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Wellness Articles Articles in Couples Counseling
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Self-Love: A Responsible Ingredient for Loving Relationships
By: VitalityLink Finder    Monday, Jan 02, 2012
Before you can love and accept someone else, you must love and accept yourself. According to this well-known principle, self-love is noble if not necessary for a fulfilling life. So why does the idea of acting from self-love make many of us cringe? Taking the reprimanding sting out of self-love is one of the therapeutic goals of marriage and family therapist Mary Robinson, MA, LMFT. Many people think self-love is selfish, when it's actually just the opposite, said Robinson, who has more than 20 years' experience as a psychotherapist. When we receive our own attention and loving care, we ...Read More
Finding Your Other Half
By: VitalityLink Finder    Saturday, Dec 31, 2011
The word canard comes from a French expression which means to half-sell a duck, in other words, to make a fool of someone. A canard is a ridiculously false report, a fabrication.The first canard is couples have to work at marriage, that hard work can make a marriage work. Isn't that more than ridiculous? Isn't that a contradiction in terms? If you love strawberries, did you have to work at loving strawberries You don't have to work at being with the one who's right for you. Right halves have a natural understanding. The whole vocabulary of their relationship, their language, is different. ...Read More
Lesbian Battering: The Relationship Between Personality and the Perpetration of Violence
By: VitalityLink Finder    Monday, Dec 26, 2011
Traditionally, the battered women's movement and domestic violence theory have focused on heterosexual battering and the perpetration of violence by men. Only within recent years has violence in lesbian relationships begun to be acknowledged and addressed. The reality of women battering other women challenges societal stereotypes of women and dismantles the structure of gender-based, sociopolitical domestic violence theory. In addition, for lesbians to acknowledge battering in their relationships stands in opposition to the lesbian myth of healthy, violence-free, egalitarian relationships. ...Read More
Real-Ationships for New Age
By: VitalityLink Finder    Monday, Dec 26, 2011
What are real-ationships? They are the way of the future. They are what God intends of us for they carry the premise for us to be in our divinity. They presume we have worked through most of our fears, worries, concerns, and inabilities to be in relationship. They require we free ourselves as much as possible from our egos. They demand we feel and look within our own hearts and that of our beloved. They force us to be all that we can be-no more half-hearted relationships. Most of us have not had good relationship role models from our upbringing or from society. Many relationships are ...Read More
Breakin' Up is Hard to do
By: VitalityLink Finder    Sunday, Dec 25, 2011
All of us at one time or another has had to let go of a relationship – either through a break-up or divorce. This is often a particularly difficult time and I validate (been there) that this can be very painful. But now is the time – more than ever, that deep healing can take place if we look with the eyes of Spirit and learn more about ourselves and why we attracted this experience to us. There are so many reasons why people come together – they don’t want to be alone, they are looking for a regular sex partner, two incomes buy a bigger home or better apartment, they ...Read More
Dropping the Drama
By: VitalityLink Finder    Sunday, Dec 25, 2011
Relationships are an important aspect of our lives and it’s beneficial to keep in mind that when encountering another, we are always trading energy. A positive exchange of energy can renew us and those are the encounters we must strive for. On the other hand, there are people who exude negative energy that drains us. Often, they are attracted to drama and they gain energy by telling us about their latest theatrical experiences. Typically, a “drama queen” is not interested in taking responsibility for her role in life’s events. Rather, her tendency is to blame external ...Read More
'Tis Healthier to Give
By: VitalityLink Finder    Sunday, Dec 25, 2011
As a therapist I tend to see couples at the end of their rope. Sometimes they have been together for over 30 years and all that’s left now is sadness, anger and a vague hope that I can somehow “fix” the relationship. Sometimes they come looking for an excuse to break up as if I were a priest who could give their disunion her blessing. Dan and Peg are such a couple. Both in their late 50s with grown children, they had been married since leaving school. Both wanted escape from the prison of their dysfunctional families and saw marriage to each other as a way out of the trap. ...Read More
Creating Self-Esteem Through Relationships
By: VitalityLink Finder    Sunday, Dec 25, 2011
As everyone knows, you have to feel good about yourself before you can have a good relationship, right? Wrong! You can't have high self-esteem if the people in your life aren't making you feel good about yourself. So how do you turn the situation around and begin to create relationships that make you feel like a million dollars instead of a bad penny? The answer lies in seven simple steps. Each of them is doable, although they do require determination. The prize, however, is self-confidence, great relationships, and a good shot at success in whatever you attempt. First, let's look at why we ...Read More
Find Yourself a Good Woman (Or Best Friend)
By: VitalityLink Finder    Friday, Dec 23, 2011
In the '50s they said "diamonds are a girl's best friend," but that was before we all learned the value of "meaningful relationships." Now, in addition to being smarter than us (surveys show most women still want that) and to earn more (surveys again), we want our romantic partner to be our best friend. We are prepared to work very hard to bring this about and we may feel that we and/or the relationship has failed if we don't. But this isn't true. No one person can meet all your needs, and they're not supposed to. As mentioned before in this column, human beings were meant to live in groups ...Read More
The Power of Setting Goals
By: VitalityLink Finder    Monday, Dec 19, 2011
Regular readers know that I live, work, and travel full-time with my husband in an RV (recreational vehicle). Our combined living and workspace is less than 350 square feet. To live and work happily with another person in a space this size requires a partnership of unusual compatibility. I give Jim a majority of the credit. Unlike me, he is even-tempered, patient, and great with details, numbers, mechanics, and technology. We complement one another beautifully. My partnership with Jim is one of the greatest miracles and blessings of my life. If you knew anything about my previous ...Read More