5 relationship tips that can help strengthen any couple’s bond
Effective Communication: Open and honest communication is crucial for a healthy relationship. Both partners should feel comfortable expressing their thoughts and feelings while also being good listeners.
Quality Time Together: Spending meaningful time together is essential. Whether it’s date nights, shared hobbies, or simply relaxing and enjoying each other’s company, prioritizing quality time helps maintain a strong connection.
Mutual Respect: Respect forms the foundation of a successful relationship. Both partners should value each other’s opinions, boundaries, and individuality.
Support and Understanding: Being supportive and understanding during both the good times and the challenging times is vital. Showing empathy and being there for each other creates a secure and nurturing environment.
Shared Goals and Compromise: Couples should work towards common goals and be willing to compromise. Finding a balance between individual aspirations and shared objectives can help build a harmonious and fulfilling relationship. Implementing these tips can contribute to a healthy and thriving relationship.
If you are looking to improve any of these areas in your relationship, working on the tips above will help tremendously. If you need more help with building a stronger relationship, reach out to us. We’re here to help.
Getting hooked can lead to some pretty destructive reactions internally and externally regarding interactions with others. This awful feeling can change.
The problem with getting hooked…
Many of us get can get hooked when things don’t go the way we want or expect, often resulting in very angry and negative reactions. You’re not alone. Most of us struggle with what to do when situations and people “hook” us. Your partner does something upsetting, your children, a driver pisses you off, your family…all of it can be very challenging.
Getting hooked not only causes problems and unhappiness for you, but for those around you. From a health perspective, getting hooked results in an internal reaction that actually causes a contraction in the body as well, increasing blood pressure and/or heart rate as well. Getting hooked is bad for your mental and physical health. The emotional reactivity from getting hooked can cause a chain reaction leaving you feeling more angry, unhappy, shocked, guilty, misunderstood, and alone.
Why is it so important to (work on) not getting hooked?
It’s bad for you and those around you. Getting hooked causes a strong, emotional reaction which can cause people to blow up, criticize, name call, devalue, and can destroy close relationships. It is possible you are misunderstanding others, feelings they did this or that on purpose to cause you to feel so lousy. It is another problem when both people in a relationship get hooked, or even you child pushes back when you get hooked. In the end, getting hooked can eventually erode your close relationships.
The skill is learning how to work with triggers and eventually containing the response. Pausing for a period of time to interrupt that negative energy and not allow it to pick up. We understand this is not easy and takes practice, but it will improve your life, health, and relationships exponentially over time.
The reality for all of is …life is a series of challenges and there are so many things we cannot control. It’s all about how we handle plan B when things don’t go the way we wanted or expected. Inner peace is the goal regardless of so many external circumstances beyond your control. You can do this and it will make so many things better. Attitude is everything.
So how can you work on this?
Developing more awareness is key. When people start to dip into more primitive (unaware or unconscious) ways of functioning, it might lead to acting out in very destructive ways. This can cause ther hooked person to become verbally abusive, yell and scream, name call, criticize, and want the source of your “hook” to hurt the way you are. As it to say “you are making me feel this way- this is your fault”. When people start to dip into the most primitive ways of functioning when they get hooked, thr result is physical violence and abuse. The work is trying to help people come up out of that primitive way of reacting to the difficult or challenging situation (again awarenees and slowing things down is key) , and eventually develop the skills to communicate more effectively. Working on and understanding this will eventually allow you get to healthier responses when dealing with challenges. You deserve more peace and this will help you get there.
Start by practicing with the small things. For example, become more aware of your reaction if you spill spomething or if you are in a hurry to get somewhere and you hit every red light on your way. Notice and become aware of what you feel. Slow down and take a deep breath to help you start chanigng the auto-pilot response of anger and “this should not be happening” or “this should not have happened”. A wiser response to something like this would be understanding that life is a series of challenges, and there are so many things we can’t control. Practicing with the small things will definitely help as well as pracicing the pause.
