the art of saying “no”
he other day I was approached by an acquaintance who was offering me a great opportunity to be a part of a great organization where a lot of money could be made with very little work. He got my name in passing and was good at following up leads. During his call to schedule a time to meet and discuss this opportunity further, I found myself in a dilemma. While this may indeed be a good option to explore further and the guy offering this was a new acquaintance, there was no way I was going to add anything more to my schedule, especially another job. So what to do?
A little into the call I simply told him “no”. I was not interested in adding anything more to my life. A few years ago I would have gone into even more of an explanation and justification of my answer in hopes to not hurt his feelings or our relationship. But I have discovered that the art of saying “no” is often enough in itself. No explanation is usually needed unless it is requested and the relationship is higher on the importance list.
Saying “no” is easy when it is a telephone solicitor or via email. As the degree of contact and the importance of the person rises, saying “no” is more difficult. However, it is important to be able to tell even the important people in life “no” if you hope to have more authority and power over your life. Being able to take charge of your life may mean that everything and everyone will not fit into your dreams and goals. It’s time to face the fact that some things and people are energy drainers. You dread the conversations with them when you meet in the hall at work. You see their name on the caller ID and your insides tighten, but you still answer the phone (even though your voicemail works fine).
Let’s begin to employ the art of saying “no” more frequently. For some of you that may mean this week you only tell two people “no”. Which would double your normal rate. Start small and work your way up. This week, when faced with something you really don’t want to do, say so. When given the wrong order at the restaurant, speak up. This is an easy way to learn how to say “no” which will increase the likelihood that you will be able to say it to more people, even those towards the top of the importance list.
Saying “no” allows you to stay on target with your values and goals. I do not recommend saying “no” just for the sake of saying “no”. Say it to take charge of your time. To take charge of your family. Your marriage. Your job. Your recreation. And say “no” without a long drawn out explanation, which often turns into excuses. Say “no” confidently. It will empower your spirit and your life!
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )is your first reaction to take things personally?
While driving down the highway in the fast lane, the person in front of you appears to have no idea what the fast lane means. After running all over town with the kids, you arrive home. They know they have rooms yet insist that the entire house is their closet and drop things wherever they please. It’s your birthday and your best friend gets you just what you needed, nothing. It seems that in these instances, the first reaction is to take things personally. As if what was done was intentional, a personal attack.
As odd as it sounds, we often think that there are many forces against us and we are innocent bystanders. I don’t agree. While there are some truly random events, much of what happens is our own doing. How we feel and react to the things going on around us will largely determine what happens to us. In the preceding examples, what makes us think that the things that happen to us are directed at us? Instead of reacting with a “How dare you!” we often react with a “How dare you do this to me!” The truth of the matter is that each person is really more concerned about themselves than they are others. It’s survival of the fittest. The person driving slow in front of me in traffic is more concerned about having a wide open lane ahead of them than they are with me getting past.
A lot of our life is spent worrying about what others may think or feel about us. To paraphrase Dr. Phil, we wouldn’t worry near as much about what others thought about us if we knew how seldom they did. When we are emotionally reactive to things in life, we give up our power to choose. If we take things personally, whether intended personally or not, our reaction intensifies. All of the sudden we have to defend ourselves, though many times a response is not warranted. Instead it would be better if we could learn the art of self-soothing. To be able to calm ourselves in the midst of emotional reactions opens a whole new range of responses.
We all have this ability. We are born with it. Just the other day, my 2 year old was climbing up on a toy in the house for the first time. As I watched her, she had a moment of pause just before she stood up tall and proud. In that moment of pause, she gathered herself and found the internal courage to stand. We do the same thing just before we honestly speak our mind, or address an issue with our spouse or kids. Self-soothing can be enhanced and used in all situations. And doing so gives you much more power over life’s circumstances.
