Relationship Tips from a Portland Marriage Counselor

Do

• Do use text messaging a reasonable amount. Many people tire of the bombardment of messages. Even loving ones. Plus they are usually not free.
• Do only send positive messages by text. Sweet hellos are wonderful to receive, as are a single word of phrase such as KISS, miss you, or love you.
• Do respond quickly when your sweetie sends you a text.
• Do send little updates such as when you are going to get home or that you are going to the store, just keep it brief. Again, if you are apart it is because you are doing separate things and shouldn’t insert yourself to much into your partner’s day.

Don’t

• Don’t have a fight via text messages. Believe this Portland marriage counselor when I tell you that it will only go south. Plus it says to your partner that you can’t be bothered with calling. If you do start quarreling over the text, stop texting and call your partner.
• Don’t make texts your main form of communication. Pick up the phone. It is more personal.
• Don’t break up through a text. It does happen I have seen it many times. Be a grown up and talk it out. Better yet if you are thinking of breaking up, get some help.  To find a Portland marriage counselor visit our website.
• Don’t use texts to say something you are afraid to say in person. Instead learn communication tools that can increase your connection in a way texts will never do.

For more relationship advice and free resources please visit our website.

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

The popular myth that if you need relationship advice then you are admitting failure still persists. You might operate under the false notion that if you choose the right person you won’t have problems; that conflict is a sign of incompatibility; or that if your partner loved you they would read your mind and know what you need. Believing these myths is like thinking that if your car is out of gas then you must need a new one.

Relationship Tune-Ups Work, Believes Portland Marriage Counselor.

In his book The Marriage Check-Up, the author James Cordova asks “if people were to bring their marriage in for a check-up on an annual basis, would that provide the same sort of benefit that a physical health check-up would provide?” His preliminary findings validate what this Portland marriage counselor has seen for 30 years, that marriage check-ups help catch problems when they are small.

Sound relationship advice is to seek couples counseling early and regularly over time. Don’t be like most couples and wait until a typical problem like a lack of time for intimacy, or upsets over parenting, spirals out of control.

Instead consider working with a Portland marriage counselor to learn tools and gain insights. After the first round of sessions return again at least once per year to sharpen your tools! For information on our services visit our website.

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

It got us to talking about why couples bicker so much, in particular why we used to bicker so frequently in the first years or decades of our marriage. In our 3 mile long conversation (we were hiking), we concluded that the source of bickering lies in two areas: the need to be in control and the need to be right, or at least not to be wrong.

Marriage Counselor in Portland, Oreon Learns New Tricks

We thought back on the little power struggles to convince the other that our way was THE WAY. Being married to a marriage counselor can make this worse, because my way is backed by research, right?

So why is it that my spouse and I have eliminated our bickering? One obvious reason is that the training I received in Imago marriage counseling helped us both to understand our roles in the power struggle.  Attending the Imago marriage education workshop gave us tools that we have continued to use.

Another reason we have graduated from bickering could be that because we now treat our relationship with INTENTION and CONSCIOUSNESS versus being UNCONSCIOUS and REACTIVE. We less often feel the urge to be right; instead we want to be kind. Therapist Virginia Satire once said, “Exchange judgments for curiosity and exchange being right for being kind.” Good relationship advice.

Mature love can be defined as feeling affection and respect for your partner. The word respect comes from a Greek word that means “gazing at the other”.  When we respect someone, we are really looking at them, not who we want or need them to be.

Marriage education and marriage counseling can help you to move from unconscious and reactive to being intentional in your thoughts and behavior. When you are bickering the little kid in you just wants to be in control. Or you just don’t want to be wrong. Marriage education can help you both understand that little kid in yourself and in your partner, and teach you tools to practice new behaviors.

For a good marriage counselor in Portland, Oregon or information on marriage counseling visit our website. To find out more or to sign up for marriage education, please visit our couples workshop page.