Practice the pause.
Although an initial short pause will help slow down and evcntually stop our own reaction, it can take longer for our nervous system and emotional reactivity to subside. Sometimes it can take as much as 20 minutes, sometimes longer. At first, this is challenging since you will be working on developing more awareness and breaking a pattern or habit, but the more you practice, the easier it will be.
The end result will be more peaceful, connected, and accepting relationships and better health overall.
Anyone can develop this skill over time and it will be exponentially rewarding.
Need help?
Therapy can help you work on reducing your reaction to getting hooked. If getting hooked is causing big problems in your relationships and or for you personally, please reach out for help. You can break these painful patterns. We can help.
Need help managing your reactions to challenging people and situations?
Need help managing deep and ongoing emotional pain in your relationship and personal life? You are not alone…
We all have to deal with emotional pain at different points in our lives. Life unfolds in ways we never expected (or wanted) and finding ways to get throught these painful times is important. Deep emotional pain is the most challenging for us all.
Does this sound familiar?
You lost a loved one and feel like you are in the grips of deep sorrow, trauma, shock, and ongoing grief.
You are feeling lost after divorce or the end of a relationship and don’t know how to handle your intense emotions.
Maybe you’re feel ongoing emotional pain due to problems in your relationship or family.
Or are you’re just feeling empty and a deep pain in your gut is painful and hard to manage.
How can you cope better with this deep emotional pain?
Maybe you could use to find better way of managing the pain so you can lessen the impact emotionally and otherwise. Understanding the source of the pain and what to do with it can help. Emotional pain, which is also referred to as the “pain body” (by Eckhart Tolle) and also referred to as old emotional pain or undigested pain, can be extremely challenging to cope with. This type of pain can be very intense and cause strong emotional reactions, especially in relationships. Pain that is “unconscious” (meaning you are unaware of the true source) can cause intense fear, sadness, anger, confusion, or other unpleadsant emotions that are hard to process. Working through emotional pain means becoming more aware and conscious of the difference between the pain and the negative thoughts about the pain which can make things a lot worse for most people.
As therapists, we also experienced emotional pain as well and have to work through our pain, so we really understand how hard it is when going through it. We have a great deal of compassion and help others with their pain by focusing on the difference between emotional pain and the negative houghts about the situation. Negative thoughts make the pain feel worse, so a big part of helping is making people aware of the emotional pain and thoughts about it. Helping people increase their awareness and noticing the pain and trying to accept it’s there without making it into a mental concept, such as, “ this shouldn’t be happening” , “ oh, I’ll never get through this”, “it’s someone else’s fault that I’m feeling this way”. These are all examples of what can make your situation prolonged and much worse for you and others. Many people unortunately take out their uncoscious emotional pain on others since they are not feeling well and assume the reason is something others have done to cause you to feel this way. Others will trigger your old emotinoal pain, but developing the skills to work with the pain without lashing out at others will help tremendously. You will not be able to work through old pain if you lash out at others.
Helping people process deep emotional pain takes developing more awareness about what’s going on internally in the body and paying attention to and trying to stop negative thoughts and “stories” about the experience. We can help you work on this to find the relief and peace you deserve.
If you are coping with emotional pain right now that’s been hard to manage, reach out and let us help.
The best marriage counselors know it takes both partners to be open and willing to make some important changes. According to statistics for traditional types of marriage counseling, success rates can be 70-80%. It does, however, depend on the ability of a couple to work through and heal past painful issues – both people – in order for the counseling to be effective.
Can counseling fix a marriage?
Effective marriage counseling can always help a couple that is willing learn how to improve the relationship and heal painful experiences. This includes improving communication, healing betrayal and infidelity, and working through difficult family issues such as in-law problems, parenting style differences, blended and stepfamily problems and more.
What does a marriage counselor do?