To put this another way; you teach people how to treat you. If you feel that many people treat you wrong or take advantage of you, it only happens because you let them. Learning how to self-sooth, then stand up will produce a different outcome. This in turn will change the way others treat you. If you demand respect, trust, love, honor, comfort, or whatever, accept nothing less. Whenever you receive less than you expect, rather than taking it personally and reacting as such, calm yourself and address the issue. Either put yourself in their shoes and see it from their perspective or stand up and be honest, or both. If this honesty comes from both your mind and heart, it carries much more weight than just emotional reactivity.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Psychotherapy for Women
Some struggles that women experience are common to many women, and can therefore be attributed or understood in this larger context of what it means, biologically and socially to be female. A counselor informed about these issues is in a better position to understand women’s experiences and know how to help them. Psychotherapy can help women achieve their personal goals and improve themselves. A counselor can teach assertiveness, decrease fears that may impede success and happiness, and work with women on developing better and more sustained self-esteem.
In our society, women are often in the role of protecting and caring for others emotionally. Women may fear success and competition (which can manifest in self-sabotage) and have difficulties with anger and aggression. Women often experience stress related to the burdens associated with caretaking, compounded by stress resulting from their caring being devalued, unnoticed, or unacknowledged. Many women rely on external validation from others in order to feel good about themselves. Women are often accustomed to tuning in to other’s reactions to determine how they should feel and how they should act. Therapy can help women develop a positive sense of themselves and direction from within, rather than relying on other’s opinions of them, as well as develop the strength to follow the path they choose.
Women may suffer from depression, anxiety, self-destructive or self-sabotaging behavior, pressure to overachieve, perfectionism, sexual problems, body image problems, sexual identity issues, and destructive relationships to food. Women are too often the survivors of sexual/physical abuse (past or present), rape, emotional abuse, and re-victimization. They may struggle with feeling a lack of empowerment, choosing the wrong partners, staying in destructive, empty, or depleting relationships, being overly accommodating, and feeling afraid to leave unhealthy relationships.
Psychotherapy can help women manage the feelings associated with these struggles; recognize, understand and change self-defeating patterns, heal past pain, discover and foster inner strength, and learn new ways of behaving in relationships that allow them to get what they want and feel good about themselves.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Resentment relationship skills
You’re picking up his socks, fuming, muttering epithets under your breath.
You’re listening to another one of her tirades, nothing you do is ever good enough.
At a party, he jokes about your closet, or hobbies, or (gulp) weight.
Her girlfriends stop talking when you come into the room.
These are just a few of the many scenarios that leave couples saying, “why am I doing this?”
It would be great if they taught relationship skills in High School. We’d use them daily, unlike, say, algebra. But they don’t. And unless you come from parents who had amazing relationship skills (and taught them to you), then you’re winging it. Most couples wait too long to get help. It may be that therapy seems scary – what if the therapist takes the other person’s side or makes you do things you don’t want to do.
But counseling really helps when couples make it in early enough. In fact, pre-marital counseling is usually the most successful. In the early stages of relationship, there is a big emotional reserve of love and kindness that helps couples withstand conflict about money, in-laws, parenting, and how to load the dishwasher correctly.
Regardless of what stage of relationship you’re in, you can make positive changes, even if your partner doesn’t want to change! The key lies in understanding some basic concepts and committing to changing YOURSELF (not the other person).
Here are some things to keep in mind:
1.No one wants to be mean or hurtful, when we hurt others, it’s because we are hurting inside and feeling vulnerable.
2.When we feel hurt or emotionally threatened, our fight/flight reflexes take over. This is automatic and requires time, soothing and emotional safety to recover and return to a loving place.
3.Relationship problems are never what they seem. Everything from arguments about cleaning to infidelity are symptoms of attachment or bonding wounds, often from very early childhood.
So, if all of this is automatic and started in childhood, how do we change?
The first step is to realize that the PRIMARY function of your couple relationship is to provide a safe place for each person to be themselves.
The second step is to begin learning what makes your partner feel safe and what makes him/her feel unsafe emotionally. As you learn this, your job is to shift your behavior so he/she feels safer more of the time.
REMEMBER this step will backfire if you focus on changing the other person so you feel safe. Often your own safety will come naturally as your partner feels safer and softens toward you. If this doesn’t occur naturally within a month or two, then counseling may be needed.
The third step is to recognize that neither of you will ever be perfect. The good news is, you don’t have to be. Learning how to mend when one of you gets hurt is really what works. Take time to learn what makes your partner feel safe again and re-connected to you. For some people it’s a sincere and genuine apology. For others, actions speak louder than words. And for others still, it’s a combination that reflects you understand how your actions caused pain and your ongoing commitment to changing so you don’t cause more pain
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )addressing arguments in marriage
Have you ever found yourself in the middle of an argument and wondered, “how did I get here?” Have you ever wondered, “How do I get out of here?”
