“Conventional wisdom is no wisdom at all. Conventional wisdom is taking someone else’s word for the way things are.” Richard Marcinko
When our marriage or most intimate relationship seems like it’s falling apart, we fall back on conventional wisdom to help guide us.
Just spend more time together…
Ride it out; it will pass…
You have to begin touching, hugging, kissing each other again…
Go to couples counseling…
Schedule a date night…
Plan a romantic getaway together…
Give him a dose of his own medicine…
Ignore it and maybe the problem will disappear…
But if any of that ...continue reading...
“Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.” Julia Cameron
Stacey has been struggling in her marriage for years, specifically the last two years. She feels lonely and empty. She feels unseen and unappreciated.
So, she did what most of us might do; she asked her husband if he’d be willing to go to marriage counseling with her.
Here’s why that rarely works:
When you ask your spouse to go to marriage counseling with you, what he hears you saying is, “There’s something wrong with you and we need someone to fix it.” No one wants to be fixed. ...continue reading...
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.” Albert Einstein
I received a client application recently that shared with me, “We have so many problems and we’ve been disconnected for so long that I don’t know if it will do any good for me to work on the marriage if he’s not also working on fixing the problems in our marriage. Is it possible for me to fix a marriage by myself?”
Many of us believe that in order to fix a relationship, both parties need to be present and actively working on ...continue reading...
“The details of what you’re fighting over are negligible compared to your innermost experience begging to be heard.” Sevin Philips, MFT
Many of my clients who are struggling in their marriages attend marriage counseling with their husbands, in addition to working with me. They share with me the context of their conversations and progress (or lack thereof) as a result of those sessions. And I fear that through those conversations, we’re not getting to the heart of the matter.
It’s time to take the conversation much deeper.
My client Abbey goes marriage counseling with her husband twice each week, ...continue reading...
