Category: Maintaining Healthy Relationships

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Life in General Maintaining Healthy Relationships

Couples: Who calls the shots in your relationship? How the power balance can affect communication in a relationship.

How do power imbalances happen and what effect can these have on relationship satisfaction?

In my couple counselling psychology practice, I have found that power imbalances are pretty common in relationships that are in trouble.

In my couples sessions I  invariably explore the history of each relationship in order to track how  the couple started out and when problems began to develop. Sometimes imbalances existed from the start, for example in a case where  one of the partners had an addiction problem. From the outset the non-addicted partner would be cast in the role of rescuer – the “together” individual who assigned themselves the role of keeping the relationship and their partner in check and on course. This is an example of the co-dependent relationship characterized by the enabler/dependent victim dynamic.

In some relationships, though, a power imbalance does not exist at the start of the relationship but develops at a later stage. Why does this occur? There are many reasons, of course, and each couples’ situation is different. However, in my practice I have noticed that two scenarios are reasonable common. In couples where one partner has cheated either by being unfaithful or by committing some other form of sexual or financial infidelity, the “guilty” partner will invariably be placed in a “one down” position when it comes to determining the future of the relationship.

The other scenario comes about when one of the partners decides to “better themselves” by studying, qualifying and obtaining a better job whilst the other partner, who tends to be less ambitious and/or less motivated, does little to further themselves or improve their prospects. Over time a couple in this type of situation may find it increasingly difficult to stay on the same page in terms of their goals and priorities in life, setting the stage for dissatisfaction and relationship problems.

Sometimes power imbalances can be really subtle. One partner may feel that he or she is trying hard to please the other whilst the other person is doing little to reciprocate and/or one of the couple may believe that they are always having to apologize after and argument whilst their partner never has to admit that they may be at fault.

In couples where major power imbalances have developed, open communication is often compromised, as there is often a great deal of frustration and resentment present in the relationship. This can lead one (or both) of the partners tend to feel unheard and unappreciated. Often one partner will clam up completely when an argument is likely to occur, and as a result contentious issues in the relationship tend to remain unresolved and will in all likelihood continue to fester and to progressively undermine the relationship.

What can couples do if they find themselves in this situation? Power imbalances, once they are firmly established in relationships, are difficult to change. This will be the topic of a future post.

 

 

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Life in General Maintaining Healthy Relationships Relationship Building

“Dear future husband…” Beware of relationship myths and your unconscious expectations…!

In your relationship and in your marriage!

Whenever I hear Meghan Trainor’s new single “Dear Future Husband” I get reminded of think about the myths, beliefs and expectations individuals bring into their intimate relationships, usually unconsciously. These often get revealed in the course of  couple counselling sessions.

I do realise, of course, that the lyrics of the song are “tongue in cheek”! However, often I am surprised by the unquestioning beliefs individuals and couples hold about the nature of relationships in general, and about what they need to do in order to maintain a happy relationship and/or marriage.

You may ask why this matters? Well, unrealistic myths and beliefs about how relationships should be conducted inform  our expectations of our partner and of ourselves and when these are not realized a great deal of frustration and unhappiness is inevitable, usually leading to relationship problems.

For example, if you are your partner believes that “relationships that are meant to be should be effortless” (as stated by one of my clients during individual counselling – their partner refused to attend couple counselling for this reason!) then they will also believe (I would expect, though of course unconscious beliefs are not necessarily logically related) that if a relationship is not going well at any point that it is not meant to be!

Consider a verse from Ms Trainor’s song: “After every fight, just apologize, and maybe then I’ll try to rock your body right, Even if I was wrong, You know I;m never wrong, Why disagree? Why, why disagree?”

Of course, we will all probably chuckle at these lyrics! However, in my psychology practice, it would see many couples where one partner always calls the shots in the relationship. The reasons for this dynamic will differ for every couple. However, in my experience, it is very rarely the case that a relationship can happily survive such an unbalanced power balance in the long term (maybe this was possible in the “old days” but not anymore).

In my experience, if partners don’t routinely feel heard, acknowledged and respected in their relationship, this will violate their expectations of how a worthwhile relationship should operate, and the writing will be on the wall for the couple unless they wake up to the danger and take steps to change the dynamic without delay.

Have you explored your own unconscious beliefs and expectations regarding your own relationship?! This exercise could be an eye-opener!

 

 

Categories
Life in General Maintaining Healthy Relationships

Couples: Does your partner sometimes drive you crazy?

With some behaviour that you can’t stand?

How likely is it that he/she will change?

 

Unhappy couples who see me for relationship counselling usually complain at length about their partner’s problematic behaviour.

Often, though, their partner is not convinced that their behaviour is a problem and hence they are unwilling to do the work required to bring about behaviour change.

How can we assess our partner’s readiness for change?