Couples that fight are invariably couples that are locked in a shame cycle. One of both of you learned that having needs meant you were weak, needy or somehow not okay. This may have been explicit or implicit. So instead of asking for help, support or understanding directly, you say or do something indirect. Instead of saying, I’m tired and I need help with the dishes, you leave them in the sink or say something like, “why is it always my job to do the dishes?” which puts your partner on the defensive.
When I counsel couples to speak from a more direct place, they often squirm. Saying, “Honey, I don’t feel like doing dishes, would you do them?” in a soft and gentle voice feels like a huge risk.
“He’s just going to say no, or tell me I’m being ridiculous.” I hear.
“Let’s try it,” I say, “and if his response is mean or defensive, maybe we can help him out.
“It doesn’t matter what I say. I’ve tried it every which way, and she always ends up pissed at me.” He says.
This is a very discouraged, tired and lonely couple, and their feelings are contagious. I can feel myself wanting to tell them both to just shut the f up and do what I say. Not particularly therapeutic. But I know that the feelings I’m having are not mine. I know that I am resonating with their experience, feeling what they are feeling.
“I wonder if either of you is wishing the other person would just shut up and listen to you?”
“Yes!” They both say in unison. And we finally have some common ground!
“So each of you is feeling the same thing!?” I ask, though it’s more observation than question.
“I guess,” one or the other offers tentatively.
“Where do you feel this wish in your body?” I ask the one who guesses.
“In my arms,” he says, pushing the air in front of him.
“And you?” I ask the other.
“Same,” she says, pushing the air too.
“Wow, so you are both feeling the same thing and your bodies are holding it in the same way. There is so much resonance between you!” They don’t respond. They are not ready to feel what they share.
“What are you pushing away?” I ask him.
“Her.”
If it stops there, she is left feeling like the bad guy. But I know he doesn’t want to push her away. They’ve been fighting like this for 15 years. If either wanted it to end, it would have ended by now.
“Yes, and what aspect of her are you pushing away.”
“Her not hearing me.”
“Yes, and what else?”
“Her not caring about me.”
“Yes, and what else?”
“Her not seeing that I’m a good guy.”
His voice has a little tremor, a little emotion in it. I look at her, and she is not seeing the vulnerability. She is lost in feeling criticized. I stay with him, but keep an eye on her.
“Stay with this experience, pushing away her not hearing, not caring, not seeing you. Where else have you felt this in your life?” I encourage.
“My father.” He says.
“Tell me about your father.”
“He always assumed the worst about me. When there was a mess in the house, he always came to me first and made me clean it up – even if it wasn’t my mess.”
“What did he look like when he made you clean up?”
“Mean, angry, fed up with me.”
“What did you want him to feel about you?”
“I wanted him to love me, to know that I loved him. I wanted his approval more than anything. I wanted him to be proud of me.” He is tearing up. His wife’s expression has softened.
“What are you seeing in her eyes now?” I ask, nudging him to look up at her.
His face stays downcast and he says, “She doesn’t care.” And in this moment, he could easily drive away the compassion she is feeling for him.
“That’s not what I’m seeing.” I say to him, but hoping that my words will help keep her from hardening again. “What I see is more like tenderness, (her face softens again) and I think it might be important for you to see that.”
He looks up, searching. She has heard me, and stays soft to him. “She looks… like she cares?” He says, surprised.
“Do you?” I ask her.
“Yes I care! I never saw him like this before. I mean, I knew his dad could be an ass, but he always seemed like he just rolled with it.”
“Like he was tough?” I ask.
“Yeah. He’s very tough.”
“How did you learn to be tough?” I ask him.
“I figured out pretty young that I wasn’t going to get what I wanted from him, so I just stopped caring.”
“What about you?” I turn to her, “How did you learn to be tough?” since she is too.
“For me, it was growing up with brothers. If I didn’t act tough, they would call me baby, tease me, pinch me, that kind of thing.”
