How to Thank Your Partner Increasing expressions of appreciation in a relationship can help them repair old hurts and to create new connections. But especially in long-term relationships, a simple thank-you can sometimes fall flat. This post describes a simple way of expressing appreciation and three ways to deepen the practice. Appreciation for Behavior “Thank…
Breakup Toolkit No one sat you down and taught you how to get over a breakup. At the end of a relationship, the routine of your life and the social circle that you built around the relationship are suddenly disrupted. Your thoughts can rapidly cycle back and forth between blaming your partner for all of…
Do I Want to be in This Relationship? Part II In my last blog entry, I talked about how to use your vision for your future, as shaped by the reality of a prospective partner, to decide whether you want to continue a relationship. In this entry, I will take a more present-moment-oriented approach to…
Do I want to be in this relationship? Part I When to get into or whether to stay in a relationship or leave can be one of the biggest decisions in life. I have two discernment conversations that I often have with clients when this conversation arises in therapy. The first, and the topic of…
From “one true love” to “happily ever after,” we are inundated with images and storylines about love that don’t quite fit our experiences. Those stories can sometimes create expectations which cause us to be confused or dissatisfied with the reality of our relationship,s even when the reality is positive. Self-help books, family advice, and people…
I’m going to compare relationships (especially long ones) to owning and driving a car. Two years after I bought my car, it started exhibiting some eccentricities. Sometimes, when stopped, the RPMs will spike above 2000. To stop this, with one foot on the brake, I put the car into gear and gently let out the…
While equality in a relationship has a high value, sometimes manifesting equality around certain issues or decisions can feel impossible. For example, who gets to decide whether I take this promotion at work or not? The decision might affect everyone in the relationship, but do both really get an equal say about which job one…
Empathy in Couples Therapy One of the most common things that I teach in couples therapy is how to be empathic towards each other. Once I help a couple establish an empathic connection, most of the other challenges are relatively easy to solve because empathy makes solutions much easier to find and put into practice.…
Relationship Empathy I’m going to go into a deeper description about relationship empathy in a subsequent post, but for now, I’m going to identify that the keys to expressing empathy are (1) to demonstrate acceptance of the other person’s experience and emotions and (2) to demonstrate an emotional response that indicates a caring connection with…
In my last blog post, I presented 6 Essential Facts about emotions. These were intended to set the stage for this more advanced review of the role of emotions in relationships and how understanding emotions can help a relationship improve. Emotions are created by our perceptions and interpretations Most of our emotional reactions are significantly…