A trained and experienced marriage counselor will assess your situation by hearing about your specific issues and struggles, get a sense for your communication style and dynamic and help a couple reduce certain ineffective and hurtful patterns. We help couples lern better ways to relate and resolve conflict to deepen their conenction.
Are marriage counselors worth it?
If you are stuck in a bad place, cannot resolve issues on your own, and are committed to making things work better, marriage counseling with the right therapist can be very worth it.
Is online marriage counseling effective?
Online marriage counseling can be as, if not more effective than marriage counseling in-person. Not only can it as effective as going to the office, it may also be a better option for many couples. If has been studied and reported that online marriage counseling can improve and help with a wide range of relationship issues.
When should you seek marriage counseling?
If you are unhappy and stuck in a bad place, cannot get to a better place on your own, need better ways to communicate and resolve conflict, after infidelity or an affair, or have painful family conflict.
Do marriage counselors ever recommend divorce?
Some therapists might recommend divorce and others would never suggest getting divorced and help a couple come to their own decisions. Sometimes one person wants to get divorced (leaning out) and the other is leaning in and wants to work on the marriage. Even the best marriage counselor cannot help a couple if one person if both people are not both committed to working on things together.
How do you know when marriage counseling isn’t working?
If one person or both are not willing to do what it takes to improve the relationship. Or if one person thinks the other person has to change something and is not open to reflecting on their own part in a marital problem. Or if there is a tremendous amount of contempt, criticism, stonewalling, or defensiveness that one person or the other ( or both) is not open to reducing and working on.
How do you know when your marriage is over?
When one person wants to end the marriage and is not willing to work through issues anymore. When issues cannot be resolved and/or there is a lack love, interest, or desire to make things work.
Can people fall back in love?
Experienced marriage therapists know anything is possible. It helps if both people are open, willing, and determined to get back to something positive and loving.
How do you know when it’s time to end your marriage?
Some of the most common reasons people get divorce are constant arguing and conflict, infidelity, and lack of commitment. The last straw reasons relationships end in divorce are unresolved infidelity and domestic violence.
What is the difference between marriage counseling and couple therapy?
Many experienced therapists will have a similar approach to couples struggling with issues and need help. Couples that are married and ones that are not still need help with the same types of issues. The difference might be whether or not there are children and extended family issues. However, many couples have these issues even if they are not married.
Should you go to counseling before divorce?
Many couples want to try counseling before considering divorce. Sometimes they consider discernment counseling to decide if they should stay or separate. After discernment counseling, which is maybe 4-5 sessions, some decide to commit to marriage counseling and others may separate.
Want to see if our qulity, short term marriage counseling can help? Get in Touch.
We work with so many couples and understand how triggers can cause big problems in any relationship. If you have had a lot of challenging experiences in the past, especially childhood trauma and difficult experiences, you may get triggered by others easily.
The problem when you get triggered:
Causes you to lash out at the trigger.
Causes you to withdraw in silence.
Lashing out at the trigger can make you rage by yelling, screaming, criticizing, name calling, or act out physically against your partner, child or others who trigger you.
Maybe you shut down when triggered. The wall goes up and you check out emotionally or actually leave physically.
We understand triggers as unconscious seeds based on conditioning. Usually there is something very old – maybe you felt you did not matter or felt like you could not trust the adults to be caring and nurturing and childhood experiences were unsafe emotionally and sometimes physically. So, when your partner, child, or other unsuspecting person triggers you, the same awful feeling can be triggered. Unfortunately, the feeling is nowhere near conscious awareness and is just quickly acted on without any understanding of the true source.
We try to help people work on what to do when triggered. How to find healthier ways of understanding, then communicating in a more skillful way so you don’t destroy your close relationships. This takes time and we have compassion for how challenging this can be and can help with the process.
Secure attachment is the ideal form of attachment. This means someone grew up in an atmosphere that fostered the 4 S’s Safe, Seen, Soothed, creates Secure Attachment
Feelings of Safety – you could express all types of feeling openly without threat of being crushed, ridiculed, criticized, or abused in other ways.