“Toughness really protected both of you,” I say. And they both nod. “But now, you’re paying a price for that protection.” I continue, and they nod some more, each still looking in the other one’s eyes. “What do you really want to experience together?” I ask.
“Tenderness,” he says.
“Yeah. That would be good,” she says.
“And if you felt tenderness when you didn’t want to do the dishes, what would that sound like?” I ask.
“Babe, I’m wiped, could you do the dishes?” she says, looking tenderly at him.
“I’m wiped too. Maybe we could do them together?” he offers.
“How does this feel?” I ask.
“Better,” he says.
“Much better,” she agrees.
There are so many tiny moments when an argument can either spiral downward or upward. When we grow up shamed, we tend to look away right at the moment when our partner is offering a look of care or concern. Or we see the care and dismiss it, focusing on what feels more familiar – criticism, anger, detachment. If you fight a lot, I have a challenge for you. Can you find a moment of care or tenderness in your partner? If it’s hard to find there, can you offer a moment of care or tenderness and stay with it until he/she is able to see it and take it in? While it’s not easy (maybe not even possible) during a fight, could each of you commit to looking for these moments as often as possible when you’re not fighting? If
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )It’s hard to ask for help
Sometimes the hardest thing to do is ask for help. When we ask, we run the risk of being told, “no,” having our needs dismissed or invalidated. As a result, we may become fiercely independent, determined to do it all ourselves. Or we may become bossy and demanding, hiding our vulnerability by voicing our needs as demands. Either way, if it doesn’t feel safe to ask for what we need, we can’t be close to our partners, and ultimately, that’s what we really want.
If you find yourself in one of these two roles, it may be time to try something new – something like, “Sweetheart, I’m feeling overwhelmed (or tired or unmotivated…), and I need your help with something.” If this approach feels scary, it may be useful to sit with a therapist who can help you get the words out and help your partner practice listening so that it really IS safe to ask for what you need.
It may also help to preface the conversation, preparing your partner that you’re about to do something hard, and need him/her to be kind. Maybe even showing him/her this posting as a way of introducing the topic. Though it may be uncomfortable for both of you at first, knowing that you can ask for what you need and that your partner will listen without judgment can make you both feel closer and more connected.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )how to fight fair
It doesn’t matter how bright or well spoken you are, in the middle of an argument, your brain just doesn’t work that well. It’s how we’re built. Most couples don’t know how to argue, how to fight fair, how to express their frustration in a way that works – to get their needs met and feel relief and connection again.
Where we go wrong:
“You always… You never… You said… You should have… Why didn’t you…”
These all come across as accusations or criticism. They will automatically put your partner on the defensive, and instead of finding resolution, you’ll end up fighting about the last 10 things that pissed each of you off.
How to do it more effectively:
“I’m feeling really… (put an emotion here like sad, scared, frustrated, overwhelmed, stressed), and I need your help. I’d prefer (list something specific and do-able here like bring home a gallon of milk and a carton of eggs on your way home).”
Pitfalls:
DON’T fall into the trap of saying things like “I feel like you’re always… never… ” This is just a variation on the language that creates more problems. Similarly, DON’T follow up with, “and I need you to stop being so selfish… thoughtless… needy…” etc.
Practicing new ways of communicating is hard at first. These are old, ingrained patterns. There are usually underlying fears or old hurts that fuel chronic fights or cold silences. Don’t give up. Keep practicing new ways of communicating your needs in ways that are non-critical, non-shaming, non-accusing. It may take your partner a while to really hear you and come around. Don’t hesitate to get the help or support of a qualified therapist.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Fear of Commitment
It’s a common complaint, and not just among women. You have the most amazing time together. You make each other laugh. There’s passion – really great chemistry. But as soon as things turn serious, he/she acts all weird, goes to Vegas with friends and doesn’t call or return your calls. Or maybe he/she started talking commitment first – wondering what it would be like to move in together, offering you your own drawer or key or toothbrush-holder. But as you warmed up to the idea of getting serious, he/she backed off. Maybe this is a pattern you guys repeat together – hot and cold, up and down.
