• Successfully express your own desires.
• Get to the root of your problems and dissolve them.
• Create romance, fun and intimacy.

The workshop is kept small to allow for a safe and relaxed environment.  Except for a brief introduction, you will not be required to share anything with the group unless you choose to.

The workshop is appropriate for you if:

• You are beginning a relationship you want to keep.
• You want to enrich and deepen an already good relationship.
• You are having difficulties in your relationship and want to resolve long-standing conflicts and learn to successfully repair your ruptures.
• You are undecided about continuing your relationship.

Tim and Norene are dynamic presenters who have both presented on numerous topics for the past 25 years.  Together they provide many years of Imago expertise and are excited to provide this great workshop, created by Harville Hendrix.

The workshops are held Friday evening 6-9pm,  Saturday from 8:30-6:30 and Sunday 8:30-6:30pm. The Bend workshop is to be held at the Phoenix Inn, 300 NW Franklin Ave. It is not necessary to stay at the hotels, but if you would like to book a room, please call (541) 317-9292. Lodging is not included in the cost of the workshop.

The cost of the workshop includes all course materials and snacks.

Contact: Norene at (503) 234-4440  or by email at portlandrelationship@hevanet.com
Cost:  $700 per couple

Sign Up: Sold Out

• Successfully express your own desires.
• Get to the root of your problems and dissolve them.
• Create romance, fun and intimacy.

The workshop is kept small to allow for a safe and relaxed environment.  Except for a brief introduction, you will not be required to share anything with the group unless you choose to.

The workshop is appropriate for you if:

• You are beginning a relationship you want to keep.
• You want to enrich and deepen an already good relationship.
• You are having difficulties in your relationship and want to resolve long-standing conflicts and learn to successfully repair your ruptures.
• You are undecided about continuing your relationship.

Tim and Norene are dynamic presenters who have both presented on numerous topics for the past 25 years.  Together they provide many years of Imago expertise and are excited to provide this great workshop, created by Harville Hendrix.

The workshops are held Friday evening 6-9pm,  Saturday from 8:30-6:30 and Sunday 8:30-6:30pm. The Bend workshop is to be held at the Phoenix Inn, 300 NW Franklin Ave. It is not necessary to stay at the hotels, but if you would like to book a room, please call (541) 317-9292. Lodging is not included in the cost of the workshop.

The cost of the workshop includes all course materials and snacks.

Contact: Norene at (503) 234-4440  or by email at portlandrelationship@hevanet.com
Cost:  $700 per couple

Sign Up: Click here

1. Realize when you find yourself blaming your partner that you have unexpressed feelings or needs. Ask yourself, “what are my feelings and how can I express them in a way that my partner can hear me”. “I” messages such as “I feel scared when you stop talking to me” can go a long way to keeping the lines of communication open.
2. Focus your attention on your partners’ needs and desires. As you do your partner will become more open to you as well. Doing something you know your partner would appreciate will further goodwill between you.
3. With deeper loss or trauma try to understand your partners’ pain and empathize. Seeing your partner as hurt or wounded can help you thaw out, change your blaming viewpoint and see him/her in a different and more hopeful light.
4. Replace blaming with statements of appreciation for the positive contributions your partner makes to your relationship. They are there. It’s just that we are focused on where we are stuck.
5. Seek professional help if you can’t seem to get past “The Blame Game” or if your marriage is falling apart. It’s not too late. You are one decision away from changing the course of “The Blame Game”. Contact Portland Relationship Center and seek out a marriage counselor.
6. Finally, forgive and give gratitude. In his book The Benefits of Marriage, Mark O’Connell, PhD. writes, “When we replace grievance with gratitude we move toward the kind of radical acceptance that allows us to find meaning and purpose through life’s hardships and limitations.” Useful relationship advice lies in the skill of ending the habit of dwelling on resentments and starting a habit of dwelling on the positives.

For help finding a well trained marriage counselor please visit our website. There you will also find free relationship advice and tips. Consider attending a couple’s education weekend to gain skills that can help you end the Blame Game forever.

In some marriages it starts as little jabs. “I thought you were going to have steak tonight, like we always do” or “why do you shut down when we talk”. These jabs can escalate to “you never remember my favorite food” or “you always walk away when I’m talking to you”.  Over time these jabs can grow more viscous. Eventually we can freeze our partner into an image in our minds that will invariably bring more and more discontent with our marriage.