Ellen Bader, an international trainer of therapists in the specialist field  of couple counselling, has come up with an interesting way to determine a partner’s motivation for change. See the video at http://www.couplesinstitute.com/clutter-battle/

As Ellen discusses in her video, motivation is a complex issue and involves a number of components namely desire for change, evaluation of the likelihood of success divided by the degree of unwanted effort required as well as the degree of emotional risk.

It is important for the partner who is initiating the request for change to occur in their spouse to be open to their own emotional underpinnings for wanting the change to occur. The partner should also be encouraging and provide positive reinforcement in the form of acknowledgement and praise for signs of positive change.

I would welcome your comments on this model once you have given it a try!

 

 

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Life in General Maintaining Healthy Relationships

Couples take note! If you want to tie the knot…

There are certain things that predict a long and happy marriage.

Recent research cited in a blog post in Psyblog has identified four factors that are associated with long and happy marriages.

These are:

1. Fewer sexual partners before marriage, especially for women. Why? It is suggested that the more sexual experience one has, the greater one’s awareness of potentially greener pastures out there!

2. Committing to marriage before moving in together. This prevents “sliding” through relationship transitions without conscious decision and without ritual. Sliding can be dangerous to relationships as it tends to erode commitment.

3. Invite more than 150 guests to your wedding. This may prove expensive, but research findings indicate that big weddings tend to be associated with happier marriages on the long-term!

4. Waiting until after marriage to have children.

The research cited in this article states that only 3% of college educated couples who had children before marriage went on to have a good marriage!

 

I don’t know about you, but I found these findings to be thought-provoking and potentially really important for prospective spouses!

Reference:http://www.spring.org.uk/2014/08/new-study-affirms-4-very-old-fashioned-guidelines-for-a-good-marriage.php

 

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Maintaining Healthy Relationships

Couples and Relationships: Continually sniping at your partner?

Couples – recognize the danger signs in your relationships!

When unhappy couples arrive at my couples counselling and mediation psychology practice, they are often in the danger zone where things have become pretty bad between them so they have finally resorted to getting some help.

When I ask them about the history of their relationship, couples often mention that they have been sniping at each other regularly for quite some time, both when they are on their own and also in the company of friends and family. They usually report that that they didn’t regard their sarcastic comments and other types of put-downs as a serious problem at the time.

If this is happening in your relationship, take serious note! This behaviour pattern is an indication that there are deeper issues between you and your partner which are causing feelings of resentment and discontent, which if left unchallenged and unresolved can undermine the trust and commitment that you have towards one another and may ultimately lead to the demise of your relationship.

Therefore I advise that if sniping is an everyday occurence in your relationship that you address this effectively without delay!

 

 

 

 

Categories
Life in General Maintaining Healthy Relationships

Couples: Beware of Self-diagnosis in your Relationship!

Communication is the key to happy relationships

When individuals and couples come to see me for counselling, they often already have a come up with a label to explain their problem. Sometimes it’s a diagnosis in respect of their partner, for example “I think our problems in our relationship are the result of his/her narcissistic personality disorder”.

Diagnosing one’s own ailments with the aid of the internet is always a risky undertaking, especially when it comes to mental health. However, in the realm of relationships it is even more problematic for a number of reasons.

A diagnosis inevitably relates to an individual only. You or your partner are regarded as “The Problem” because one of you is judged to has a “Disorder”. This puts the “blame” for the couple’s problems squarely in the lap of one of the spouses. The other one often feels that they are not implicated to any degree and are thus completely off the hook in terms of their responsibility to try to work at improving their relationship.

In this type of scenario, often the spouse who is given the disorder “label” comes to therapy alone, stating that if they were to be able to “fix” themselves, that the relationship problems would be solved.  Often, however, the main problem resides in the relationship itself, in the dynamics between the couple – their “relationship dance”, communication patterns and the way in which conflict is resolved.

 

In my opinion, a great opportunity is lost if an unhappy couple do not opt for couple counselling as a starting point, especially if their individual problems arise principally in their relationship with their significant other.

 

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Life in General Maintaining Healthy Relationships Psychology in practice

Couples and Relationships: The “Big Four” Relationship Problems.

And how to go about dealing with them!

In my experiece as a clinical psychologist who specializes in couples counselling and relationship problems, the main issues that bring couples into counselling and therapy are:

1. Poor communication

2. Money issues

3. Children and parenting problems

4. Conflict with in-laws and extended family

 

Poor communication is the number one problem for most of the couples that I see. Partners tend to complain that they can’t seem to “connect” with each other any longer and their communication is no longer an easy, comfortable aspect of their lives but seems fraught with misunderstandings, anomosity and disrespect. Intimacy tends, of course to go out the window when this type of pattern becomes the norm in a relationship.

 

So what can be done when a relationship reaches this stage?

 

In my experience when communication breaks down between a couple this is often not the cause of their problems but tends to be the result of an often insiduous relationship breakdown.

First a couple needs to acknowledge that their relationship is in trouble and to arrange to get some help. It is estimated that couples who are having problems tend to wait for six years on average before going for couples counselling (John Gottman’s research).