In my experience, when one person in a relationship has a fear of commitment, the other one does too – even if they’re not fully aware of the fear. It’s common to fear the thing we long for most. And in relationships, it’s not unusual for one person to play out the side that want’s closeness, while the other person plays out the side that’s afraid of it. Since you may have your own fears of commitment too, your partner’s distance keeps you safe too. Otherwise you would probably have ended the relationship and moved on.
Even if your partner doesn’t want to look at the deeper issues, you can. As you learn more about your internal conflict – wanting closeness, but not always feeling safe or comfortable having that closeness – you can begin to heal any past hurts that have made it hard to be vulnerable and open to someone. As those old hurts heal, you may find that your partner becomes more trusting too. Or you may discover that you are ready to let go of this relationship and be with someone who is able to make the commitment you long for.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Stop Having the Same Fight in Marriage
Almost every couple has one: that seemingly trivial fight that just keeps cropping up, day after day, month after month, making you feel as if you’re stuck in your very own version of Groundhog Day. Perhaps it’s about your husband’s leaving his cereal bowl by the sink rather than in the dishwasher, or your forgetting — oops! — to tell him that his mother called. The issues that trigger bickering can seem insignificant, but when fights keep on resurfacing, your otherwise happy marriage can become a petri dish of resentment and hurt feelings — the kind that leave you and your beloved sitting in different rooms watching the same TV show.
I know this not only because my husband and I face our own challenges, but because as a family mediator, I counsel couples who want to work out these dumb little fights that eat away at their quality of life. One client, Wendy,* 39, from Long Island, NY, was fried from exactly this kind of bickering. “Why is it always such a battle to get him to spend an hour helping our sixth grader with his math homework?” she asked. Their arguments about homework would invariably segue into the same dead-end battle: “You never help me with the kids.”
“That’s not true,” her husband, Steven, would counter. “I put them to bed a lot of the time.”
“Yeah?” she’d say. “Well, that’s only because I make you!”
Round and round they would go, adding new layers to the argument, each trying to win and prove the point “I’m right!”
Having the same fight over and over is, of course, pointless, but it’s where many couples get stuck. Once you’re deeply engaged in the battle of whose turn it was to take the clothes out of the dryer, it’s hard to step back. That’s where mediation comes in. It requires that a husband and wife each realize that the goal isn’t to beat the adversary into submission. It’s to make the fight go away.
Think about it: Typically, one person’s winning a fight means the other person loses, but in a marriage, the two people involved are on the same team. No matter who “wins,” everyone loses. When a standard bickering bout ends, one of you will have been cornered into saying, “Fine, enough already! You’re right” (though not necessarily believing it), but neither of you will have gained a deeper understanding of the other’s point of view.
Beyond that, the battle’s loser is quite likely to have some residual anger simmering, which will wind up igniting the next fight. And that’s hardly the way any of us want our couple time to unfold.
So winning a war of words in marriage has to mean something entirely different — namely, finding a solution to cool off the hot-button issue and resolving the fight so it simply vanishes. I’m not saying it’s easy to get past that urge to win. But I promise that trading that seething “See, I’m right!” sensation at the end of a spat for the halo of warmth that a happy, respectful marriage has is totally worth it. (Wendy and Steven, who no longer lock horns over their son’s homework, would agree.) So put on your mediator’s hat and follow these three guidelines:
Step 1: Take a Seat
At the start of your next tiff, you’ll probably feel the urge to wag your finger at your husband and remind him that you’ve told him a hundred — or even a thousand — times that what he just did ticks you off. But rather than pressing the point, literally keep your hands at your sides and say something like this: “Honey, can you please sit down with me now, because I want to talk to you about something?” Not only will this give you a few seconds to calm down and think before you start speaking, it will also let your partner know that the issue at hand is serious and needs to be resolved.
Put the plan into action: Margot, 42, of New York City, had for years been stymied about how to resolve her husband’s habit of partially opening the mail when he came home from work and then leaving it on the dining table, intending to deal with it at a later time. Since that later time never seemed to arrive, bills went unpaid, invitations went without RSVPs, and their life was a lot messier around the edges than Margot could tolerate. Usually, when Margot learned that the mail situation had led to, say, a late fee, she’d erupt and blame her husband, loudly enough for the neighbors to hear.
