Tag Archive | Marriage

Ten Reasons Why Someone Might Be Unfaithful and What to Do About It

Jan8
Blatent Cheating

Betrayed By A Fiancé/Fiancée?

I receive many emails asking about the meaning of affairs and what to do when you catch someone out. This question is one that comes up regularly both in my rooms as well as via email. In this post I will try and put my thoughts down about what I understand about affairs when they happen and what you can do about them.

Let me first define what an affair is and what an affair is not. For me, and you may agree or not, an affair is when someone creates a relationship with another person, with or without sex, in which that other person becomes the centre of their attention at the expense of their partner.

An affair is not a “one-night stand” where someone gets carried away in the moment and has a sexual encounter with someone outside of the marriage/relationship. Both, however, may be considered equally a betrayal and unforgivable to the other party in the relationship.

When someone has been caught out in any kind of unfaithfulness some of you have simply decided to walk away and others have decided to forgive and move on. There is no right or wrong way to respond to this. It is up to each of you to decide how significant the indiscretion is to you and decide on how you yourself should best react.

Often the actual decision made is more likely based on your personal value system. For some of you, when someone betrays you, it feels like the worst thing that they can do and there is no room for stepping away from the hurt or the loss of trust. For others of you there is such a strong value in your love and commitment that you will find a way to forgive even this most unforgivable of betrayals.

In either situation it seems to come down to which value is the strongest – the value around love and commitment or the value around fidelity.

When someone has been unfaithful it is worth pausing for a moment to take a look at why they may have done it before deciding what the best course of action is.

Reasons for being unfaithful may include:

  1. Fear of committing to one person at the exclusion of all others
  2. The behaviour was modelled by a parent or someone close to the person
  3. Curiosity, especially for the inexperienced, of what sex might be like with someone else
  4. Boredom in the current relationship
  5. An escape from reality into fantasy
  6. A lack of, or insufficient, intimacy in their marriage or relationship
  7. A way to experiment with sex that might not be welcome in their marriage
  8. A spontaneous response to the moment with or without alcohol or other drugs present
  9. A way to exhibit a position of power over another person
  10. An escape from an otherwise tedious or unfulfilling life

Once you have ascertained what might be behind the betrayal then you can make the best decision about what to do about it. You may ultimately decide it is totally the responsibility of the wrongdoer or you may decide that you have to take some responsibility for what has happened as well and change some of your own behaviours.

My belief about this is that when two people truly love each other and are totally committed to their partner then unfaithfulness simply does not have a place. Instead when there are issues they will talk them through until they get a resolution.

And a word of advice: if you ever find yourself in a situation where there has been an infidelity, I would really encourage you to seek professional counselling before making any decisions you may come to regret.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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Knowing When the Time Is Right to Marry

Jan2
Throughout the day the happy couple

 

When I was young, many years ago now, the dream of most young women was to finish school acquire some training of some sort and get a job. In those days it was somewhat limited to secretarial, shop assistant, teaching, air hostessing, or nursing.

Following that was the challenge of finding someone “really nice”, getting married, “settling down” and having kids. There really wasn’t a whole lot to think about and even more choices were taken from you as once you were married or pregnant most women had to leave their employment. There was no such thing as maternity leave or holding your position for you until your return.

The otherwise natural flow of life was then hugely interrupted by the introduction of the contraceptive pill in the 1960’s. The claim was that couples were now able to make their own decisions about becoming pregnant and starting their family.  Then there was a further development in the 1970’s that made it legal for women to have an unwanted pregnancy terminated creating even more choices for couples to make about beginning a family. And then all the other political advances in women’s rights that have elevated women to take positions of seniority have created even more choices in how we live our lives.

And now, so many years later, I believe the decisions that couples have to make, may in actual fact, whilst claiming to liberate them, actually be inhibiting them.

When is the time right?

I’m not saying that we should go back to the old times. What I am saying is that for some couples the number of choices now available to them may actually slow them into indecision.

