“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.
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.
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.
What does this mean?
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.
Name-calling, possessiveness, manipulation – this kind of psychological torture can be subtle, but the scars aren’t.
When Bec, 20, started going out with Chris, life was sweet. But as time passed, he began to change. “He started telling me what I should wear, what I should be eating and who I should be friends with”, she says.
At first Bec thought he was just joking, and brushed the criticism aside. But his controlling nature got worse and Bec eventually stopped talking to friends and her family – because Chris didn’t like them. “I knew it wasn’t right but I put up with it. I was afraid what would happen if I broke up with him”.
You might think you know what domestic abuse looks like – the photos of Rihanna’s bruised and battered face are pretty hard to forget – but ask any psychologist and they’ll agree that Bec was the victim of abuse. Abuse of the emotional kind.
What does emotional abuse look like?
“People experiencing emotional abuse feel trapped”, says psychologist, Angelica Bilibio. “Often, people don’t realise that they’re in an emotionally abusive relationship because it’s not as tangible as other forms of violence. But it’s psychological violence, and can be as bad as physical and sexual abuse”.
It’s precisely because this kind of relationship is so subtle, and slow to develop, that it can be difficult to recognise as being toxic.
Alarm bells
So what is emotional abuse? “Common signs include a lack of empathy for the victim; anger; demanding and selfish behaviour; destructive patterns when dealing with conflict; and an emotional climate marked by hot and cold”, says Bilibio.
“The victim feels ‘unseen’ in the relationship, and that they’re constantly walking on eggshells”.
Also, forget the idea that abuse always involves a physical element, adds psychologist, David Indermaur. “Many perpetrators of domestic violence never actually hit their victim”, he says.
The long-term effects of this kind of abuse include major trust issues, low self-esteem, health problems, depression, anxiety, and a decrease in functioning (think: work and sleep problems).
When love is all too blind
In unhealthy relationships, it can be difficult to accept that the person you love is hurting you. Domestic abusers exploit the other person’s affection or dependency for their personal gain. “They can be very convincing, loving and appreciative”, says Bilibio.
The abuser regularly uses push-and-pull tactics to assert control. Bec recalls, “Chris would say something really rude, and then if I got offended he would blame himself and apologise profusely. It was really confusing. He came from a pretty violent family, so it also frightened me”.
It’s especially hard to see things straight if you’re not that experienced with relationships. Emma was 18 when she met 24-year-old David. “It was my first adult relationship”, she says. “I just thought every guy acted like this”.
David discouraged Emma from seeing her friends, and made negative comments about her weight. Over time her confidence was so diminished, she no longer knew what was normal.
“Eventually, my parents sat me down. I began to realise his behaviour was wrong. When I think about abuse, I think about violence – but emotional abuse is so subtle. You begin to doubt your inner voice because you’ve become so groomed and manipulated that you can’t see right from wrong”.
Danger zone
When a cycle of dysfunction starts to feel normal, it becomes harder to get out. It took Cara, now 31, four years to leave her boyfriend, Josh.
“Every day there was a negative comment – ‘you’re fat, you’re ugly, I’m the only one who would possibly want you’”, she recalls. But the abuse didn’t stop there. At first it was a few pushes. Then, when she fell pregnant and opted to have an abortion, Josh punched her in the stomach repeatedly.
It got so bad Cara contemplated suicide. “It was the darkest moment of my life”, she says. The violence went on until the day Josh tried to strangle her. “I thought, ‘Holy sh!t, I’m gonna die, because of this idiot’”.
She finally walked out, but the scars remain. Over the course of their relationship she’d racked up $150 000 debt on her credit card to support him, put on 60kg, and lost her career in law. “I’m still undoing the damage from that time now”, Cara admits.
Getting out
Summoning the courage to leave can be the hardest part. If you decide to go, tell a friend first. “Have a safety plan, and deliver the news remotely”, advises Indermaur. “Research shows that the most dangerous time for a woman is at that particular moment”.
If you’re not sure whether you’re being emotionally abused, consider this: “A relationship should make you feel better than when you’re by yourself”, says Indermaur. If you don’t feel good around him, talk to a trusted friend or a professional
How can you be a friend in need?