Marriage Counselor Tells You Why the Blame Game Starts

“The Blame Game” can also get started when there has been loss and/or trauma like the death of a child or parent, a car accident, severe illness, depression or an affair. Events like these can leave us feeling angry, hurt, cheated and depressed. As a cover for our own unexpressed feelings we can inadvertently place blame on our partner. These losses can be a game changer, as we tell ourselves that this was not the way our marriage was supposed to turn out. These feelings can leave us helpless and resentful and can lead to divorce— another loss.  No matter how discouraged you are with your marriage you can reverse course by stopping The Blame Game. If you need help to resolve your poor habits, consider seeing a marriage counselor. To find help and sound relationship advice, visit our website.

Next time Part II: Marriage Counselor Gives Relationship Advice to Help Stop the Blame Game

Keeping the Love you find

KEEPING THE LOVE YOU FIND:
An Imago Workshop for Individual Issues

Are you tired of repeating the same old relationship patterns? Do you realize that no matter how many breakups you suffer, you still pick the same type of partner? Are you ready to unlock the cage you have built around your heart? Have you heard about Imago therapy and wished that you could learn its tools and insights? If you have answered yes to even one of these questions then this workshop is for you.

Imago Relationship Therapy is rich with insights, tools and healing. For those who are not in a committed relationship, and those in committed relationships who want to delve deeper into the “baggage” that they bring into the relationship, Imago provides this wonderful opportunity for growth. So whether you are married or single, you can:

• Heal childhood wounds

• Find closure with past relationships

• Discover “what goes wrong in romance” and “what I can learn from my past”

• Make behavioral changes and learn communication tools

Presented by Tim Higdon, LPC, certified Imago Workshop Presenter

Join us at The Keeping the Love you Find Weekend

• Date: Saturday September 25th and 26th  – 8:30-6:00

• Cost: Weekend Workshop-$295.00

• Location: Three Rivers Center 115 NW Greeley • Bend, Oregon 97701

For more information please visit the Three Rivers Center website or call 541-330-9782 ex. 1

Tim Higdon is the only certified presenter
of Keeping the Love you Find in Eastern Oregon

Here are some benefits to seeing a marriage counselor while going through a divorce:

1.    Grief counseling—a marriage counselor can help you with your feelings of loss. This is especially important to help you move ahead in your life and get past the pain, minimizing the divorces effect on your future.

2.    Navigating through your divorce—Marriage counseling can help you learn about your impact on your unsuccessful marriage. You’ll “up the odds” that when you find love again you will be ready to create a successful relationship.

3.    Learning from your mistakes—Feelings can range from relief to rage, from hurt and despair to loneliness and depression. Seeing a marriage counselor can help you build a support network of friends and family as well as help you develop a self-care plan to get you through this time.

4.    Accepting being single—it’s not uncommon for divorcee’s to become desperate to find someone so they don’t have to face their loneliness. A marriage counselor can assist divorcee’s coming to terms with their “singledom” and actually help them learn about themselves and prepare for a future relationship.

5.    Attend a Keeping the Love you Find Workshop-Harville Hendrix created this weekend workshop for individuals who want to understand why they picked the partner they picked and how you contributed to the issues.

A Marriage Counselor will Help you Heal and Grow

Navigating the waters of a divorce is difficult and painful. Considering an experienced and qualified marriage counselor can be the best decision you will make to not only recover but to bring new insight and personal awareness to your life.

See our website to find a qualified marriage counselor in Portland, Oregon and Bend, Oregon. Read our blog post “Marriage Counseling Can Do More Harm in Four Ways” by Norene Gonsiewski, Oct. 17, 2009

To do this requires that we make regular deposits into our relationship bank account. It requires that we become curious about our partners needs and desires. As we work toward the notion of “becoming one” in a committed partnership we ultimately learn to “have each other’s backs”. A relationship tip that can save you aguish is to remember “to feel like one, takes two”.  We need to individually contribute to the good of us both.

Marriage counselors know the importance of secure feelings in relationships

Susan Johnson, creator of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy states it this way, “in times of distress we need to know that we can turn towards our partner and he or she will be there for me”. Many of us didn’t learn or receive a secure attachment with our parents in childhood. If we did not have a stable and secure childhood then when we move into marriage we become defended, anxious and insecure which brings tremendous stress to our marriage.

The good news is it doesn’t have to doom your relationship! If you didn’t learn it in childhood, you can learn it in your marriage. “Becoming one” means you can learn to have each other’s backs. You can learn to build, repair, restore and enrich your marriage and deepen your committed partnership. A great way to learn this is to take the “Getting the Love You Want” Couples Workshop. Follow this link for “upcoming dates”. Marriage counselors can help you with many relationship tips. Take the advice of professionals and ask yourself, “what can I do to feel closer to my partner today?”