I’ve had this conversation with several of my own adult children all of whom are in happy relationships and two of whom are married with children. The conversations we have about the time being right for anything happening in their lives, as it is for many who have sent questions into me, tends to revert back to where they are in their career, financially, or in their relationship and concerns they hold about the future of their relationship given the high incidence of relationship breakdown.

I hear so many people experiencing distress over these decisions and the want to have everything perfect or at least as they would wish it to be, before they venture into the next phase of their lives.

But, as I remind my clients so often, life is not an end point. It will never be perfect. The time will never be exactly right. Life is a journey and can only be lived that way.

And as my husband reminds me;  the most memorable holidays we’ve had are the ones that were not perfect, where we’d find ourselves in the most amazing of places meeting the most incredible people and having the most bazaar experiences. These are the stories that we like to tell over and over again.

In our naivety of half a century ago we simply made do. We lived in “shoeboxes” furnished with mismatched pieces we could scavenge from family and friends. We passed around babies clothes from one to another as our children grew and spent time on the weekends making whatever fun we could to entertain ourselves and our children.

So here’s the answer to choosing or knowing when is the right time; to live together, to marry, to have children or whatever other decision you are struggling with right now. The answer is there is; no right time. As I have said to my own children – if it feels right just do it and let the future take care of itself. It will anyway!

So until next time – Relate with Love

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What’s The Good Of Marrying?

Dec23

To Marry Or Not To Marry

This week I received an email with a number of questions relating to the good of getting married. Here are my answers as they were asked in the email.

What are the procedures involved in getting married?

I guess the starting point to getting married is to get the permission of the intended first. If that person agrees then there may be a need to get parents permission.

While in most cultures this request is generally initiated by the man there are times when it might be initiated by the woman. One of these times might be the 29 February. This is the one day that only comes up every four years as, by the Gregorian calendar, it is a leap year. And guess what that happens next in 2016. So girls go for it.

Then once your proposal has been accepted then the opportunities are endless depending on whether you would be married by a minister of your church or by a celebrant.

One thing I always encourage couples who are preparing to marry is to do a marriage preparation course whether this is one conducted by a minister or a counsellor in the community. There is simply no better way to insure your marriage for long-term success.

Is it necessary to get married?

Well this is an interesting question and really is at the discretion of those who might be contemplating marriage to decide.

In some countries and cultures there could be a requirement that before two people can live together they must be married. In other cultures, such as our western culture, marriage is optional before living together.

The research indicates however that people who actually get married may have a stronger commitment to their partner to make the relationship succeed. In the same way those who choose to live together may be more ready to leave if the relationship begins to falter.

Is there any merit in marriage? If yes, what are they?

As I said above the merit in marriage is that it is a commitment made to another person in front of witnesses, which, by its very nature, has the psychological impact of being more compelling to work at this relationship through the good times and in bad, through sickness and in health.

The decision to marry requires the couple to really think about where they want their relationship to go. This also hopefully gets them thinking and questioning beyond today, and what they want right now, to considering the future even to the point of ’til death do them part.

But maybe the greatest value in marriage is that it allows couples to feel secure knowing that their partner willingly takes a vow to commit fully to them. And hopefully this also means that before just walking out when things get tough they firstly make every effort to find a way through the difficulty that is presenting itself.

Is it necessary to have children? If yes, for what reasons?

The simple answer? No it’s not necessary to have children. Some believe however that to have children is the reason for marrying and the ultimate reason for being.

My belief is that to have children, or not, is a decision for each couple to make as is appropriate to their own circumstances. Of course there are those couples who for a variety of reasons are unable to, or choose not to, have children. Their relationship is based on connections other than children which is also entirely appropriate.

What are the differences between a wedding and customary marriage?

This is a huge question and worthy of a book in itself. Every cultural group on the planet has its own way of celebrating the joining of two people in marriage through some kind of wedding ceremony.

And each of these ways will have its own customs and traditions. The wedding celebration simply defines the date of commencement of a marriage; one that hopefully will last a lifetime and will provide the couple with ongoing joy and happiness.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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When Is It Ok To Lie In a Relationship and When Is It Not?