Worried that someone you know could be caught in an emotionally abuse relationship?
Gentle, clear intervention and unconditional support is the best way to go. Be careful not to be too critical about their partner. “Most women will get their guard up”, says Cara. “If friends had approached me in a logical way and given me an article on domestic violence, I’d probably have read the characteristics, and gone, ‘Oh my God, that’s me’”.
Indermaur suggests it’s better to listen than to give advice. “Let the person know what’s normal and what’s not – that kind of clarity is often very helpful”.
If you are experiencing any of these signs of emotional abuse or if you are not sure and would like to talk it over with a professional, we have experienced Relationship Psychologists in Sydney and all capital and large regional cities in Australia. We can help you. Contact us now.
(This is an article written in the July 2013 edition of Cosmopolitan magazine where 2 of our
Sydney Hart Psychologists Angelica Bilibio & David Indermaur were interviewed.)
Why is it that droves of smart, competent, savvy, successful women right across the world, are still waking up to find that they have lost or diminished themselves in their relationship yet again?
Having counselled many thousands of women in their relationships and individually over the last 12 years as a Psychologist, one of the most striking patterns I have discovered is how little women, truly love and honor themselves, and it particularly shows up in their relationships.
Many women neither know of, nor believe in, their own true power.
Even with a generation of women’s liberation, there are many secret places where women still do not feel and act on their true and authentic power.
Are you one of the many women who, although successful in many ways in their lives, have not found your full female power yet, and particularly in your closest relationships?
Biologically, both the female brain and the effects of estrogen in their system means that women are built primarily for connection and social harmony, and that is what drives a female to do from birth.
Without being conscious of it at all, maintaining the social approval of others, and the relationship at all costs is the goal, if you are “wired” and “marinated” as a girl.
So, in summary and in general, women put their relationship needs first, their personal needs second; and men put their own needs first, and their relationship needs second.
Or alternatively, women tend to over-function in their togetherness and emotional closeness, and under-function in their independent, individual self.
Men, on the other hand, tend towards over-functioning on their individual self, and under-functioning in their togetherness and emotional closeness.
To have a happy life with a fabulous relationship, we need BOTH in equal measures.
If you are a woman, who has lost a lot of yourself in your relationship,then the solution is learning how and where this has happened, and how you can become more true to yourself and go for what you love, first and foremost.
There are 2 steps in the empowerment process.
Step 1. Discover just what you have given up for love.
How have you shrunk, or squashed yourself in your relationship? (like as soon as you think of something you would like or love, you just cancel it in your own mind)
Where are you feeling contracted in your life, and does it relate to your being in your relationship?
Have you lost the feeling of your own potential? What parts of yourself have you not yet experienced or explored, or lost?
What aspects of your relationship drain you and your energy?
Where have you defined yourself as your partner defines you?
Where have you behaved in ways because you sought your partner’s approval?
Step 2. Start tapping into your Inner Authentic Power
First stop what’s not been working
Start with you by designing your life from the inside out.
Use your anger and resentment as your Wake-up Call
Finding your Goddess energy, and showing your man the difference between love making and sex.
“It’s women who create life. Women who inspire. Women who can bring out the hero in every ordinary man. Women who understand the language of ecstasy. Ah, what a privilege it is to be a woman” (Regina Thomashauer)
If you need help with empowering yourself in your relationship, we have Individual and Relationship Psychologists in Sydney and all other capital cities and large regional areas of Australia. Call us now for an appointment or you can use our Search box to the right of this page to find our Psychologist closest to you
Despite our fairy tales any one who has been around for a while knows that they are not always easy.
They are challenging, they require us to adjust, dig deep, become better people, forgive, support and nurture.
This difficult aspect of relationships is a big part of why they are actually so good for us. However not all relationships are good for us, some don’t allow us to grow but require us to diminish ourselves.
Should I stay or should I go?
It is worth considering some basic principles that are useful to keep in mind when grappling with difficult relationships and dealing with the most basic of all relationship questions – should I stay or should I go?
