We live in a culture that is skeptical and talks cynically about love relationships as if it can be compartmentalized into a neat and unchanging … static life. Best-selling books with titles like, “Getting the Love You Want,” mirror a fast-food culture where love and relationships are commodities that can be ordered, gotten, or kept. We use…
Infidelity happens for plenty of reasons. None of them good. It happens because there’s a moment when the opportunity is wide open and full of aliveness and temptation, it’s exciting, it’s there and it acts like it can keep a secret; and as though it won’t do any damage at all. One small, stupid, opportunistic…
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…
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.…
Many of us struggle with Validation and/or Validating others because we have a “Fear of Difference.” The fear comes from: The belief that there is a RIGHT way of seeing, describing, understanding, and valuing everything – i.e what is going on. The limited capacity to be aware that others are different, or to respect, appreciate, or…
The formula for a successful amends is to listen to our partner’s grievances with an open and courageous heart. It is not time to argue if their “reality” is correct or if their feelings are justified. It is a time to be humble, to deeply listen and of caring responses. It is also a time…
Do you know what keeps conflict and the power struggle in place? Yep! Criticism. Criticism kills love. Criticism can kill a marriage. There is no such thing as constructive criticism in intimate relationships. When we criticize others we hurt them and we hurt ourselves. When we criticize our partner we freeze them in the very…
My husband walked out on me and our children six months ago. He sad he loved me but he was not in love with me, no passion, no spark, and no click. He said he was unhappy and felt I was too controlling. He also said he felt like he had a chain around his…
Hello Friend, Thirty-years ago my life took a turn that became irrefutably my best chance at living and creating a life that had meaning and purpose. The skill that I learned didn’t turn into a best-selling novel, a movie, or make me rich and famous. But it did change my life forever and it’s the…