Dec17

Truth or Lie

You wake up in the morning and look across to the person you say you care for more than any one in the world. What do you really think about this person? Does he/she immediately fill you with love and adoration or are you thinking terrible or maybe even contemptuous thoughts about that person.

You get up and go to the shower in preparation for the work day. You weight yourself and realize that you have put on a few kilos. You say to yourself “Oh, that’s just because of the extras I had at dinner last night. It will be ok”.

You sit down to breakfast and find yourself wishing your partner were different somehow. If only they’d dress differently, act differently, weren’t so selfish, paid better attention to you or whatever it is. You don’t say anything.

You go to the office and find yourself seeking out that one special person who is always so nice to you. You flirt with them and find yourself requesting or agreeing to meet after work for drinks. Over time this leads to more regular meetings until one day this becomes more serious. You convince yourself this is not an affair but just a “bit of fun” that you can control and that no-one is being hurt by it.

And then one day you lose the control and the innocent flirting becomes a one-night-stand, the one-night-stand becomes a fling and the fling becomes a full-blown affair that now seems to have a mind of its own.

You have reached the point of no return and you realize you are now in really deep trouble.

How many lies were told in this story?

The truth is we all lie sometime and most of us lie most of the time.

We lie to ourselves about what is going on in our life and we lie to ourselves about what is going on in our relationships. And we lie to each other about what is going on in our relationships as well.

The lies are expressed in one of two ways; either by what we actually do say but most often the lies are expressed by what we don’t say.

So what should you do when you find yourself lying or catch someone out in a lie?

I often get asked questions about lying. When is it ok? When is it not? What to do when you find someone has lied to you? Should you forgive a lie?

The answer is not as simple as it might appear. You might be thinking that you simply should never lie. But as Allan Pease, in his book “Body Language”, says; to be socialised is to lie.

In other words every day we are confronted with situations, such as the first utterance we make when greeting someone, when we say: “how are you?” (As if we really care). The inevitable reply is: “fine thanks, how are you?”

We say this when what we’d really like to say is something like: “I feel terrible; the kids are mucking up, my husband does nothing to help me, and I’m fed up.” Or for the man who might really want to say; “I’m so over it. I work hard to provide for my family and there’s no thanks when I get home; just nagging to do more around the house and for the kids.”

This response would be heard as complaining and, while it might be the truth, is most often not aired in public.

So what about the lies that should never be told?

This is how I advise my clients. If you have done something wrong for which you think you should tell the truth about ask yourself these questions first.

  1. If I tell the truth about this for whom am I doing it? If it’s just about my own feelings of guilt – then think carefully about the good of that for the other person. If it’s because they really deserve to know then you must tell the truth.
  2. If I tell the truth what good will it do? If it means an opportunity to start afresh then you must tell the truth and deal with the consequences as they come.
  3. If I tell the truth what do I want as the outcome of doing that? Keep that outcome in mind to give each of you a chance to get to that rather than having the truth lead you to a place of regret.

And here are a couple of things you can do to help you both get to the best outcome.

  1. Create a good place and time for the conversation to happen.
  2. Alert the person to what it is you want to talk about prior to the meeting so they can prepare themselves for it.
  3. Before saying what you want to say in truth, let the other know how you would prefer for them to respond eg “There is something I need to let you know, and I hope that once you’ve heard it you will be able to find forgiveness for me so that we can continue our relationship.”
  4. Be willing to forgive yourself and the other person for any part they had to play in the situation that led to creating the lie in the first place.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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How to Truly Forgive and Then Truly Forget

Dec10

Forgive and Forget

It constantly amazes me how some people can remember the smallest details of everything that happened around a particular event while others don’t remember clearly what happened yesterday let alone last week, last month or last year.

Actually these attributes clearly describe the difference between my life partner and me. My partner can recall events from his past as clearly as if they were happening right this minute while for me it’s more like out-of-sight-out-of-mind.

There is an upside and a downside though for each of these positions. For my partner the upside is his brilliant recall allows him to remember the wonderful people we’ve met and the places we’ve been to on our many journeys around the world. The downside for him is that he finds it hard to let go of past hurts often holding grudges which should have been let go of long ago as they prevent him from fully enjoying the company of friends and acquaintances.