We can approach this question in a number of different ways but at its heart the question is: “is this worth it?” Translation: Will I be better off staying in this relationship or will I be better off leaving?
Often we don’t know how to assess whether we will be better off in or out.
Sometimes we know we will be better off out of the relationship but we don’t feel strong enough to leave, or we are afraid of leaving. If we really believe that we would be better off out but we don’t want to leave out of fear or lack of self confidence it is important to know that help is available. Some of these sources of help will be listed below.
You don’t have the right to leave?
One of the most common obstacles to leaving (even when you have decided that you would be better off out of the relationship) is the belief that you don’t have the right to leave.
It is important to know that you do have the right to leave. This is a free country and every individual has the right to decide whether to be in a relationship. The relationship does not, and can not, exist without the consent, that is the free choice of both parties.
One party might want the relationship but unless the other party also chooses the relationship there is no relationship.
Relationships are a choice you can make
This way of looking at things is helpful because it makes it plain that the relationship is a matter of choice. You choose to be in a relationship with a certain person and every moment you stay with that person you are choosing to be in the relationship. It is important to actually feel this choice and to get in touch with the choice aspect of the relationship.
Sometimes we try to fool ourselves and believe we are “stuck” in a relationship in the same way as if we were shipwrecked and stuck on a dessert island. Why would we do this?
Why do we feel we are stuck here?
One of the most common reasons is that we don’t want to admit that although there are lots of things about the person and the relationship that we don’t like we figure that even a broken down relationship is better than no relationship at all.
So it comes back to our choice – we are choosing to be in the relationship – but now we don’t want to admit that it is our choice – we like to think we are stuck in the relationship or being held in the relationship against our will.
This way we can complain about our partner, feel bad about the relationship and ourselves but also don’t have to face the prospect of being alone.
Even though they know that they are loosing more and more self esteem and that they are unhappy they believe that the prospect of being alone would be so terrible it is better to stay in the prison they know as their relationship.
Just as a smoker develops an intimate relationship with cigarettes and believes he/she couldn’t survive without them, a person in a destructive relationship often comes to believe that things would be so terrible if they were to be alone it is better to put up with a life sentence of an unhappy relationship.
No one else can make you stay in or leave a relationship – that choice has to be yours. If you feel stuck in a destructive relationship and want to get out but don’t feel strong enough please be aware that there are many people willing and able to help you.
Is there violence in your relationship?
A healthy relationship can be defined in a number of ways but it must fundamentally be a safe relationship – you should feel safe in a relationship you choose.
A relationship that involves violence is unhealthy.
Violence is an extreme form of coercion or control. When one party tries to take the choice away from the other person by using emotional or physical abuse they are being violent and they are violating the first rule of all relationships – it is a matter of choice.
We are not living in a country where anyone has the right to take this choice away from you. But we are living in a country where many people will try and take this choice away from you. This is because they have developed the belief that they can do this and maybe even that it is right to do this.
Mostly people get these wrong ideas from the families they grew up in – maybe they watched their mother or father abuse and control their partner and so they think this is OK – or even normal – and they try to get away with it in their relationship.
It is important to take a stand against this violence.
Everyone has a choice and everyone has their rights. Many have experienced some form of physical domestic violence. Many more have experienced the non-physical forms of domestic violence – attempts to control or coerce through verbal, emotional and psychological abuse.
Develop a “radar” for any signs that your partner is trying to dominate or control you or coerce you – for example with emotional blackmail.
It is important that if you feel like you are with someone who could get violent that you have a safety plan – that means a carefully worked out plan to get away from where the violent man will be and where he knows you will be.
If you are planning to leave a relationship and there is any suggestion or possibility of physical force being an issue – plan your move carefully, get to a safe place somewhere he doesn’t know about and break the news over the phone or with a letter – this gives him time to absorb the message and calm down.
Don’t be fooled into putting yourself at risk for any reason.
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.
The Gottman Method is a couple’s therapy system developed by Dr. John M Gottman and Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman who formed the Gottman Institute in 1996 after running the “Gottman’s Love Lab” since 1986.