Feeling Seen – you felt seen when you expressed your feelings because parents and other adults were understanding or at least trying to convey an empathetic response.
Feeling Soothed – you felt the parents or other adults were able to comfort you in any number of ways. “I’m sorry you are feeling sad,” “I am sorry you are angry “ about ….”what can I do to help? Do you need a hug?”
Doing this over and over creates an atmosphere of security that allows the child to develop into an adult that has many tools for a healthy relationship.
If you did not experience secure attachment style as a child, your adult relationships can help you heal or confuse you. You might be reliving those earlier painful experiences with all of those unpleasant feelings that you felt when you were younger.
Therapy can help you understand your triggers and do a better job of dealing with them. If your triggers are causing big problems in your relationships, please reach out for help. You can break these painful patterns. We can help.
Micro-cheating is a term that describes a more subtle form of infidelity in a relationship. Infidelity typically means a physical affair, but it can also refer to an emotional affair. An emotional affair is an intimate emotional attachment outside the marriage or relationship. Micro-cheating is less obvious, and you or your partner might not even realize it is damaging your relationship. However, it can often evolve into an affair.
Relationship boundaries
Couples set boundaries in relationships. Boundaries define which actions are acceptable or unacceptable for their relationship. The boundaries couples set for cheating may vary. In the extreme, an open marriage allows partners to have sex with other people. However, most marriages draw the line, considering that extra-marital affairs and emotional affairs are outside the boundaries they’ve set.
It’s also important to note that couples often don’t openly discuss and set boundaries together. One partner may assume that a certain activity is unacceptable but the other may not. Especially, if they haven’t discussed it.
What are examples of micro-cheating?
The digital age has opened up lines of communication and offers more variety for cheating in subtle ways.
Examples of micro-cheating often include the following actions:
Flirting in general
Flirtatious text messaging or texting
Discussing your sex life or sending sexually explicit messages or photos
Posting suggestive or seductive comments or “liking” them
Continuing to keep a dating profile to see if you can find a better match
Giving your phone number to someone you are attracted to
Fueling a crush by making efforts to look attractive
Frequent responses to someone who is flirting with you
Taking off your wedding ring or engagement ring when you go out
Staying consistently in communication with an ex
Joining others from work for drinks and not telling your partner
While online, not telling others you are in a relationship
What are some signs of cheating?
Any attempt to hide something could be a sign of cheating. Privacy is understandable, but hiding actions that are eroding a relationship is typical of infidelity.
Some actions that might indicate your partner is keeping secrets include:
Whispering during phone conversations
Deleting or hiding texts or emails
Suddenly turning off a computer or phone
Not letting their partner see the face of their phone
Hiding the nature of how they’re using social media
In general, not paying attention to their partner, whether distracted or busy
How can you deal with infidelity in your relationship?
As a general rule, the following approaches can help you deal with relationship problems:
Keep your emotions at bay. While heightened emotions tend to occur with infidelity, give yourself and your partner some space before broaching this touchy subject.
Approach your conversation in a positive way. Do not blame or try to shame your partner for whatever has occurred. Instead of saying “you did,” structure the discussion beginning with “I felt…” type statements. If you were the one cheating, be sure to listen and be compassionate regarding the backlash.
Set realistic and beneficial relationship boundaries. Agree on the boundaries that you want to set regarding fidelity. Open and honest relationships can often overcome challenges and struggles.
Re-evaluate your relationship. Decide whether you want to stay in the relationship and whether you can rebuild it. If your partner is unwilling, then perhaps you need to re-evaluate. If you both are willing to compromise to keep the other happy, then plan how to move forward.
Couples Counseling Can Help
Professional assistance from a compassionate counselor can often help couples overcome micro-cheating or other relationship problems. Therapists have tools for rebuilding relationships. Get in touch and find out how we can help.