For me though, as I forget about old wrongdoings so easily I sometimes also forget the lessons I should have learned and have to learn them again. On the good side I don’t tend to hold grudges as I move on quickly putting old hurts behind me. The appearance to others of me is that I harbor no bad thoughts of people and I truly can forgive and forget.

So all of this got me thinking about “forgiving and forgetting” and the benefits and disadvantages of doing this when someone has crossed you.

Forgiveness is the act of excusing someone for a wrongdoing but unless you are also willing to forget their transgression you aren’t truly forgiving them. I qualify this by adding that ‘forgetting the transgression’ is really quite different from forgetting that it ever happened. It’s about not harboring the bad feelings associated with an event but instead becoming neutral to it.

You may have been wronged in a situation and your feelings of anger may be completely justified but it’s important to truly understand your feelings in order to forgive and forget.

It is imperative that you realize that the actions of the other person may have hurt you or made you angry but that reacting in a hostile manner as a result of these feelings is not beneficial to your relationship.

While your feelings of hurt of anger may be justified, taking the time to work through these emotions before offering forgiveness may help you to forget your partner’s words or actions. If you rush to offer forgiveness before you have had the opportunity to vent your own frustrations it will be difficult for you to forget your partner’s wrongdoing.

You also need to understand the feelings of the person who offended you. It is also important to speak to your partner about why they committed the offense against you. It is not fair to them to make assumptions about why they acted the way they did.

Giving them the chance to express their side of the situation will give you a better understanding of why they acted the way they did. You may learn that everything was a misunderstanding or that you were not hurt intentionally. Allowing the other person a chance to offer their take on the situation will enable you to see their motives.

Understanding your own emotions as well as your partner’s will help you to really forgive and forget.

This kind of forgiveness can only be achieved by understanding your own feelings as well as those of the person who wronged you. It requires you to express your feelings in a rational way, realizing that your relationship is more important than being right. It might also include accepting the other’s apology whether this is your partner’s, your friend’s or a collective of people.

Give yourself a little time to manage your own feelings and collect your thoughts so that when you approach your partner you are able to speak about your feelings in a rational manner. It’s best to wait until both you and your partner are ready to speak about the conflict in a calm and rational manner than to rush in and come to regret something said or done.

A crucial aspect of forgiving and forgetting is valuing your relationship more than you value being right in a disagreement. While you may be completely right in a situation, being right is not worth destroying the relationship over.

If you are able to put your love for your partner ahead of the need for being right you will be more willing to forgive and forget. Also, forgiving and forgetting will allow your relationship to continue to flourish simply because working through conflicts makes a relationship stronger.

Finally you can never really forgive and forget unless you are truly willing to accept your partner’s apology. Harboring feelings that the apology isn’t genuine will damage the relationship because you will never forget their offending action.

Listen sincerely to your partner’s apology and have faith in them that their apology is heartfelt and genuine. Then let them know that you accept their apology and are willing to not let this situation interfere with your future interactions.

True forgiveness involves not only excusing the transgression but also effectively forgetting it as well. You cannot truly forgive someone if you don’t also agree to forget the offence. Refusing to forget indicates a lack of trust in your partner to not repeat the offence.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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Do You Really Know Who Your Partner Is?

Dec3

Photographers expand horizons in 2010 Army Digital Photography Contest 110311

How often have you gotten to a place in your life with someone you think you know, as well as anyone can, just to find that they continue to surprise you? The surprise might be a pleasant one such as learning about something really amazing they have done in their lives that you had no idea about.

Or the surprise might lead to a disappointment in a behaviour that you didn’t know they were capable of.

What does this mean? The truth is that you can spend a whole lifetime with a person and not really know who they are at all. As is the whole planet we live on, we are constantly changing and adapting to our environment.

You are, today, simply a product of all your life’s experiences and your responses to them. How you think, feel and behave is a consequence of all that has happened to you before this time.

And how you will be tomorrow will be a product of all that has happened in the past in addition to what you experience today and the decisions you make about yourself and others as a consequence of that experience.

