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, …
Tag: Relationships
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, …
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. …
The Secret to Relationship Success: A Strong Friendship
When there is a strong friendship, repairs in the relationship work better. In the Gottman’s book “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” (1999), they talk about the importance of repairs. In any relationship, we have to expect to have …
5 Tips for the 5 Stages of a Relationship
One common myth about great relationships is that there are no arguments or disagreements. The Gottman’s (fantastic relationship experts who have done lots of research in this area, disagree). It is NORMAL to have conflict in a relationship; the issue …
Dating Boundaries
Dating boundaries are important because they reflect the kinds of boundaries we have in other parts of our lives. If our boundaries are non-existent in the beginning, it can be challenging to re-instate them later on. Dating boundaries can be …
How to Respect Boundaries
In many intimate relationships, especially with friends and partners, we get used to them doing certain things and playing certain roles in our lives. When those people decide they need to stop doing those things or playing those roles, it …
A ‘Cycle Breaker’ is Someone in your Family Who…
Generational patterns repeat through a family because people tend to parent how they were parented. Being the ‘cycle breaker’ in a family is not an easy role. It is often not chosen by the person concerned. It is a deep …