Couples should also prioritise their work to get their relationship back on track. This entails scheduling regular time to spend quality time together enjoying each other’s company – go out on dates!  When you are out together vow to NOT discuss serious and contentious issues – leave these for a weekly meeting where you sit down and have a more formal discussion. 

Don’t let arguments get out of hand. Agree with your partner that when either of you start to notice that emotions are running high that you stop the interaction, have a “time-out” and agree to resume the discussion when you are both calm. It is important, though, to always get back to an issue until it is resolved rather than “shoving it under the mat”.

Resolve, too, to always speak to each other in a respectful way and to never resort to being rude and hurtful.

 

After all, you profess to love this person!

 

In the next post I will talk about money issues in relationships.

 

 

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Life in General Maintaining Healthy Relationships Managing stress Psychology in practice

Couples and Singles: How high is your Couples’ EQ?

When it comes to relationships, are you any good at intimacy and emotional connection?

Valentine’s Day again! Perhaps this is a good moment to refect on how you are doing relationship-wise! Not only in your intimate relationship(s) but also in your relationships with all the other people in your life.

According to an article in the most recent edition of “Psychotherapy Networker”, there are two essential skill sets involved in keeping our relationships on track. These are distress tolerance and the ability to self-soothe in times of conflict, and emotional accessibility.

In my couple counselling practice I have found that being caught in a negative cycle of negativity and escalating conflict is one of the main characteristic of unhappy relationships. Couples who are at this stage of their relationship usually find it impossible to get out of this cycle without some type of professional help. John Gottmann calls this the “Roach Motel” phenomenon.

So what is involved in these two essential skills sets?

Distress tolerance and the ability to self-soothe concerns how well we are able to stay calm “under fire” – not to get angry and defensive in the face of anger and criticism from one’s partner, but to stay in a receptive and empathic state. Of couse is is very difficult and requires a great deal of practise for most of us! 

Emotional Accessibility is about being able to stay emotionally engaged with one’s partner, even when one is in the middle of an arguement. It is not easy to stay emotionally present in a conflict situation as we all know! (individuals characeristically either go into anger or withdrawal mode. Both styles only serve to intensify the conflict and will cause a relationship to deteriorate if the pattern continues over time).

 

According to research findings in neuroscience, once new, healthy relationship styles have been developed these have to be practised consistently over time in order to make the new pattern your “default” by rewiring the brain. 

 

The good news, though, is that effective relationship skills can be learned!

 

Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

References: The Great Deception. Brent Atkinson in Psychotherapy Networker, January/February 2014.

John Gottmann and Nan Silver (2012). What Makes Love Last? How to build trust and avoid betrayal.

 

 

 

 

Categories
Life in General Maintaining Healthy Relationships

Is you relationship in trouble? Opt for couple, not individual, counselling!

If you are having serious problems in your relationship, like infidelity, but want to save it, maybe because you still love each other and/or have children together, individual counselling at this precarious stage may actually do more harm than good!

Why do I say that?

1. Individual counselling or psychotherapy usually focuses on the interests and well-being of the client in the room. When things are looking bad in a relationship, it may seem that to struggle on will take a huge toll on the individual. The therapy may therefore be biased against maintaining the relationship.

2. The counsellor or therapist only hears one side of the story and it is therefore difficult to assess how viable the relationship actually is and how much the other person wants to work on things.

3. Major relationship problems like infidelity are unique to relationships. It is important that each partner understand the particular relationship dynamic underlying the problem and also how their partner experiences the problem from his/her perspective. This is essential to restore communication and to re-establish trust. This process can’t be kick-started in an individual counselling context. I fimly believe that couple counselling in this type of situation is the only way to go!

 

Categories
Life in General Maintaining Healthy Relationships Psychology in practice

Couples and relationships: How best to cope with a mother (daughter) – in law – from hell?

In my psychology practice I have many clients and couples where in-laws play a big role in the relationship – often in a very bad way! In many cases the in-laws, and usually predominantly the mother-in-law, is a major source of relationship conflict and numerous fights between the couple that recur time after time because nothing in the dynamic ever changes!

In fact I have seen a number of couples for couples counselling who tell me that their relationship is on the rocks, largely due to issues and differences of opinion about one or both sets of parents. And of course, in many cases, the in-laws appear to be far from blameless in the whole saga!

Sometimes it is a case of a mom-in-law not wanting to let go of her number one place in her child’s (usually her son’s) life, and then there are clients who are in their own marriage or intimate relationship yet still seem to be so enmeshed in the lives of their parents, and vice versa, to the degree that they seem unable to put their spouse’s needs, and the needs of their own relationship, first.

With other clients who are in couple counselling with me, one partner might complain that he/she feels caught in the middle in the war between their spouse andhis/her parents and doesn’t know which way to jump to avoid the fallout!

All in all, this type of dynamic can, and usually does, play havoc on any relationship!

So the question is – what can be done?

I will explore this question further in my next post…

 

Your comments and suggestions would be welcome!