John and Julie Gottman are truly the pioneers in relationship research and have developed an effective couples therapy approach based on rigorous scientific research, and to this day, no-one else has surpassed the amount of scientific research they have done.
Their mission is to offer a program of couples therapy to help the therapist neutralise conflicting verbal communication, improve issues around intimacy, dysfunction, difficulties with empathy, affection, and respect, and to help the couples understand their role and impact on the relationship.
WHO IS DR. JOHN M GOTTMAN?
Dr. John Gottman has dedicated 50 years of his life to research in marriage and parenting approaches. His methods and breakthrough research have led to numerous mental health and family therapy awards, and he was one of the top 10 most influential therapists by the Psychotherapy Networker. Dr Gottman has released over 200 published academic articles and over 40 books, including bestseller “The seven principles for making marriage work”
WHO IS DR. JULIE SCHWARTZ GOTTMAN?
Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman is a highly regarded and respected clinical psychologist, married to Dr. John Gottman. Julie Gottman was an early spokesperson and leading advisor on controversial topics such as same-sex marriage, gay and lesbian adoption, cancer patients and their families, trauma survivors, substance abuse, sexual harassment, rape, and domestic violence. She has been recognised for her effective clinical psychotherapy treatments with specialisation in distressed couples and trauma victims.
WHAT IS THE GOTTMAN METHOD?
The Gottman’s research has revealed several models for couples therapy.
THE 4 HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE
One of the major insights the Gottman’s research has revealed is a foundational one that couples in trouble display one or more of the following 4 elements:
criticism
contempt
defensiveness
stonewalling
The Gottman’s call these the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse
The first 2, criticism and contempt are used as active weapons against each other, whereas the last 2, defensiveness and stonewalling are used as isolating and protective shields. All four horsemen are direct relational assaults on the harmony between the couple and are the cause of major problems in relationships.
THE SOUND RELATIONSHIP HOUSE THEORY
Imagine your relationship as a house, where the walls are built from Trust and Commitment, and within these walls we have rooms that all need to be filled to build a good and sustainable relationship:
1. Trust
The foundation of all relationships is based on trust. Trust involves two or more parts where each partner is acting and thinking in the other’s best interests.
2. Commitment
Committing to a relationship is a mutual dedication to nurture, respect and value each other in all situations, and for an indefinite journey with common goals to stay together for better and for worse.
3. Create shared meaning
Finding what the unique visions and narratives are for your relationship.
4. Make life dreams come true
Holding a safe space where each individual in the couple feel comfortable sharing their hopes, values and aspirations for the relationship.
How to develop a positive approach to problem-solving and repairing past conflicts.
7. Turn towards instead of away
Build on curiosity towards a problem to connect and respond rather than react and turning away.
8. Share fondness and admiration#
Measuring the level of affection and respect within the relationship, strengthen the way this is expressed through fondness and admiration, to lower the level of contempt and resentment.
9. Build love maps
Understanding and building compassion towards each other’s psychological world, their history, worries, stresses, joys and hopes.
THE GOTTMAN’S 10 PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE COUPLES THERPAY
The Gottman’s approach is based on 10 principles of effective couples therapy.
Replace the four horsemen with gentle conflict management skills
Strengthen friendship and intimacy
Suspend moral judgement when treating affairs
Dive deep to create shared meaning between the couple
John Gottman and his team are most famous for his very thorough and extensive research and assessment methods. Some of these include:
-Interaction Assessing each partner’s behaviours and interactions within the couples dynamic and what emotions and triggers that come up in different contexts;
–Perception
Using specific questionnaires, interviews and video recall for self-assessments;
–Physiology
Observation and measuring of autonomic and endocrine responses in conflict situations;
–Interviewing
The verbal history in a couple, observed emotions, and interactions;
If you are looking for a very thorough and extensive approach to assessment and couples counselling, we would recommend the Gottman Method.
OUR HART CENTRE COUPLES THERAPISTS THAT OFFERS THE GOTTMAN METHOD IN RELATIONSHIP COUNSELLING
Our Hart Centre relationship psychologists and counsellors have been specifically trained to help you with the unique problems that come in various family dynamics. We have psychologists in each city, as well as Skype counselling options for those who can’t make it into one of our offices. Find our Gottman Specific counsellors on the link below.
