Are you neglecting your relationship?

Posted on September 3, 2010 by Julie Hart

Remember the days when you first met your wife or husband? Those wonderful romantic sexy days when you loved being in each other’s company and could talk for hours. You would do those special things for each other just to see the look of delight on his/her face. They were the days when your relationship was rich and vibrant and you felt fully alive because of it.

Now the “Limerance” stage is long gone, as it always does………. but have you replaced it with an even better version of a deeper fuller love? …..Or have you been taking your loved one for granted and busying yourself with other “more pressing” things, like jobs and children and work around the home, and finances and friends?

One of the most common themes I find in my private practice as a Psychologist specializing in Relationships is a “natural neglect” in secure relationships.

Even though everything in your shared life is based on a foundation of your love for each other, and your shared life, it’s all too easy to take for granted that your relationship will always be there, without realizing that it, too, needs attending to and nurturing.

Perhaps you could check in with your partner and ask him/her how happy he or she is in your relationship, on a scale of 1 to 10. Then follow it with the more important question of “What would have to happen to make it a 10 for you?”

Keeping your relationship alive and vibrant needs ongoing attention, but not only does it make for a more enjoyable life, but is one of the most enduring aspects of a life well lived.

In the twilight years of one’s life, thoughts more often than not turn to how well did I love and be loved, rather than how much money will I die with.

If you’ve let your relationship go, a relationship counsellor can show you, in a few sessions, how to bring back the vibrancy, chemistry and love again.

Warm regards

Julie

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Ever been over-reactive in your relationship?

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Julie Hart

If you are human, you will recognise that there are times in your relationship when something that your partner says or does hits a “nerve” or a “raw spot” for you. These sensitivities are also called “hot buttons“.

We all have them, and when abraded, they bleed all over our relationship, making us lose our emotional balance and plunge into reactive and defensive ways of communicating.

So, what are they, and where did they come from?

They are hyper-sensitivities formed by moments either in your past (usually childhood) or your current relationship when your attachment needs have been repeatedly neglected, ignored or dismissed, resulting in you feeling deprived and deserted.

As children, we all need nurturance, listening and empathy, protection and encouragement. When our care takers were not aware, or able to give us these things, we shrunk into ourselves from a pain beyond our awareness, giving us a sense of personal shame, as if we somehow weren’t deserving of these things.

Then on any future occasions when similar themes occur, these raw spots are activated again and we become reactionary, sometimes without consciously knowing why. We have been triggered, and we’re fighting back before we know it.

They cannot be forgotten or left behind, and they cannot be resolved in the present context without some awareness of what they are and the significance of them to us.

It is crucial for us to find a way to explore these in an emotionally supportive environment, where the hurt  has arisen from, and the significance to us, in order to be able to release ourselves from the power that they have to derail our relationships.

Relationship and marriage counselling can help you each sensitively explore what your raw spots are, and where and why you each over-reactive to things. Most people find it an extremely helpful process to make these discoveries, and to listen, support and understand their partner’s process or discovery as well. Clients often report feeling closer than they ever felt before to each other after these explorations.

For quality relationship counselling from any of our 21 specially trained Psychologists throughout Australia, you can contact the Hart Centre Australia.

Till next time

Kind regards

Julie

Posted in Attachment, Communication, Couples counselling, Empathy, Intimacy, Marriage counselling, Relationship counselling, Relationship problems | Leave a comment

Relationship Test. How well do you know your partner?

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Julie Hart

How well you know each other is a fundamental characteristic of how good your relationship is.  When you have a great relationship, you feel close and connected, and feel comfortable sharing with each other about yourself, knowing that you are largely accepted the way you are.

You can be yourself in the presence of your partner. Even when you don’t agree on things, you each are given the opportunity to express your views. You each give each other permission to be different without it ruining your relationship.

So, check out how well you really know each other. Once you have answered the questions, then you can check their accuracy with your partner.

1. What is your partner’s favourite meal?

2. What is the colour your partner dislikes the most?

3. What 3 things would your partner take  as essentials on a desert island?

4. What kind of home would your partner like to live in next?

5. What country would your partner most like to visit?

6. What clothes do you wear that are your partner’s favourite?

7. How happy is your partner in your relationship?

8. What would make him/her happier?

9. What would your partner do if he/she didn’t have to work?

10. What is  his/her greatest fear?

11. What does your partner dream of doing before he/she dies?

12. What does your partner worry most about?

13. What does your partner love most about you?

14. What does he/she struggle with most in his/her life?

15. What is your partners best accomplishment in his/her eyes?

Scoring:

>10 - Well done! You have a good relationship where you have pretty good knowledge of your partner. You generally feel close and comfortable talking together.