I was speaking with a client today; let’s call her Susan, (not her real name) who met a serviceman a few months ago. Both of them have been busy with their lives and so have not spent a lot of time together before he was ordered back into service. He was not told of his mission before leaving and therefore was not able to let Susan know where he was going to be or when he would be back.

Five weeks have now passed without any communication and Susan is wondering where he is. Has he gone into a war-zone where he is unable to communicate with her, or worse still has he come to some foul play, or is he deliberately avoiding her.

Her confusion about this stems simply from her not really knowing him well enough to know what might be the truth. As I said to her; every couple needs exclusive time together to really get to know each other at the beginning of a relationship otherwise insecurities will naturally creep in.

Now, while I have said that you are constantly changing and this should require you to be constantly open to discovering who your partners are anew, there is also value in finding out where your partners have come from; their early life experiences as well as the experiences of their siblings and parents. All this information will help you determine what might be the core values of this possible partner particularly in reference to you as a couple.

So what might be some of the things that might be valuable for you to learn about your partner?

The questions are actually endless and could include how they acquired their name, their family history, their favorite things, how their parents resolve conflicts, how they resolve conflicts, what their relationship was like with their siblings growing up and what their hopes are for their future.

Don’t ever stop learning about your partner because the more you know about him or her the more sure you can be about why they do the things they do.

A word of warning

Be careful not to assume too much however because as the adage goes: to assume too much can make an ass out of u and me. Instead stay curious and let them also surprise you from time to time or check out that what you think they’re meaning is in actual fact real for today.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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Why Women Cheat?

Nov25

Recently I was surprised to hear news of increasing number of websites promoting affairs. So it maybe a bit of a surprise to hear that men are not the only ones who cheat on their partners.  It is becoming more and more common for women to be guilty of cheating.

And while years ago a woman cheating on her spouse was unheard of more recently the number of women who enter into affairs and cheat on their spouse is growing exponentially.

However while women may be cheating as often as men, the reasons why women cheat are very different to the reasons why men cheat.

Men Cheat for Physical Reasons and Women for Emotional Reasons

Research is showing us that the principle difference between men and women cheating are that men often cheat for physical reasons while women often have emotional reasons for cheating on their partner.

The reasons why women cheat include loneliness, revenge, and boredom or as an attempt to raise their self-esteem.

A partner who becomes excessively involved with his work or some pastime may no longer make time to spend with his partner. This often results in the woman feeling as if she is all alone. So if a woman is not receiving the attention she feels she deserves in a relationship, she may be tempted to seek that attention elsewhere and become involved in an affair.

Loneliness has amazingly become one of the primary reasons that women seek out affairs and cheat on their partner. Although it sounds contradictory that they should feel lonely while being in a relationship, it is because that relationship has simply become emotionally unfulfilling.

Revenge has also become a growing factor in why women cheat. The modern woman is no longer willing to sit back and accept the fact that their partner may cheat on them. If a woman confirms or even just holds a suspicion that her partner is cheating on her, she may be driven to engage in an affair of her own as an act of revenge.

An Eye for an Eye

They may be extremely hurt by their partner’s actions and seek a way to hurt them in the same way.

Boredom may also factor into why women cheat. Their current relationship may have fallen into a rut and lost the excitement that it possessed in the early stages of its existence. They may feel that their relationship has become dull and predictable so rather than trying to bring excitement into their current relationship they may pursue affairs in the hopes of rediscovering the excitement they felt when they first became involved with their partner.

While an affair may bring about a temporary solution of making the woman feel excited about love again it may ultimately destroy both their current relationship as well as their cheating relationship.

An affair is exciting not only because it involves a relationship with a new person but also because it involves sneaking around and ultimately getting away with doing something wrong.

To many women this is very exciting and they are willing to risk losing their relationship over the affair.

Another reason why women cheat is a lack of self-esteem. Women may feel that they are not getting an adequate amount of attention from their partner and they may be tempted to cheat to confirm that they are still attractive and desirable.

Being found desirable by another compensates for the lack of appreciation they feel from their partner which helps to boost their self-esteem. While women with a healthy self-esteem are more likely to remain happy in a relationship, and do what needs to be done to find it, those who lack self-esteem may be more driven to cheat on their partners.

So if you are finding yourself lonely, bored or feeling like your self-esteem is failing you think twice before embarking on an affair. Maybe there is a better way out. This might be to seek some counselling and then to find a way to confront your partner about what it is you’re experiencing.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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How to Create a Happy Marriage?

Nov19

Happy couple embracing and laughingSome of the issues that disrupt a relationship can include a history of stereotyping or mistrust, blaming the other person for the difficulties that will and do arise, excluding or discounting the other’s feelings when focusing on a task, having no clear and defined objectives as well as where roles and expectations of each person in the relationship are undefined or not defined clearly.

Relationships are often seen as fragile requiring huge effort to maintain. However, a relationship can also provide a safe haven for you to be and can be long-lasting despite the potential pitfalls.

Creating a happy and lasting relationship can be achieved in several ways:

Society may be seen as a web of relationships, which requires all members to work and contribute their share in order to achieve a common goal. Having a relationship that is happy, where cooperation and respect are valued, simply makes the whole society work better.

This can only be achieved when all those involved work well together and for relationships it’s no different.

Happy relationships are defined by you and your partner openly expressing your feelings and perspectives on all matters relevant to the relationship. Assuming that your partner understands your needs and gives without your asking for it is neither realistic nor desirable. What happens if they get it wrong?

The easiest way to understand what is important to your partner is to ask them what they want and listen to what they have to say. This might mean putting aside your own wants for the time being. You will get your turn to speak as well.

The benefit here is that when the they realize they are being listened to they are more likely to feel the importance given to them which frees the way for them, in turn, to be more open to what you have to say.

Understand first and only then act on each others feelings and perspective.

Another key to a happy relationship is respect. You show respect by listening to your partner and by trying sincerely to understand how they function. You can also show respect to each other by confirming that they are doing everything they can.

The opposite of respect is being too quick to form judgements based on unfounded facts and prejudices.

Respect is really the foundation for a great relationship. This also means respecting yourself as well as respecting the other.

And yet another key area in creating a happy relationship is to tackle the differences between you immediately.

Work towards a win-win solution for both parties.

This can be done when both of you acknowledge that the relationship is important. That each of you is willing to exert the time, effort and energy necessary to understand the each other’s perspective and needs, and work at it until it is resolved.

Effectively listening and no pre-judging are important if you are to really understand each other.

Informal discussions from time to time are also beneficial for ongoing good will with each other. They bring out issues and concerns comfortably. You also feel more relaxed allowing you to think more clearly and maybe come up with some resolutions that you might not have been able to come up with when dealing emotionally with an issue in the heat of the moment.

Develop an atmosphere where each of you can express your feelings when needed.

When people fail to express whatever is on their mind or their feelings about an incident that has happened, it can get in the way of building an effective relationship.

Relationships are important to everyone, addressing issues and problems right away is a must to further improve your relationship and to creating the happy relationship that you want.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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How to Catch a Cheating Partner

Nov5

How to Catch a Cheating Partner

Couples often come to a stage in their relationship where things no longer go so smoothly and they start asking questions about their future. This is a normal stage of development for all relationships. And rather than shying away from it you would do better to take a close look at where you are in your relationship and to notice if there is something you need to be paying attention to.

This would ensure your relationship continues into the future in a healthy way rather than taking it down a path of self destruct.

Remember this: where you put your thoughts is most likely how your relationship will respond.

Sometimes the difficulty you find your selves in leads you to question whether your partner is having an affair. The truth is sometimes they are but rather than seeing an affair as a symptom of a relationship in trouble it is seen as the cause of the trouble.

Let me also clarify here the meaning of the term ‘cheating’.

Most often we immediately think of cheating as one or both parties having an affair outside of the marriage. My definition of cheating is really when anything outside of the relationship, eg work or personal pursuits, takes precedence over the relationship to the detriment of the relationship.

Often by the time the couple enters counselling the damage has already become irreparable due to the accusations and recriminations that have been shot at each other. Often one party will admit their guilt either to relieve themselves of it, or simply to escape the torment. The sad thing here is that generally a confession rarely gets a resolution and most often just creates more anguish.

If you have your suspicions about your partner, you probably already realize that the relationship is in trouble but you also need to be ready for a revelation that might actually put an end to the relationship.

If you suspect that your partner is cheating don’t match their deceitfulness with your own by checking out their credit card expenses and/or their phone accounts. You might find answers but the way you have done so makes you no better than them.

The only way forward here is to ask the question outright and trust that you will know from their answer what the truth is. And while you may be able to investigate on your own to find your answer you should make sure that before you begin your investigation, and certainly before you ask the question outright, you prepare yourself for the answers you may receive.

So if such a couple presents to me in counselling the starting point of therapy is not about discovering the truth of an affair but the truth about their love and commitment of each other.

It may be that an affair, if it exists, will need to be discussed but not until both parties are ready to deal with what it means and how they want to deal with it. This really may be no different to managing a client who has experienced abuse in their past.

Sometimes it is necessary to know how to manage it and what you will do with the information before you even attempt to expose the client to the details of the abuse. If you simply present the client with the abuse up front it may actually only traumatise them further rather than giving them a solution.

Of course I’m not saying here that you should overlook the possibility of an affair but it needs to be looked at in perspective. That is, it needs to be viewed against the backdrop of your whole relationship and against whatever else is going on in the relationship.

What this all boils down to is this: get really clear about whether you actually have a relationship because only then can you figure out what you need to do about any cheating that might be happening.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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When the Fighting Becomes Unbearable

Oct15

Fight

I received this very sad letter not so long ago so am making it the focus of this blog article.

“Why is it that I and my girlfriend quarrel/argue every week for she says she doesn’t trust me and tells me every time that she doesn’t want to marry me?

I love her so much and want her be my wife. I have thought of things that she thinks that creates the argument, but when i start to work on those things it works a little while but fails and never lasts.

I am standing on two conflicting ideas. Marry her or start over another relationship.

What she says when she gets angry out of nothing gets me crazy. Even now, we are not giving phone calls to each other.

What should I do to keep and maintain happy and healthy relationship with her? I want to give love to her and expect the same response from her. How can I make that happen? When I stop things over, she starts and when I come to understating she pushes me away.

It has been like this for more than two years since I met her. One week okay and another week HELL.

Please help me save my relationship.”

Let me start to answer this multifaceted question by firstly saying that all relationships will have times of conflict especially as part of negotiating a long-term relationship. This is part of helping you figure out the ‘rules’ that are going to define how your relationship is to be managed. This involves who will make the decisions and who will be responsible for what aspect of your relationship.

This is a normal part of the transition into the next stage of relationship development as you move away from the symbiosis, the honeymoon stage that defines the first part of all relationships.

So the way through this is firstly to learn some communication skills so that you can each hear clearly what the other is saying before responding. Sometimes it is necessary to bring a professional counsellor/coach into the picture who can teach you how to do this and help you manage the process when things become especially difficult.

The next part of the process is to define what it means to be in relationship and what that relationship should look like to support both of your values of what a loving relationship actually is. Then take the time to ask each other lots of questions to assess whether these values are shared making you compatible as this value compatibility is what will determine whether your relationship has what it needs to make it long-term.

Just as importantly, for relationships to succeed it requires a selflessness that has at its core a willingness to do for another without any thought of what’s in it for me. If we only do for another for what we can get back then we’re not in it for love. And of course if you are both acting from that place then you’ll get what you want anyway but now for the right reasons.

For more information on the stages of relationship go and have a look at my product shop. There you will find several books including one titled “Relationships – A Couples Journey” that addresses the stages relationships go through as part of their natural development. Another book that maybe is helpful is titled “Love, Lies & The Games Couples Play” which takes a look at conflict in relationships and how to manage it. You’ll find the book at Amazon. You can get the free abridged ebook by subscribing to the newsletter.

So until next time – Relate with Love

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