Pope suggests that, “… it may not be feelings of love or loyalty that keep couples together. Instead, scientists speculate that your level of commitment may depend on how much a partner enhances your life and broadens your horizons…”  This concept of enhancing on another’s horizons is called self-expansion. Valuable relationship tips can be found in Pope’s article, The Science of a Happy Marriage.

Marriage counseling researchers used a series of questions to measure this quality and have the couples perform various silly, fun and novel activities together.  They asked couples:  How much does your partner provide a source of exciting experiences? How much has knowing your partner made you a better person? How much do you see your partner as a way to expand your own capabilities?

Marriage Counseling asks you to examine your own behavior first

Although we enter a relationship because other person expands us, we must also take personal responsibility to do our share of the expanding. In Imago therapy we would ask you to reflect upon your contribution to expansion. Ask yourself the questions that the researchers asked the couples:

How much do I provide my partner a source of exciting experiences?

How much has knowing me made my partner better person? How much am I instigating fun, affection, learning, love and adventure?

How much do I offer my partner ways to expand their own capabilities?

Marriage counseling researcher, Dr. Arthur Aron states that enhancement is why people who fall in love stay up all night talking and it feels very excited in one another’s company. “We think couples can get some of that back by doing challenging and exciting things together.”

Look at your contribution to enhancement and take positive action.  Be careful not to say, “We never do ________anymore!”  Instead say, “How about we do ____________ this week?” Take the initiative and use this relationship tip to refresh your connection.

The full article can be found at this NY Times link. To find more relationship tips visit our website, where you will find free resources, marriage counseling specialists and marriage education.

I read this blurb in a newsletter I receive that focuses on relationship education.  The woman who was interviewed by a reporter from a men’s magazine challenged her about just how romantic such a workshop might be. Here’s what she replied, “The reporter said all my talk about Marriage Education and learning skills, wasn’t very romantic.  I countered that, “Actually, it’s very romantic!”  Seriously, I asked him, which is more romantic? To say, Beloved, I know the divorce rate for first-time marriages is 50% and much higher for remarriages, but I love you so much I want to marry you anyway.  Our love is SO special, I’m sure we can make it last.  Or, is it more romantic to say, Beloved, I want to marry you and I love you so much that I want to take a Marriage Education class and learn everything the experts know about creating and maintaining a smart, sexy, successful marriage – to make SURE we can make it last. It’s much more romantic to pull your head out of the sand and walk hand-in-hand into a Marriage Education class.  If you want to be really romantic, take several classes.  Cover your bases.”

Marriage education is the closest to a marriage guarantee you are going to get!

Romance can last a life time if we know how to stay in connection with our partner.  Any marriage counselor will tell you that if you want your relationship to succeed you need insights, information and tools that give you a greater chance. That is exactly what marriage education does…provide insights, education and tools for success.

Take a look at what Portland Relationship Center offers in marriage education. Follow this workshop link and check out Getting the Love you Want, our relationship course. Check out our Free Resources while you are visiting our website. There is a new audio featuring Tim and Norene talking about marriage education.

In her book, The Male Brain, neuro-psychiatrist Louann Brizendine claims to have decoded how and why men think the way they do. She believes that the meaning of men’s sexual desire is the one thing most misunderstood about men by their female partners.  The book explores how men and women’s brain differ and how these differences result in expressing love differently. The author’s work is on the healthy male brain and is not meant o cover the issues of men such as Tiger Woods have with serial cheating.

Marriage Counselors Suggest Accepting Differences, Not making judgments

In my 30 years as a marriage counselor I have seen the issue play out hundreds of times just as Dr. Brizendine describes, “A woman will call me up and say, “You’ve gotta save my marriage — my husband is threatening to leave if I don’t get more interested in sex!” When the couple is sitting in front of me, I’ll say ask the man, “How do you know your wife loves you?” He’ll say, “Because she wants to have sex with me!” But when I ask the woman the same question, she answers, “Because he wants to cuddle and talk with me.” It’s usually a big aha moment for both. Understanding the biological state of another person can very helpful — then, we can stop blaming each other for being different.”