5 – 10 - Your relationship is very average. You could do with making more time for hanging out together and talking more intimately about yourselves, and you would be surpised what a difference it would make to how close you feel.

<5 – Your relationship is in trouble. You really have lost touch with each other. You need to be prioritising spending at least half a hour each night and a full day each weekend being together without any other distractions of kids, work, computers or tv etc so you can get to know each other again before it is too late. You may also need relationship counselling to help you get your relationship back on track.

More next week

Warm regards

Julie

Posted in Communication, Couples counselling, Empathy, Intimacy, Marriage counselling, Relationship counselling, Relationship problems | Leave a comment

Forget relationship counselling: We are just too different.

Posted on August 24, 2010 by Julie Hart

“We are just too different for our relationship to work, and so relationship counselling is a waste of time”.  I had a new client say this to me this week, and it is a common thing for people to think.

But nothing could be further from the truth, so I thought I’d fill you in on what I have found from  relationship counselling with thousands of couples in trouble.

Have you ever thought what it would be like if your partner was exactly like you in every way? To start with, it would be physically impossible, but even it it was possible, would you really want it? Someone who was a clone of you except for the sexual anatomy?

Boring boring boring! It is differences that make life interesting, it’s differences that give you advantages, it’s differences that give you other perspectives, it’s differences that balance you out.

It is often the differences that attract you to your partner when you first meet. For example you loved her fun loving nature because you are very serious; you were attracted to his neat organised structured way, as you were disorganised and forgetful.

Every couple has areas that they are different. There is no inherent problem with being different from your partner. The problem is only with how you handle the differences.

For every couple, there will be differences that are so great that you feel you are polar opposites, each sitting on the outside edge of the continuum when compared with each other. For example: very responsible versus playful and fun loving, or very social versus a homebody.

The key factor in whether you see this as a huge problem or a huge gift, is whether you judge your partner or not. Do you sit at the end of your continuum looking over at your partner saying, or thinking “He’s such a jerk or an annoyance. Why doesn’t he do things like I do?”

Well, if so, you are wasting a huge amount of energy, not to mention a huge opportunity to see the gift your partner is giving to you.

If one of you is reliable and responsible and the other is fun loving, each of you is a gift to each other. Becoming more spontaneous and fun loving is just what the overly responsible one needs, and similarly, picking up more responsibility is just what the fun loving one needs too.

If  you can handle it as a gift both to each other and the relationship, you can enrich your relationship with your differences. The only thing stopping you is your sense of superiority and judgement which is the thing that will be killing your relationship, not the differences.

More next time

Regards

Julie

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Will my partner change if I bring him/her to relationship counselling?

Posted on August 19, 2010 by Julie Hart

The question of can people change is always an interesting one. The short answer is yes, we can all change absolutely anything about ourselves, if we have a strong enough desire to.

So the question many people have on their mind when considering whether to come to relationship or marriage counselling is: “If my partner hasn’t already changed the things about himself that I most have problems with, will he or she be able to do it with the help of relationship counselling, and just as importantly, will those changes stay, or just fade away with time?”

To answer this question more fully, it is important to understand that we come into this life pre-wired by way of our personality type. The personality system I find exceptionally helpful in understanding why we do the things we do, without being conscious of it, is the Enneagram. (more about the Enneagram in another blog)

So we each have tendencies towards doing things a certain way. Whether we continue to do things this way or change depends on whether the results of these actions are positive or negative for us. If we are experiencing either  positive benefits, or the absence of negative impact on ourself personally, then we will continue to do what comes naturally.

If, however we start to suffer from the impact of these natural tendencies, either as internal difficulties, or as difficulties in interacting with others or the world, then we can do 1 of 2 things:

1. Blame others or the world in general

2. Look at what in us needs to change for us to start getting a more positive outcome or experience.

Now, plenty of people take the first option, but that just makes you feel like a victim or cynical complainer- no chance of happiness there.

The second option is the healthiest way to go. Usually the extent of our pain will determine the extent of our motivation to change. It is usually as simple as that.

That is why often we can get the most stunningly positive changes in relationship counselling when a couple has got to the stage of being so sick of their relationship the way it is that they decide it is either make or break: we either fix it or leave it.

In relationship counselling also, we explain that for a relationship to have deteriorated, there will be contribution from both sides. In counselling many thousands of couples, I have yet to find a couple where it is all one partner’s contribution.

