling and tells me they just fell out of love with their mate and they don’t know why.
It is my belief as a Marriage and Family Counselor that couples have more to become good at a lot of jobs in order to have a successful relationship.
In no particular order except that they are all equally important, each person in the relationship has to become aware of their own feelings and reactions to their mate. Each person must also become an expert in their partner’s feelings and learn how to attend them. Both people in a relationship have to be conscious of how they communicate with their beloved.
If you were talking to a hurt child you would be kind, caring and compassionate. Regardless of how mad you may get at your mate, you can not throw up your anger on them. Unless you are truly with a terrible person, it’s almost always the case that what ever the perceived hurt you may have felt, it was not done intentionally.
You picked a good person. You picked the right person. Your job is to learn how to be the best mate you can be and to take care of the person you are sharing your life with as your partner will do for you. Now that is a great relationship, where no one gets blindsided.
One of the biggest issues I hear couples complain about is communication. They often tell me they “just don’t know how to communicate” with each other. I hear the desperation in their voices. I know they each have been trying to get understanding from the other person for a long time and they just haven’t been successful. Usually due to exasperation the couple comes in and informs me they just can’t communicate, and they are desperate to find help.
I know that when people categorize their issues with the word “communication”, there is likely a lot more going on then just the phrasing of words. I know that what’s missing is a very vital part of communication and one of the most basic human needs; and that’s the need to be heard.
Often times when couples begin therapy they have no problem expressing their individual points of view to me. What they have a hard time doing however, is getting their partner to actually listen to what they are saying.
When two people have been trying to get understanding from each other for a period of time without success, it’s possible they might become angry or resentful trying yet again one more time to make their point. It’s usually after years of dismissing the importance of being heard that a couple might decide to try counseling as a “last ditch effort” to fix the relationship.
And that’s when I can begin to help. It starts by giving the couple awareness. No one signs up to be mean to their partner. No one starts out being indifferent, resentful or angry toward their mate. These stances come after trying over and over to get one’s point across and failing. So the first phase of improving communication is helping each person learn how to listen.
But before anyone can develop the patience and understanding to be a good listener they must be HEARD, because that’s what has been missing in their relationship. They have not felt heard or listened to. That’s where my job begins and I provide it for each person; I listen, hear, understand, help if needed, I am available and present. This provides a release to the person expressing, and it models for the partner how to do it.
After the exercise it’s not surprising to feel a lot of tension leave the room. It’s so simple, and so important. As humans we require some basics; to feel safe, to feel loved, and to feel like we matter. When we listen to our partners, I mean really listen, we give them exactly what they need.
Be sure and watch Feel Better Live, our show about relationships, live on the web, Thursdays at 6:00PM.