In our couple’s workshop, Getting the Love you Want, we teach couples to understand the differences in our brains and to work with those differences versus feeling threatened or making negative judgments.  In sessions, Tim Higdon and I both work hard with couples to have a deeper understanding about their different Love Languages.

AOL health columnist, Michele Burford, gives some great advice in her online column, “When you reject your partner’s sexual advances, you hit the guy more deeply than he will ever admit to you. If you’re going to turn him down, find a way to do it gently. It’s one of the most loving things you can do.” To read the rest of the interesting interview with the author, click the link above.

This marriage counselor hopes that if you are doing a good deal of turning away sexual advances that you will seek marriage counseling from an Imago therapist. If sex is about romantic passion and love then it is vital that couples have their sexual love language spoken regularly.

Visit our website for Free Resources that can start helping your marriage today.

In Imago therapy we teach couples the concept that what each of us feels or reacts to about the other is more about us than it is about them.  Pia Melody, the marriage counselor and codependency expert put it this way, “What I think, what I feel and what I do, is more about me than it is about you.  And vice versa.”  Most marriage counselors agree. We believe that whenever you are upset with your partner (or anyone) that only 20% of the upset is about the other, and the other 80% is about what it is stirring up in you. However, if you are like most couples who come to marriage counseling, you reverse the ratio when you discuss your upset with your partner. In your attempt to be understood you talk about their responsibility in your upset 80% and your own internal issues and reactions only 20%. To your partner this approach is received as blame and your desire to be heard and understood goes unmet.  And of course it goes unmet, because your partner would have to be a saint and a psychic to understand you deeply if you aren’t really sharing about yourself.

Marriage counseling tip: focus on sharing about yourself

Good marriage counseling teaches couples to use “Magic Words” that will help your partner be curious with you instead of furious at you for blaming. When you are upset and want to talk to your partner try starting this way:  “I know these feelings are more about me than they are about you, but it would help me to talk about it.” Can you imagine how differently you might feel if your partner approached you this way when they are upset? The words are magic because they create safety for the listener and assure that the speaker will actually get what they are after…felling understood and connected.

Harville Hendrix, world famous marriage counselor once said that one’s upset is, “less about the house we live in and more about the house we grew up in”. When you use the Magic Words you can share how it was growing up, the meaning you are giving to the other’s behavior, the need you have versus the demand your inner kid wants to make.

Get your real need met, that of being understood and connected, by talking about you 80% and the other only 20% at most. When you use the Magic Words you will give you and your partner a dose of marriage counseling.

However, I did read a very interesting snippet of an interview with the show’s host, Tom Papa. When asked the question, “Have you been watching and analyzing all your couple friends’ fights since starting this gig?” Papa answered, “You know what’s funny? When my wife and I start arguing now – after watching all these other couples and writing jokes about them – it’s so hard not to feel idiotic in any argument.”

I loved that answer. I loved it because if you work with a good marriage counselor you come to a point where you hear yourself in an argument and the whole thing does suddenly seem idiotic. One of the definitions of idiocy is “senselessness”. When you understand that an unmet need for connection drives most arguments, the more senseless the fighting becomes. The more you understand that your partner just needs to feel heard, the more you want to stop quarreling and just listen.

When couples come to this realization, whether through their marriage counseling or while laughing at the problems of others, it is great to see them get to the “this is idiotic” stage. When you leave the stage of “you are an idiotic” and reach “I am acting idiotically”, you are half way to moving on from your marriage problems and finding your way to reconnection with your sweetie. This marriage counselor is thrilled at being able to help stop the senseless arguing and replace it with successful connection.

When you need marriage counseling, please check out our services by reading more about us. Also be sure to check out our free resources, which can start helping you today.