When Margot was learning the three-step mediation strategy, she said, “The first step — sitting down and collecting my thoughts — was the hardest because when I feel angry, I just start mouthing off. I’ve told him many, many times how much his procrastination with the mail bothers me, and yet he does it anyway. And that, in turn, makes me feel totally ignored and unimportant, so it seemed like lashing out at him was my only option.”
Margot moved past these blowups by recognizing that her husband’s behavior was simply an annoying habit, and as such, it could be changed. “My husband is a good person. He’s not the problem; it’s his mail-handling habit that’s the problem, and habits can be broken. By taking the time to sit down and catch my breath, I was able to convince myself of that fact, stay calm, and work at solving the problem.”
Step 2: Uncover the Subtext
Once you’re sitting down, no matter what the conflict is, fight that impulse to blame your husband and spell out in excruciating detail where he has gone wrong. While you’re at it, don’t indulge that desire to say, “How many times do I have to tell you this?” either. Instead, act like a detective. Your goal is to figure out what your partner was thinking. You may think you know, and you may be right — or you could be completely wrong. By not making assumptions, you leave room for uncovering his actual thoughts and feelings. Ask neutral questions like, “What happened?” “Why do you do that?” and “Is there a reason why you weren’t able to take care of it today?”
Speak with a calm, inquisitive tone, as if you have no idea what the answer is. Work hard (and it is hard) to keep the anger, frustration, and impatience out of your voice. In most sparring situations, each partner can speak very convincingly about his or her motives, and the “What on earth was he thinking?!” question winds up going away.
Put the plan into action: Rosie Behr, 53, of Baltimore, used this technique to tackle her ongoing argument with her husband about how he gives her directions when she’s driving. “We have a simple division of labor: When I’m at the wheel, he navigates,” Rosie explains, “and I want to know what the next direction is in advance. That way, I have plenty of time to switch lanes before making a turn. I also want him to give me just one direction at a time, or my brain gets overloaded. So I’ll ask my husband to tell me the next turn, and he’ll say, ‘I’ll tell you when we’re closer.’ To which I say, ‘But I need to know now!’ It seems like a simple enough request, but then he’ll respond, ‘Why don’t you just trust me?’ and I’ll yell, ‘Why don’t you just tell me?’ This argument drives me crazy.”
Though the couple had been fighting about directions for years, it wasn’t until they tried the mediation techniques that they actually understood each other’s behavior. By playing detective, Rosie discovered that when she asked her husband for directions well in advance of a turn, he thought she was questioning his judgment about where to go — and that really bothered him. He viewed the whole direction situation as a trust issue. “I was genuinely shocked when he told me that; I had no idea he felt that way,” admits Rosie. “From my perspective, all I was doing was asking for some information — and he was withholding it.” Once they really understood each other’s viewpoints, they were able to stop getting angry and start resolving their direction dilemma.
A closer look: Sometimes, admittedly, there will be cases in which your spouse’s motivation is exactly what you suspect it to be — and it’s completely infuriating. Consider the case of the couple in which the wife makes dinner and the husband is supposed to clean up the dishes but often doesn’t do so, saying, “Oh, I guess I got caught up watching TV” or “Sorry, I had a really rough day and was too tired.” Tempted as the wife may be to start shouting, “What do I need to do to get some help around here?” thereby escalating the situation to something approaching SmackDown, here’s what needs to happen instead: The husband’s explanation must be acknowledged and then used as leverage to work out a compromise. For instance, the wife could say, “I understand that you were too tired, but I didn’t know that when we finished dinner. I thought the table would get cleared tonight, but now I’m seeing the dirty dishes and am feeling upset. Can you understand that?”
This tactic sets the stage for the next step in the mediation process. And the point gets underscored that if you’re not going to do something you said you would, you must let your spouse know in advance.
Step 3: Offer Solutions
This final step is the one that most couples skip when they argue without mediation techniques, and that’s a key reason why they remain stuck on the bickering merry-go-round for years. Here’s the agenda: You must each come up with a few possible solutions. Try saying something like, “I think I understand your point of view a lot better now. Can we talk about how we can prevent this problem from cropping up again?” Then suggest a specific idea and ask your partner to offer up another suggestion. Getting your partner involved in the solution is a key step; research shows that people are more likely to follow through on a plan if they feel as if they participated in creating it.
