Archive for the 'Relationships' Category
Unhappy men and happy women.
Published March 26, 2012 Relationships Leave a CommentTags: authentic conversations, couples communication, men and women, relationship issues, Relationships
“It’s sometimes difficult for partners to look past what their own emotions are,” Cohen says. “It helps to know that different kinds of emotions can enhance the way people feel about their relationships”.” [ Re-printed in full from the NPR Health Blog on March 6, 2012]
You’ve Got Mail!
Published February 27, 2012 Addictions , Relationships Leave a CommentTags: 9th step, amends, apology letter, break up, grief and love, lost love, making amends, ninth step, Relationships, step 9, step nine
My client came to his appointment with a letter he’d received.
It was an apology, of sorts, from a former lover. Of sorts, because after the initial statement saying “Sorry”, the letter moved on to say how much she’d lost from her life since he’d last seen her and how she felt betrayed by former friends. While he was sad to hear of these things, he’d had nothing to do with those events, having not seen her for a few years prior.
What he’d lost during his relationship with her was, however, another story. She had done some terribly hurtful things to him, things that crushed his self-esteem, ended his relationship with a few friends, and diminished his trust in others. And she’d done them knowingly and intentionally, she’d later admitted. She’d laughed while she said hateful things, had told him she’d maybe do it all again the same way, and then told lies to mask her own behavior.
Now she was saying “Sorry.” But “For what?”, he wondered aloud. Maybe for having had the relationship at all, but not for what she then did to so deeply and enduringly wound him. She wished for everyone’s happiness. He shook his head, perplexed. “Yes, he hoped she would be happy.” It was his way after all.
Him? He didn’t think it likely anytime soon.
I sat with him as he alternated between downcast silence and pained questions. He talked and I listened. Then near the end of the session, I talked while he listened. Finally we shared a few moments of silence.
The session ended as he remembered why he’d started therapy – to illuminate and amplify the elements of his life that he wanted more of, and to shed the brimming sadness that had become his memories. He turned again toward this goal, and made another appointment.
And as he left he gently dropped the letter into the small wastebasket.
If you are struggling with an emotional wound that burns beyond it’s time, and are not sure how to extinguish the flame, contact a qualified therapist today, and learn how to light a new and positive fire in your heart, and to rekindle your hope for your future.
Call today!
Forgive yourself; but not so fast!
Published January 9, 2012 Grief and Loss , Mental Health Issues , Relationships Leave a CommentTags: finding happiness, grief, Grief and Loss, intentional living, making changes, Relationships, therapy
It’s important to forgive oneself for the inevitable transgressions, failings and faulting of life. In fact, holding on to unyielding self-blame can be not only demoralizing but also incapacitating, preventing you from achieving even small successes.
BUT don’t rush it either! Too often someone will simply say to themselves “Oh well. Too bad. I wish it hadn’t happened but there’s no point in dwelling on it.”
On the contrary, it’s much more helpful – and mature – to dwell long enough to review your behavior and seriously think about how to avoid it in the future. In this time of reflection you may discover underlying issues that helped propel you to regretful conduct, and thereby have a chance to not only avoid similar circumstance, but to heal yourself and reconcile with others in a more meaningful way.
So although it is painful, and perhaps laden with sadness, take time to move THROUGH rather than move on, and build strength within yourself rather than just image for others to mistakenly admire.
Of course this process is sometimes difficult to do on your own. You may fool yourself again, as you did the first time! Contact a qualified therapist to help you find your way through and then past your grief and guilt.
Call today for an appointment, and begin the process of self-forgiveness.
Signs of the past.
Published May 23, 2011 Relationships , Wellness and Nutrition 1 CommentTags: skank, skanky, skin ink, tattoo, tattoo removal, tattoos, tramp stamp
Signs of past relationships, in the form of permanent tattoos, can be troublesome.
During the past several years I’ve noticed an increase in the number of clients who declare their regret at having gotten a tattoo of a lover’s name. These range from a male client who had a girlfriend’s name – complete with roses and hearts – scrawled down his entire right arm, to a young woman who had a partner’s name inked in a large sweeping arc across her lower (no, a little lower) back .
Both had regrets, because of negative stereotypes they’d had to confront.
The young man wanted to stop explaining to everyone why the name on his arm was not that of his current girlfriend. People wondered if he had been drunk when he got tattooed, and asked endless questions about
the immortalized girl, who he now was trying to forget. It was embarrassing to his new fiancee, and he was tired of it. He had begun wearing only long sleeved shirts, but was anxious about the coming of summer and warm weather.
