Why Our Experiences Are So Important

Why Our Experiences Are So Important

I was talking with my cousin’s husband the other day and I felt myself wanting to stress a point from my experience. It was a memory from my history that was really important to me, yet he was talking about something that was equally important to him; it was not in agreement with, and different from my story.

It felt like we were getting ready to disagree about parts of the story when I realized how important we as humans feel about our particular memories. It’s as if the way we think about things is so vital to our way of presenting ourselves in the world and to each other. This moment gave me some insight as to how we as partners in a relationship might want to argue to the death with our mate over memories that we perceive as not remembered correctly.

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Learn Kindness for Your Relationship

Learning Kindness for Your Relationship

When we think about describing ourselves to others, most of us probably think of ourselves as kind people. If you are in a relationship than you would probably tell people you love your partner. If you think of extended family you might say you love them too.

But I know in my own life, when I was struggling to make something of myself, when I look back, I don’t see myself as being kind. Yes I was always nice when I was feeling good. But when I felt bad, no one got kindness.

When I was mad I stayed mad and everyone around me knew it. Kindness? Are you kidding? I was MAD, and that’s where I stayed.

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How Your Husband / Wife Doesn’t Mind-Read, & Why It Matters

Your Husband / Wife Can't Read Your Mind... Unlike This Gypsy. OoOooo...

When people get upset, some of us just naturally think people know. It’s not uncommon to believe that if we get our feelings hurt, the person who hurt them knows what they did. We also sometimes believe that everyone else might know what happened too. Our thoughts, especially when we get our feelings hurt, are very strong and convincing.

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Honesty in Relationships Helps Couples Connect

Trust in Relationships Connects Couples

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.

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Feeling Unloved? Here’s How to Doubt Less and Love More

Feeling Unloved

I was thinking about a birthday in the family the other day. I remembered to wish that family member a happy birthday, and it felt good to do so. Then I remembered that even though I always remember this person’s special day, they never remember mine. And when I thought about being forgotten, I felt sad.

Then I thought more about it and realized that my family member loves me no matter what. This family member didn’t stop loving me when they didn’t wish me a “Happy Birthday.” There was no withholding of love from me. There was no deliberate act of unloving anywhere. So why would I have a thought about this person who just didn’t know something?

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How to Communicate with Your Spouse and FEEL HEARD

How to Communicate with Your Spouse and FEEL HEARD

Figuring out how to communicate with your spouse and feel heard in times of conflict can be challenging. Passions run high and you probably both know exactly how to press one another’s buttons. But do you know how to hear each other and bring the conflict to a close?

When I work with couples I often help them to really listen to what their mate is saying. We all know how to talk, so it might sound funny that a couple would need a professional to help them hear, but that is sometimes what is needed.

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How to Control Anger Issues in Your Relationship

How to Control Anger Issues in a Relationship

Figuring out how to control anger issues in your relationship can be challenging. Everyone gets mad. Some of us even blow up.

Controlling anger issues in a relationship means blowing up less often and learning how to minimize the damage when, despite our best efforts, an episode occurs after all.

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Dealing with Anger in a Relationship

Dealing with anger in a relationship

Dealing with anger in a relationship can be difficult. Anger can push us away from our partner, so learning how to control anger’s influence on our lives and partner is incredibly important. Many of us don’t develop effective tools for dealing with anger until later in life, if ever. If you’re reading this, maybe you could use a helping hand.

If you get angry at your mate, you are not alone. If you get really mad and yell or do other things to your partner when you get upset… again, you are not alone. Anger is pretty common in relationships. And this is not an article about how terrible it is. This is a message about what to do about it.

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How Jealousy in a Relationship Divides Us

Jealousy in a Relationship

If you are human, you have felt jealous. You might even have some early memories of really feeling the pain of jealousy when you were young. I like to think it’s pretty common for all of us as we grow up to experience the hurt associated with being jealous.

But why do we keep feeling it and how to do we deal with it when we grow up and are in what we consider an adult relationship? Why is it we often still get re-injured or we re-injure our mate and it always centers around jealousy?

As a couple counselor I work with people in relationships. Often the difficult issues surround feelings of jealousy. So let’s talk about it and understand what happens to us and our partner when we feel it.

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