Put the plan into action: Whenever Elizabeth, 34, of Dallas, and her mate argued about who would empty the dishwasher, they ended up having one of those pointless “scorecard” battles over who did the task more often. As is often the case with chore-centric fights, both of them would usually end up feeling as if they didn’t get any credit for what they did.
This time, however, Elizabeth was determined to end the argument once and for all with the three-step mediation strategy. During the final step, her husband suggested that they should take turns putting away the dishes, switching off nightly. Elizabeth suggested they swap roles every two days and post a check-off chart on the fridge. “Neither option struck me as a perfect solution,” she said, “but then my husband came up with a nice compromise–we would each be responsible for clearing the table and emptying the dishwasher for a full week, changing roles every Monday. That felt like a much less complicated plan, one we could easily live with. We’ve been following it for three months now and haven’t had a single fight over it, which has made married life a lot sweeter. And the bonus is, we feel that if a new ‘here it comes again’ argument crops up, we now know how to solve it.”
The last word: Recurring quarrels about apparently trivial matters can sometimes mean there are deeper issues swirling that are too big or scary to tackle head-on. The fight about dirty plates left on the table might really reflect, say, a power struggle in the marriage. Regardless of the real issue, the three-step mediation process gives you a technique to handle the conflict and start chipping away at the problem. If you try this technique in good faith and it doesn’t take the quarreling down a notch or two, it’s probably time to seek professional counseling.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )common marriage problems
For many couples, there are common marriage problems, which often begin to creep into the link over time. If you are feeling that your marriage isn’t what it ought to be, or what you thought it would be when you first walked down the aisle, you are not alone. Millions of couples grapple with relationship problems, sometimes feeling that the problems are distinctive to their relationship. This will cause feelings of embarrassment and / or loneliness, when it doesn’t want to.
Therefore, let’s take a look at three common marriage problems which many couples find themselves facing. All of these can start out seeming like a small problem. However, if they continue over a while and aren’t treat good, they’ll have a terribly negative impact on a marriage.
Solution Of Marriage Problems
1. Feeling like you’ve got “fallen out of love” against each other.
When you were first dating your spouse, and probably even when you stood in front of your family and friends and said your vows, you felt “madly in love” with each other. For most couples, that giddy feeling doesn’t last over the years. In fact, for several, once the reality of daily basis married life sinks in it starts to fade. Your lives become one of the routine, which is perfectly normal. The demands of your work or careers, children and mortgages will take up all of your time and energy. And if you are like some couples who having marriage problems, you essentially begin living like roommates and nothing additional. While that situation is fairly common, marriage problems like this will eventually lead to an affair or a divorce.
2. Taking each other for granted
Another one in all the most common wedding issues is that many couples start taking each other with no consideration. To some extent, it is human nature to take for granted that it is usually there. However, in marriage relationships, this may cause a slow, simmering resentment for one or both of you. Everyone longs to feel loved, cherished, and appreciated. After all, that was a big part of the explanation you got married in the first place. No one feels loved after they are taken without any consideration. When it reaches the point of devaluing every different and failing to treat the connection as sacred or special, it will be very damaging. Sadly, what often happens is that you simply don’t even understand just how serious it’s until the other person is gone.
3. Failure to really speak with each other.
Poor communication or the failure to essentially speak to every alternative is most likely one in every of the foremost common marriage problems many couples face. Learning to communicate well may be a talent several individuals lack. Others have the talent and might be nice communicators in their career. However, struggle with communicating with their spouse. This is particularly true if one or each of you grew up in an exceedingly home where poor communication was the norm. You speak superficially but avoid discussing issues or problems as they arise. Some individuals just realize it easier to avoid any conflict. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work and in time can take a toll on your relationship if the marriage problems can’t be solved.
If you and your spouse are struggling with anyone of these common marriage problems, there is hope. The primary step usually acknowledges the matter. The sooner you recognize the matter and take action though, the better!
Therefore, the important things you should know about common marriage problems are feeling like you’ve got “fallen out of love” against each other, taking each other for granted and failure to really speak with each other. By knowing these common marriage problems, you will be on your way toward a self-satisfaction and stop to prevent your marriage from any kind of problems.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )« Previous Entries