The young woman was particularly troubled because a new romantic interest (not knowing of her tattoo) had declared to her that he “would never date a girl with a tramp stamp (lower back tattoo) because that shows they are promiscuous-and the bigger the stamp the more ‘skanky’ the girl.” His use of these derogatory terms left her feeling helpless. She agonized over how to talk to him about it before he saw it. And how to explain about who’s name it was? She cried softly as she talked about how helpless and trapped she felt.
Another client had told me about a new tattoo removal process that reportedly is more effective and much less painful than other techniques. Called Medline C6, it apparently also leaves less scarring than other removal echniques that may simply leave behind the original tattoo design but as a scar rather than a tattoo! He was going to pursue this new removal process because he wanted to propose to his girlfriend and she had told him that she could not marry someone who had a former lover’s name tattooed on his body.
If you want to decorate your body with permanent ink art, be very careful to think through your choices, especially if you’re choosing someone else’s name, and to make a choice only when you are sober and have discussed it with close friends who might offer you valuable feedback. Tattoos do hurt when you have them put on, but reports are that they hurt much more to take off (at least with the laser method).
And the physical pain may be minimal compared to the emotional pain if you change your mind, or your relationship.
Click on the link below for a short YouTube video of the laser removal process:
http://blog-health-talk.virtuowl.com/health-and-your-body/tattoo-art/laser-tattoo-removal/
Hey there, Sad Girl.
Published May 16, 2011 Grief and Loss , Relationships Leave a CommentTags: Grief and Loss, loss, lost love, love and therapy, missing someone you love, Relationships
My client came to his initial sessions in deep despair. He felt betrayed by someone who had claimed to love him. Lies had been told about him, and some of those lies had found their way to people willing to use them for their own ends. She had let that happen when she could have stopped it. It also hurt that he had done the opposite: remained silent about her betrayal and her hurtful behavior.
Now though, a couple of years later, he had gained more perspective, felt more at peace, and began to express his understanding that she too had suffered – though it was important for him to point out to me that her pain had been from the actions of others and not from him.
So he now thought that perhaps
he and she shared something poignant even if unwanted: a deep and abiding sadness over the way they had parted and for the people who had been hurt, themselves included.
He told me he had a message for her; that both his love and his sadness are enduring, and that her love and sadness are remembered.
I thought that sounded just about right.
If you have a deep and abiding sadness that sometimes wraps itself around you at unexpected moments, consider seeking the support and guidance of a qualified
psychotherapist. Perhaps you too can reach across an invisible divide and gently touch the memory of that certain someone.
Loving Beyond Your Means?
Published March 28, 2011 Relationships 2 CommentsTags: interracial relationships, Relationships, turmoil in relationships
We all know what it means when someone says they are “living beyond their means. In general most of us would agree that it’s not a good idea, but still, there are those unique 
opportunities to invest in something promising and with a strong likelihood of living up our hopes and dreams.
What about when you’re investing, and perhaps over investing, in Someone instead of something?
My client, an intelligent and accomplished woman, told me about her long-time companion who subtly but persistently kept a distance between them, possibly because the social club to which he belonged implicitly frowned on his relationship with her. Yes, she was of a different ethnicity. He professed love, and in fact
acted in ways that showed her he did care. Yet, ten years later had not asked for marriage, and continued to actively participate in the organization, almost always without her.
She had, at the very beginning of our sessions, discussed one of her previous relationships. She had not felt that her partner really ever embraced her emotionally. He had never made her feel special, and certainly had not ever given others the impression she was special in his life. She’d left him, hoping to find someone who truly cherished her. And now, once again, her lover was choosing, though differently and for different reasons, someone/something else. She loved him deeply, yet felt confused and conflicted about some of the complexity of her relationship.
We spent many hours discussing her feelings and perspective on her relationship. I began to see how she was being diminished by his subtle response to the one thing she could not change, and how this then had, in fact, softly changed her.
The most poignant part of this story was her own awareness of feeling diminished, yet her determination to softly forgive him and to fiercely love him, no matter what. She just believed that he loved her, and that it would all right one day soon.
Love is the most important investment you can make. And occasionally, yes, one may knowingly, and with gentle surrender, ”spend” beyond their means.
No other eyes like yours.
