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Principleskills

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the parents were from vastly different countries and their cultural differences strained their marriage. They fiercely loved their teenage son who suffered from anxiety and depression, and desperately sought ways to help him. As I worked with the teenager, I saw that much of his anxiety was related to his parents’ volatile marriage; he felt torn between loyalties and lived in constant fear of divorce. During my counseling sessions with the parents, we discussed ways to improve their husband-wife relationship, and they successfully put our discussions into practice.
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What is a betrayal? According to marriage research expert Dr. John Gottman, betrayals can be either the “deception of not revealing your true needs in order to avoid conflict or a yearning for emotional connection from outside the relationship.”
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Seeking to understand your own past experiences, especially with emotions and how you learned to express them, will help you recognize whether your responses to conflict are healthy or misguided. Meanwhile, understanding your partner’s history will help you develop empathy and serve as a foundation for friendship and trust.
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As a marriage therapist and wife of a veteran police officer, I know firsthand the way a law enforcement career can test relationships. Law enforcement families do not have the luxury of going down the rabbit holes of unproven, ineffective methods to strengthen their marriages and families.
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Defensiveness may be something we learned growing up and can be habit-forming. It ends up being an effective way of avoiding problems rather than managing them effectively. Ultimately, Defensiveness makes things worse.
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Defensiveness is a rejection of an invitation for growth and improvement, and an unwillingness to take responsibility for both the solution and the problem.
Sometimes Defensiveness can be subtle if we’re using a soft tone of voice, or using words such as: “I didn’t mean to,” “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
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You know you have a special relationship, but realize you are capable of feeling so much more for your partner. Your relationship is beautiful at times, but you find you’re both stuck in the same conflicts. These gridlocks are likely affecting your intimacy.
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Dr. Nitin Khanna completed his Spine Fellowship from the prestigious RUSH Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago.