Why It’s So Hard to Be (Fully) Honest With Your Partner
Jill and her husband had attended a friend’s party, and Jill came home upset. Her husband’s friendliness—and what looked like flirtation—with another woman kept her awake all night, feeling hurt, angry, and threatened. She knew her husband loved her; she wasn’t worried that he would cheat. Still, the whole thing made her feel bad. She tried […]
Is Your Relationship Evolving or Devolving?
Viv, a composite client, has been married for 25 years. For the past 10 years, she and her husband Alan have experienced intense conflict and emotional turbulence. Neither partner, however, has been willing to leave the marriage, and there are increasing signs that the relationship may indeed find its way back to goodness and peace. And yet, despite glimmers of […]
Freedom In Technology Not From Technology
These days it can feel impossible to get just 5 minutes with no distraction and dare I even say it, quiet. The noise and demands of technology are relentless and seemingly inescapable. We are living without any distinction between on and off, public and private time, or space. Even at home, the world keeps coming […]
The Key to Intimacy is Radical Listening
The key to deep intimacy in relationship is listening, but listening in a radically new way. Most of us, when listening, are doing one of two things and sometimes both. First, we are scanning for danger: is there something that our partner is expressing that conflicts with what we experience or believe. If so, then […]
Are You An Enabler? (Part 1)
I am an aware person–and–I was an enabler. My path to becoming an enabler started out as most do, as someone trying to help, and thinking that I could. A dear friend who is also a relative came to me in trouble, having lost her job, about to lose her health insurance and unable to […]
Your Truest Friend Resides Within Your Own Heart
As we age it seems that fighting with friends becomes less necessary or even possible. There are fewer matters worth fighting about and even fewer worth risking the friendship over. That said, I recently had a real fight with a dear friend. The fight arose because my friend had decided that I had done something […]
Are You Feeding On Your Pain… Past Its Expiration Date?
Intimate relationships include pain, at least every intimate relationship I have ever been in or witnessed. And most, if we’re lucky, include pleasure too. We cannot change the fact that pain is included in intimacy, but how much pain we endure is, in part, up to us. As a therapist and a wife, I think […]
Virtual Togetherness
When I first heard Eric Whitacre talk about his virtual choir and its debut on YouTube, a virtual choir and the power of crowds, I got the chills. First, I was chilled by the music, Lux Aurumque (light and gold), which is heartbreaking and captivating, and like all great music, has the power to connect us […]