Published February 14, 2011 Grief and Loss , Relationships Leave a CommentTags: happy valentine's day, lonely on valentine's day, loss, lost love, love and forgiveness, love and therapy, love poetry, poetry and therapy, this is my beloved, valentine's day, walter benton
Valentine’s Day is usually focused, at least publicly, on the ecstasy of current love. What is seldom celebrated is love that, though real and unforgettable, is lost to the lovers.
The most beautiful and tragic love story ever written was penned by Walter Benton, titled This Is My Beloved.
What follows is the first entry in this diary-style classic.
Entry April 28
Because hate is legislated . . . written into
the primer and the testament,
shot into our blood and brain like a vaccine or vitamins
Because our day is of time, of hours – and the clock-hand turns,
closes the circle upon us: and black timeless night
sucks us in like quicksand, receives us totally—
without a rain check or a parachute, a key to heaven or the last long look
I need love more than ever now . . . I need your love,
I need love more than hope or money, wisdom or drink
Because slow negative death withers the world – and only yes
can turn the tide.
Because love has your face and body . . . and your hands are tender
and your mouth is sweet – and god has made no other eyes like yours.
Sometimes the words of another who has felt our pain, shed our tears, felt our soaring joy or harbored our silent hope can inspire us to tell our beloved how much we indeed cherish them… whether they slumber beside us or we are grieving their loss. I hope you are living in the warmth of joy, but if you are sad over a loss of love and promise, consider a contacting a therapist today to begin illuminating your grief then dissipating your despair and building a future of renewed hopefulness.
Call for an appointment, and begin your own journey toward “Yes”.
Out with the old?
Published December 31, 2010 Addictions , Relationships Leave a CommentTags: alcohol problem, betraying a lover, betraying a partner, drinking problem, drinking too much, new year drinking, new year regrets, new year resolutions
Every year I see several new clients just before – or after – the New Year holiday. Usually there is a complex mixture of hope and regret in the initial meetings.
Several years ago a young woman came in for her first session several days after the parties were all over, and revealed her betrayal of her lover by enticing him into a menage a trois then pointedly rejecting only him when things
progressed to nakedness. She’d completed the act with her lover’s friend while taunting her partner, revelling in hurting him. Later she realized how very hateful it had been and now wanted to talk about her unforgivable behavior.
Similarly a male client requested an appointment before the New Year’s Eve celebration, wanting help in avoiding the repetition of his indiscrete behavior at an office party the year before. He had drunkenly danced as if at a night club, seriously damaging his promotional opportunities.
In both cases, the over-use of alcohol had been a prominent feature the loss of judgement. Both clients wanted to talk about how to change their behavior in these kinds of circumstances so that they could maintain their self-control and be more cognizant of their behavior as well as their impact on others.
First we needed to do a thorough assessment of each client’s alcohol abuse, and to develop and try some strategies for abstinence (for her) and harm reduction (for him). Then with 
each client I began to address the memories, hopes, fears, and intentions that emerged in our many conversations. More than a year later each client felt more aware of and in control of their impulses. The young woman even thought she might be ready to apologize to her former lover for her betrayal.
If you or someone you love is in need of support and encouragement to make meaningful personal changes, it could be that a few simple New Year’s resolutions won’t go far enough. Consider contacting a therapist, and engaging in the process of achieving meaningful and lasting change that could help you to build and maintain relationships in both your personal and your professional life.
And may you have a happier new year, all through the year, in 2011.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Published December 23, 2010 Relationships Leave a CommentTags: christmas memories, former lover, missing someone at christmas, missing someone you love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hzN3Xrv47M (click the link for music)
“But the “Fates” did not allow.”
It was his first session, just weeks before Christmas, and he needed to talk about a lost love. My client came to the session with moist eyes and a soft voice as he began to talk about crying helplessly each time he heard certain Christmas songs. It seemed that he and his former wife had both loved these songs and now that they were apart he could barely listen without tears falling. As his story unfolded, I saw that his sadness was deep and enduring, and that while he had re-built his life, he probably would miss, and mourn for her, for a long time.
Contrary to what he expected, I asked him to bring his CDs of some of the songs, and we listened together while he told
me all about her and their love affair. The stories were sometimes tender, sometimes torrid, and sometimes painful. He cried and even laughed, between silences. And then, just days before Christmas, he resolved to enjoy his memories without remorse.
When I hear the music of the Christmas season, I am reminded of the many stories of love lost and
found, and of ”self” lost and found”, that I’ve had the privilege to witness.
For everyone who has lived, loved, struggled, and endured to live and love once more,
have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Only trying to help?
Published December 6, 2010 Relationships Leave a CommentTags: complaining, criticizing others, giving suggestions
