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.
The perfect relationship is something many of us aspire to have.
All humans dream. All of us have ideas and desires and dreams about being happy in a a perfect relationship. We all long for everything to work out just right, so we can be happy. This longing is how most of us are wired, and it’s a hard road to be on.
Let’s talk about honesty in relationships.
When I think about honesty in relationships, I am talking about expressing our emotional truth. When I see this in a counseling session I always feel something, like I am sharing a moment that is very special and pure.
I had the pleasure of helping a couple recently. It’s clear they love each other, but they were both exhausted trying to get love from each other. They were angry and were extremely unhappy too.
We all have habits in our life. You know, those are the things we do almost automatically. Like our routine when we get up in the morning, or when we sit down to enjoy a meal, or when we get ready for work. These are our habits, the way we do something. It’s the way we organize the daily activities of life.
We all pretty much know how to do them for ourselves. Yet even when we are in a relationship, we are still individuals as we continue to engage in our own routines and habits. But what if we were to do some things with the intention of doing them for the person we love.
I know every time I am feeling good and I say yes to something I always feel better. It’s as if good positive energy becomes bigger. I noticed this recently when I was reading an article about humans and their pets.
A recent study talked about how when pet owners look into the eyes of their pet, both animal and human get a dose of the pleasure hormone in their bodies. That hormone is called dopamine. And it happens naturally when we are engaged with our pet at a deep level.
Annoying girlfriend, boyfriend, or spouse getting on your nerves? There are peaceful, loving, productive ways to deal with it. This article examines some of those ways, and also some of what not to do.
All of us sometimes in our lives get annoyed with people we love. It’s only normal that when humans interact in close quarters they are inevitably going to get on each other’s nerves. And in relationships this annoyance can happen regularly. In fact in many relationships it does.
Resentment in marriage is dangerous. Knowing how to deal with it might just be the difference between a happy relationship and one that ends. Resentment festers, not only building a wall between you and your loved one, but it can even grow to drive you increasingly further apart. Here’s an exploration of how to, and how not to, deal with resentment in marriage before it grows out of control.
One of the hardest parts for some couples is how to move beyond hurts from the past. Sometimes old wounds just sit and fester and stay thick as concrete between two people. These couples still talk around the concrete wall. There is conversation, but in most cases there is almost never a close connection. There’s too much pain from the past clouding any attempt to move forward, even though the desire for more closeness is there.
I don’t know anyone who is not feeling greater stress during this time of year. Even terrific moments with people we love can cause us stress, and that’s if family and extended family are individuals we WANT to see. It’s even more stressful if we are acting out of obligation.
Whatever your circumstances, it’s probably likely there will be at least a few people who drive us up a wall and cause us enormous stress. Welcome to the holidays. Not to mention the numerous details; buying gifts, decorating, baking, cooking sending cards, and trying to be a loving person on top of all that.
I’m stressed just writing about it. Let’s just acknowledge it; Holidays are HARD! And they can be much harder if you turn on the one person who is your rock 90 percent of the time, your partner. Think right now what a good team you make during a crisis. Now ask yourself if you are pulling your hair out and fighting more than usual with your mate?
While self-soothing is an important skill to have, not every one knows how to practice it. Even so, anyone can develop it. That’s important because using self-soothing skills can not only improve your life, they can also enhance your relationship.
I was recalling a conversation I had recently with a friend who was sad about a situation in her relationship. I was feeling the depth of her suffering, her pain at not being understood or left out or feeling ignored. I wasn’t exactly sure what she was experiencing, but I did sense that she was very sad.
So many relationship challenges have a common root.
As individuals we learn a lot about how to be humans. It starts from our early days in our family. We learn how to talk and walk and feed ourselves, go to school and play with others. We are taught everywhere; parents, teachers, laws, religion, family, friends, everyone is a teacher.
We get good at interacting with life. We learn how to rely on ourselves to get our homework done, to babysit siblings or neighbors, to make our own food, to clean our rooms and to be a functioning member in a family system.
But do we learn how to be good partners?
When we think of someone strong in a relationship many of us imagine someone tall and powerful, maybe someone who has a deep voice and a forceful way of expression. These all represent strength. But this isn’t the strength I am referring to in a relationship.
I am talking about the strength it takes people to be real. What does real mean? It means that you are not afraid to talk to your partner about what you think, feel and desire. It also means you are not afraid to take “ownership” of something you might have done to hurt your partner’s feelings.