In an ideal world we would choose parents who are caring, empathic and loving, and who allow us to grow up as secure and happy individuals and give us values that prepare us to navigate through this world with confidence. As we grow up, we realise that life is not a bed of roses, and if we flip the coin, we can quickly see that, even for the most well educated, caring and secure individuals, parenting is not the easiest job in the world.
As adults, and especially when we get into relationships or become parents ourselves, we often develop more awareness of our own triggers and behaviours – many of which we may not be so proud of. We might see ourselves reflected in our children, and to our own dismay, realise that we are behaving just like our parents did when we were young. This can spark memories of how our parents’ behaviours used to make us feel.
We might show behaviours in adulthood we aren’t particularly proud of, such as disorganisation, mannerisms, or a sloppy lifestyle, or we might have similar anger outbursts or communication issues. It is then easy to deflect that blame of our behaviours onto our parents who imprinted that blueprint in the first place.
5 THINGS THAT CAN HELP YOU TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN LIFE
While you may have experienced much that can be considered trauma in its many forms as a child, and it is important to acknowledge and have compassion for yourself in having had to live through those experiences, it can be easy to get stuck in blaming your parents for your misfortune for a very long time, and this doesn’t allow you to fully learn from these experiences and move on to live your fullest life.
STOP BLAMING OTHERS FOR YOUR MISTAKES
So, you might not remember your childhood as all joyful and sparkly; you might even have been faced with trauma, neglect, addictions, divorce, or sibling rivalry. Or you might have had one parent with unfavourable behaviours which you notice have impacted you as an adult. The number one thing that will help you move on with your life is to take responsibility for your life from here on in, instead of remaining as a victim of your childhood experiences.
EMPATHY AND COMPASSION GO A LONG WAY
Once you’ve been able to be compassionate with yourself, it’s time, if you can, to offer some compassion to your parents. Just like yourself, they were only given the manual of life handed down from their own parents, who in their turn had it handed to them from their parents and so on. Add in traumatic events, poverty, addictions, and trauma into the mix and we can often realise parenting has never been an easy task. Your parents may well have done the best they could with what they knew and in the circumstances in which they were living. With these kinds of understandings you may be able to look on your parents with a softer lens, and discover more of their frailties and humanness.
ALLOW YOURSELF TO SEE A LESS JUDGMENTAL SIDE
The world we live in is so full of resentments and judgements. We often jump to the conclusion that what is done to us was of malicious intent, and repeated behaviours are signs of laziness or selfishness. We often are quick to judge the reason behind someone’s actions, but we don’t always consider that there might be other factors that can explain why a person acts in certain ways.
ARE THERE UNDERLYING NEUROLOGICAL DIFFERENCES, PAST TRAUMA, OR ADDICTIONS?
Today, we are becoming increasingly aware of the neurological differences amongst our fellow earth beings. An increasing number of children and adults are being diagnosed with conditions such as ADHD, Autism and Bipolar disorder, and we are becoming more informed of addictions and emotional abuse in families, and it is becoming more accepting to speak about past traumas and abuse.
If we could perhaps see our experience of our parents through some of these lenses, maybe the disorganisation, anger outbursts and emotional dysregulation may be explained as a condition such as ADHD or bipolar disorder? Could the black and white thinking, abruptness, difficulty understanding other’s point of view, awkward social abilities and poor communication in fact be something like autism spectrum disorder?
Our healing journey to a happy life starts here and now with you. Once we realise that we can’t change our past, we can make a choice to educate ourselves, to heal, and to learn how to do things better.
We can give our children a different childhood than the one we had. Our best life for ourselves, and our children is in our hands and does not need to be limited by our past.
HOW CAN I FIND HELP IN HEALING FROM A DIFFICULT CHILDHOOD?
Our Hart Centre relationship psychologists and counsellors have been specifically trained to help you with the unique problems that come in various family dynamics. We have psychologists in each city, as well as Skype counselling options for those who can’t make it into one of our offices.
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:
The 2 things we do:
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.
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?
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.
to our moral awareness.