As I write this the marriage counselor in me can’t help thinking of what unfolded at the Masters Golf Tournament this year. Tiger Woods came back to the game to huge media hype after nearly losing his marriage. Was it too soon? Is he really going to continue therapy for sex addiction and learn how to stop cheating on his wife? Or is it another publicity stunt designed to cleanup his tarnished image? Also competing in the tournament was Phil Mickelson who had spent the past year being by his wife’s side while she fought cancer. Who do you think is happier? By the way, for those of you that don’t follow golf, Phil won the tournament and was spotted wearing the traditional green jacket at a Dairy Queen buying an ice cream cone the next day. I‘m not selling vanilla here. For me it speaks volumes about personal happiness.

Marriage counselors know that a good marriage is more important than anything, including a healthy income!

Brooks sites several research studies about personal relationships and happiness. One study found that being married produces the same psychological gain as an extra $100,000 a year. It seems like everyone I have worked with and listened to this past couple of years is struggling financially. Sadly the effect has been that some have chosen to leave their marriages, which usually leads to further financial loss. Losing a career or job is also on the hit list for failed marriages. Men particularly struggle with a loss of identity and become depressed. Emotional depression can lead to hopelessness, cheating on your spouse, withdrawing, alcohol or drug abuse and many exits to intimacy. Marriage counselors know that having a great relationship doesn’t resolve problems that are bigger than the two of us, but it does help us to weather the storms. You can read the article here on the NY Times website.

Here at Portland Relationship Center there is help! Our motto is “Make Up- Don’t Break Up!”. Take our marriage education weekend class Getting the Love You Want Couples Workshop. You will restore the promise your marriage holds and gain the information and tools you need to make love last a lifetime! Then perhaps, follow it with marriage counseling to address your specific relationship needs.

Even the most practiced skills can go right out the window when a couple has an argument. A common pattern that couples experience during conflict is for one person to create distance by closing down (the Minimizer in Imago terms) while the other pursues and, figuratively speaking, smothers their partner (The Maximizer). The style of each partner triggers the others defensive response. The more the Minimizer distances from their partner, the more the Maximizer pursues them and visa versa.

Do it Yourself Oregon Marriage Counseling: the Do-Over

What can couples do when they find themselves triggered and defensive? Have a “do-over”! Here’s how it works:

1. First, breathe deeply—this helps partners to self-soothe and calm down. After doing this if both partners feel ready, begin the “re-do” and use your dialogue skills. If not, go to step
2. Take Recovery Time—if both or either partner is too “hot” or flooded with emotion, take a time out. Set a time you will be willing to come back for the “re-do”. This is crucial! Bad habits make the Minimizer avoid coming back and working it through and the Maximizer to go into pursuit mode. The fight will start again and both will feel discouraged, re-injured and defended.
3. Minimizer should initiate—It usually works best for the Minimizer to initiate the “re-do” dialogue. This allows the Minimizer to feel safe enough to share their viewpoint and gives the Maximizer reassurance that the issue will be addressed. Over time both partners will come to know that arguments don’t need to derail their friendship and romance. Remember, Do-Overs=low cost marriage counseling.

If you would like to learn more about your defensive styles and what you can do about them I recommend taking our Imago couples workshop called Getting The Love You Want Workshop. To develop your relationship skills even further consider marriage counseling with an Imago Relationship therapist. 

Claim your free consultation and consider Oregon marriage counseling with us.

“Instead of watching us have another fight, where I would walk out of the room and my wife would be in tears, the kids saw us stop when a conflict would start and use the dialog process to resolve the issue”, said the husband.  “The tension in the whole household lessened as they saw us getting along better.” He went on to say that they feel it may have something to do with their kids picking partners that work things out with them.

Why I Do Marriage Counseling instead of being a Trout Bum

“Wow”, I said. This had been a primary reason I had started working with couples, and this pair was confirming it. I had worked with them about 10 years ago and to have evidence of long-term effects on them and their kids was very affirming.

It has been my contention that the best gift parents can give their children is a marriage that works. Not a “perfect marriage”, which is a fantasy, but one where children see their parents resolve conflicts and have fun together.  Marriage counseling helps because it provides the tools and insights a couple needs in order to change their negative behaviors into positive role modeling. Finding a marriage counselor for your marriage could give your children a head start on having their own successful marriages.

So, if we give our children the model they will learn, choose it and it will become legacy. As I turned to order lunch, I thanked the couple for their profound comment and felt such contentment in my heart about the amazing work I get to do. Maybe if enough couples do marriage counseling when their kids are young it will put me and other Imago therapists out of business. That’s okay; I’ll just take up fishing full time!

If you are ready to dive in to marriage enrichment, I would suggest you attend one of our workshops and then consider entering marriage counseling for the best results.