Couples often find it amazing how when we work on both sides together, how improvements can be so radical, so that the whole process can gradually become a joint project, rather than an adversarial one.

When talking about the stickability of changes, it is important to manage these carefully, and to have a check-in process in place to ensure each member of the couple honours their commitment to the other,on an ongoing basis.

More next week

Warm regards

Julie

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Why do relationships get into trouble?

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Julie Hart

Lets look  firstly at why we choose to be in a relationship in the first place. We are individuals that seek union and connection.

As humans, we have 2 intrinsic life forces: one that drives us toward our own individual self expression, and the other force that drives us towards togetherness.

Individuality and self respect.

We all have a need to express our individuality, our individual desires and personal identity, our interests, thoughts, feeling and views, and to exercise our will to make our life happen in the way we desire it.

Togetherness and emotional connection.

We also have a fundamental need for emotional connection, and a fear of losing it. We want to feel emotionally safe with each other, and know we can depend on our partner, that he/she is there for us, that they will respond when you call, and that you matter to them, and are valued and are accepted by them.

From my experience counselling 1000s of couples in relationship counselling, relationship and marriage problems arise when we experience either or both of the following:

  1. Loss of our self, or the full expression of our self, or
  2. Emotional disconnection from our partner

These are at the core of all relationship problems. If your relationship is not what you would like it to be, it can be worthwhile asking yourself the following questions:

1. Where in my relationship, have I lost myself, my true desires, or what is important to me?

2. Where in my relationship have I lost connection with my partner?Is my partner accessible to me, responsive to me, and positively engaged with me?

These are important markers of why you relationship may not be working for you. Relationship and marriage counselling can help rebuild these for you.

Warm regards

Julie

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Does marriage counselling and relationship counselling really work?

Posted on August 12, 2010 by Julie Hart

When your relationship is in trouble and you have tried all you know to fix it, it can get very frustrating and disappointing, as the loving feelings that brought you together in the first place are are often buried under layers of negativity, pain, arguments or coldness.

If you are like most people, you like to keep your personal problems to yourself. Most of us don’t like airing our dirty laundry in public. However, when you have done all you know how to resolve your relationship problems, and it is not working, then there is the option of going to a marriage or relationship counsellor.

Most people want to be sure that in going to this trouble, that it is going to be worth the effort; that the counsellor will be able to offer them some positive solutions that they can’t find on their own.

Successful relationship counselling and marriage counselling does just this, and does this for a reason.

Albert Einstein once said, “You cant solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew”

This is the reason that a good marriage counsellor can help you. To begin with, none of us has been taught how to have a good relationship. Even though it is an absolutely essential skill for us to have as humans, no-one teaches us. We are left to either follow our parents model, or alternatively do the opposite, as we didn’t like the way we were raised. But mostly we are operating in the dark.

So that is the first thing that good relationship counselling offers you:  Education on how to have a good relationship. We have taken the time to learn these skills so we can show you how.

Additionally, and just as importantly, a good marriage counsellor can give you insight into why your particular relationship is not working, and what each of you are doing that might be contributing to it. This insight is like gold to a couple experiencing problems, because it offers the specific way out of the conflict for your unique situation.

Usually we recommend that the earlier you can recognise you have a problem, and the sooner you can come into relationship counselling, the easier the process.

Having said that, however, what happens for most people is that they leave it until one partner is almost ready to walk out the door, and then make an appointment.

Strangely, counselling at this time can also work very effectively too, as, although your problems are usually larger by this time, also can be your motivation to look at what is happening and your part in it, when your whole relationship is at risk.

Whenever you decide that you need some help,  good counselling can give you insight that you have been missing and offer a new way forward for a relationship often far better than you can imagine.

More next week.

Warmly

Julie

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Why women find it difficult to be assertive in their relationships.

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Julie Hart

I talked in an earlier post on why men find it difficult to express empathy. For women, I have found that one of the most challenging things for them is to stand up for themselves in their relationship; I have many many women clients express how they are sick of their men controlling them, or they have lost themselves in their relationships over time.

There is a biological reason for why this happens.

The female brain is built primarily for connection and social harmony. In a women’s brain, the communication and emotional memory centers are larger than in men’s, and additionally women have huge supplies of the hormones Oestrogen and Oxytocin.

Oestrogen creates an intense focus on communication and emotions, and Oxytocin, which is released when during intimate times (with a partner or a baby or child) leads to strong desires to nurture, help, serve, attach and bond, and additionally, triggers the trust circuits, by shutting down the critical and skeptical mind.

