If you grew up with a lot of criticism around you, as an adult it is likely that you have a loud critical voice in your head. Usually that critical voice is directed inwards, but in intimate relationships, many people …
How to Escape the Toxic Criticism and Defensiveness Cycle
When someone comes at you with criticism, the natural response is to defend. Criticism is a form of attack, so it is natural to protect instinctively unless you know how criticism and defensiveness play out in a relationship. Those of …
4 Ways of Communicating That Will Destroy Your Relationship
The Gottman’s have spent 40 years studying couple and relationships. They found four communication styles predict the failure of a relationship. The Gottman’s call them the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. First, to begin to work with our communication style, …
4 Tips for Building Resilience
Resilience is “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress” and can be developed by everyone.???????????????? ???????????? ???????????????? ???????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????? ???????????????????? ???????? ???????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????:What can I do to increase connection …
Tips for the ‘Struggle’ Stage of a Relationship
It is normal to have conflict and struggle in a relationship. When you begin a relationship, you usually spend a while in the honeymoon phase and lose part of yourselves as you enter the intoxicating phase of merging. As your …
Questions for You During the ‘Differences’ Stage of Relationship
This is the phase where we step back from the intense merging of the honeymoon phase, we take off the rose-tinted glasses and ask ourselves if we can live with the reality of the other person. It is easy to …
Questions for the Honeymoon Stage
The honeymoon stage usually lasts up to two years but will vary for every relationship. It is the time when we fall in love, Hollywood style. You are both wearing your rose-tinted glasses, you spend a lot of time together, …
Why are Family Secrets Toxic?
???????????? ???????????? ???????????????? ???????? ???????????????? ???? ???????????????????????? ???????????? ???????? ???????????????????? ???????? ???????????????? ????????????????????????? Keeping secrets in families, especially across generations can be harmful for the family and the holder of the secret.Take the example above. Here the mother and child …
The Five Stages of Relationship
Reminder: it is NORMAL to have conflict in a relationship. Excellent relationship researchers, the Gottman’s, discovered that it was not the number of disputes that determined if a relationship was robust or not, but how the couple resolved the conflict. …
Using the Five Love Languages on Valentine’s Day
We all feel love in different ways. It might be that you could spend hours and hours together, but if you were not touched, you would feel completely unloved. Or it might be that you could be hugged and kissed …