Infidelity happens for plenty of reasons. None of them good ones. It happens because of 1. ego or 2. stupidity or 3. disconnection. Or because of 4. smugness, 5. ignorance, 6. a widening ache, 7. an emptiness or 8. the need to know what else is there. Infidelity happens because of 9. arrogance, 10. a lack…
I am swinging to the other side of the relationship pendulum in this article because I think it’s important to talk about how we are being seduced into believing that our holy dance is a dance of Fear. Well, it’s not. However, there are impulses and evil forces in contemporary society promoting separations rather than…
Dear Paula, It seems that I can do nothing to please my love. I love this man tremendously, and I know that he loves me very much too. We would like to get married next year and start a family, but this pattern is beginning to scare me. When we argue, he so easily flies…
When we give someone the gift of forgiveness, it allows us to release our hurts and disappointments—having digested our grief about them. When we forgive, we “give for” ourself and those who hurt us. We move on, letting go of what harmed or offended us. Forgiveness does not mean blindly walking back into a…
We adults reenact traumatic episodes from our past just like children reenact them in play therapy. Instead of using dolls and sand trays to re-create the family dramas that harmed us, we use ourselves, our partners/spouses, and our children. The reenactment dramas that we create are unconscious efforts to communicate our hurts, and express buried grief.…
I recently married a wonderful man. I have two problems that are really interfering in my marriage. Jealousy and anger. I cringe every time he mentions a female’s name and the thing is I trust him entirely but I don’t trust the women. I was engaged to a different man many years ago and he…
The word anger comes from the Latin “angere,” means “to strangle.” Defined, anger is a strong sense of displeasure and antagonism that arises when a need isn’t met or an expectation isn’t fulfilled. What typically gets us angry is being treated unfairly, manipulatively or with disrespect, especially if it’s intentional. Also feeling unappreciated, feeling threatened,…