As well as this, the psychological stress of conflict registers far more deeply in female brains than in men’s.

So, maintaining the social approval of others, and the relationship at all costs is the goal, if you are a woman. Women are built to build social bonds based on communication and compromise, and to preserve harmonious relationships.

This all leads to women having outstanding verbal ability, a great ability to connect deeply in friendship and develop empathy, an almost psychic capacity to read faces and tone of voice for emotions and states of minds, a response to distress in others, and a wonderful ability to defuse conflict.

In summary, women are built to highly value communication, connection, emotional sensitivity and consideration for others. All of these qualities are worthwhile, however women need to be careful not to overdo these and lose themselves in their relationships.

Men, on the other hand, with the flow of testosterone in their system, and more development in the Sexual and Aggressions centres of the brain, are built to be potent and affect the world as an individual.

This has a profound effect on our relationships with each other.

It means that men can learn from women how to be more empathic and communicative and connective, as mentioned earlier; and equally, women can learn from men how to pay attention to their own needs and be more assertive in standing up for themselves, particularly in their relationships with their man.

If you are a woman and don’t know how to go about developing this essential side of you, some individual counselling will help.

Until next time

Regards

Julie

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How hard financial times can cause relationship problems.

Posted on August 6, 2010 by Julie Hart

I think most of us know that when times are tough, we seem to fight more with our partner, but have you ever wondered why? How financial stress is transferred right into relationship problems?

Well, there are 2 areas of the brain mostly responsible for this, the amygdala and the brain stem. Without going into huge detail, our amygdala registers the fear that comes with financial stresses, and before we know it, it has communicated that to our brain stem which goes into survival mode and has us responding in either fight, flight or freezing.

Whichever one is chosen, whenever we are in this survival mode, we are reactive, and it is this reactivity that makes it very difficult for us to be open and receptive to others, which is necessary to have a good relationship with them.

So, we can’t stay open and attune to others, we don’t pause before responding, we can’t empathise with another, we have trouble getting a deeper insight into what is going on between us, we lose contact with our intuition, and we lose access to our moral awareness.

This then has us going down the low road rather than the higher road in our communications with our partner. Once this negative spiral starts, it usually goes nowhere but down, getting quite ugly at times. There are no happy endings unless it is stopped.

We are all potentially prone to this kind of disintegration. The key is to firstly recognise what is happening, and catch yourself as early as possible.

Taking personal responsibility for yourself is the first thing to do.  As soon as you feel yourself reacting rather than responding, when you can feel emotional upset or emotional charge internally, then put up your hand, interrupt the conversation, and say to your partner “I am being reactive”.

Arrange with your partner for this to signal   “We need to stop for 15 minutes, spend time on our own settling down and reflecting on what just happened and why, then come back and return to the conversation from a more aware and neutral place”.

If you can both agree to do this each time either of you is feeling reactive, you can save a huge amount of wasted energy and upset in arguments, and really get to having a healthy conversation, even if , to start with, it is punctuated with a few breaks.

For further help with your communication and relationship problems, I urge you to seek relationship counselling as early as possible, as there is always a solution to a problematic situation.

Regards

Julie

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Why men find empathy difficult.

Posted on August 3, 2010 by Julie Hart

Empathising with our partner is one of those essentials to a happy and healthy relationship. We feel connected with another if we feel he or she takes the time and presence to be there for us and try to understand us.

By “understanding” I mean not only our thoughts but also our feelings. Getting a sense of how another feels is called empathy. Research has shown that the way we empathise with another is by way of our resonance circuits in our brain. By using sensory information, these circuits create representations of the others mind, including their emotions.

The way empathy works is that the mirror neurons in our resonance circuits  pick up emotions from our partner and translate them into our own emotions. When we feel them in us, we recognise them and can understand what our partner is feeling.

However, we must be familiar with our own emotional world in order to map clearly the emotions of our partner.

And this is often the challenge for men. Men are not encouraged to spend time getting in touch with their emotions. But, if you are not in touch with your own sadness, worry, anger, frustration, disappointment, feeling of overwhelm and other feelings, then you won’t be able to “feel” these in your partner.

So the route to empathising with your partner needs to start with getting in touch with your own feelings. As you grow in your ability to know yourself, you become more and more receptive to knowing your partner.

Relationship counselling and individual counselling can help in showing men how to look inward and get to know their internal emotional world first so that empathy will then come more easily.

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