Self-Examination: Key To Life After Divorce

For many, after living as a pair for so long, it’s important to recognize that you are a unique and valuable person on your own. I often tell my clients, “You are a whole person by yourself and not half of anything.” You may have some work to do to get back to recognizing that and the point when you begin to enjoy living life post-divorce may depend on where you are in the timeline of recovery. You may have children to care for, or you may not. You may be under 40, exhilarated and ready to … [Read more...]

Can This Marriage Be Saved?: Strategies for the Struggling Couple

Ask any young couple how long their marriage will last and chances are they will say forever. In the latest Clark University Poll of Emerging Adults, psychologist Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, PhD, an expert on emerging adulthood, found that 86 percent of more than 1,000 18- to 29-year-old Americans surveyed expect their marriages to last a lifetime. Yet statistics suggest that many of these newlyweds are blinded by love. According to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), the likelihood … [Read more...]

It Takes Two – A Way To Understand Relationship Conflicts

RELATIONSHIPS ARE SELDOM AS SIMPLE AS WE WOULD LIKE. They bring out our needs, anxieties, and conflicts with people from our past – parents, friends and former partners. Our relationships with our partners are colored by our own personal legacies. We often react to our partners as if they were someone else – and most of the time this causes conflict in the relationship. After all, when we entered into a primary relationship we expected love, nurturance, and validation just for being who we are. … [Read more...]