“Sometimes your heart needs more time to accept, what your mind already knows.” Unknown
When we’re talking about surviving infidelity it’s typically in the context of: Can the betrayed relationship survive? But whether or not you choose to remain in the relationship after one or both of you have cheated, you need to survive regardless.
If you decide that you want to remain in the relationship and attempt to rebuilt trust again, obviously you will be working through the hurt and betrayal, attempting to trust again and eventually being able to forgive.
But even if you decide to ...continue reading...
Will my husband ever change?
“Resistance to change manifests itself in many ways, from foot-dragging and inertia to petty sabotage to outright rebellions.” Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Sometimes we expect our partners to know what it is we need. It’s so obvious to us, we can’t imagine how he couldn’t know. But the truth is we cannot carry resentments about our needs not being met if we haven’t expressed to our partners what it is we need. We know they can’t read our minds.
But what about when you have expressed what you need and still nothing has changed?
...continue reading...“Disagreement is acceptable. Disrespect is not.” Stephan Labossiere
Imagine for a moment, you’re in the next room while your daughter and her husband are having an argument. You’re listening-in because you’ve been worried that she might be in a verbally abusive relationship.
Every time your daughter tries to express what she’s feeling, she gets cut-off mid-sentence.
Her husband clearly is far more interested in yelling than talking in a reasonable tone of voice. He’s clearly more interested in talking AT her than he is in listening TO her. He is more interested in blaming her for the issue than ...continue reading...
“Knowing when to walk away, is wisdom. Being able to, is courage. Walking away with grace, and your head held high is dignity.” Ritu Ghatourey
By the time people find their way to my work, they’ve typically been struggling in their marriages for years, sometimes decades. But how do you know when your marriage is over?
There are probably gazillions of articles written that will give you the three most common attributes in a relationship that are tell-tale signs that your marriage is over (or should be over, in the writer’s opinion).
I don’t think that’s helpful at ...continue reading...
“If someone is arguing with you, you are saying something arguable.” Julia B. Colwell, PhD
One of the things I help my private clients do is identify the patterns of engagement with their spouses, specifically how they argue or disagree with one another. It usually looks something like this:
She expresses something that hurt her, such as “You don’t listen to or understand me.”
He takes that as a personal attack and now feels the need to defend himself.
She tries to get him to see her perspective.
His defending becomes louder and more forceful.
She shuts down ...continue reading...
“The urge to blame is based…on the fear of being blamed.” Douglas Stone
In our marriages, it seems the conversation we avoid the most are the very ones we most need to be having with our partners. There’s a lot going either unsaid between or unheard.
Maybe we tried having the conversation previously and it didn’t go well.
Maybe we’re afraid saying what needs to be said will only worsen the relationship.
Maybe we’ve given up hope that anything will ever change.
We avoid having difficult conversations with our partners because almost no one enjoys confrontation, and we ...continue reading...
“People can’t change the truth, but the truth can change people.” Drake
My client, who I’ll refer to as Naomi shared something important with me recently: She said she realized how she was using her children as a means of avoiding closeness with her husband.
When they would all be walking together, the kids were in the middle between them.
When they would hand out together in the kitchen around the island, she noticed how she always seemed to be on the opposite side of the island closest to her children.
Even in bed, the kids often fell ...continue reading...
When my client, who I’ll refer to as Vicky began working with me, she was trying to determine if there was any hope for her marriage that had been on the ropes for years. They were separated and ready to file papers, but she was still holding on and wasn’t sure why.One week later, her husband told her that from his perspective, he was done and the marriage was over. As you can imagine, the finality of that sent her reeling…thinking she had just wasted the last twenty years with a man who didn’t love her anymore. After the shock ...continue reading...
“Continents drift and so do hearts.” John Mark Green
In my marriage and relationship coaching practice, people reach out to me when their marriages have been struggling for years or even decades. Their relationships have become so unbearable that they’re considering leaving the marriage and are feeling paralyzed in fear because they don’t know how to fix the marriage and make it better, but they don’t know how to leave either. They tell me they feel stuck, sad, alone, scared and disconnected.
One of the questions I ask these people in my first discussion with them is, “What will ...continue reading...
“Being both soft and strong is an accomplishment that very few have mastered.” Yasmin Mogahed
In my first marriage, I was a woman who was strong and capable and driven. I was a marketing executive climbing the corporate ladder who led large teams of people and prided herself on being the one who could GSD (aka: Get Shit Done).
As you can imagine, there is no “off” switch that helped me to soften on my way home to my husband after work each night, so I unconsciously brought that same controlling energy and GSD approach into my marriage. ...continue reading...
