Tag Archive | secrets to a happy marriage

Is Your Relationship in Trouble?

Aug25

Don’t make any rash decisions until you have booked yourself in to this seminar.

“Lidy has helped thousands of relationships. Maybe she can help yours as well.”

In just 90 mins you will learn the 3 simple steps you need to take to get your partner to understand how serious things have become. The seminar will give you strategies that you can immediately put into practice to:

  1. Understand the problems couples are dealing with
  2. Determine the extent of your Circle of Control and Influence
  3. Communicate a message that you can be sure will get heard
Recharge Your Relationship

Walk out of this seminar with a plan to recharge your relationship.

  • VENUE: Club Redfern, 159 Redfern Street, Redfern
  • DATE: Tuesday 1 September 2015
  • TIME: 7.00 pm – 9.00 pm
  • COST: $10.00 for you and your partner or friend
  • CONDITIONS: Bookings essential

If you would like to attend please ring 02 99978518 or email lidyseysener@optusnet.com.au with the words:  “Yes I would like to attend the seminar”

Numbers are limited.

One lucky person will also win a FREE copy of my soon to be bestseller and for anyone who purchases a copy you will receive a beautiful gift as well:

Book Cover “Love, Lies & the Games Couples Play” valued at $27.95

Should I Marry Or Just Live With My Partner?

Jul8

Should I Marry Or Just Live With My Partner

I receive countless emails on the topic of getting married versus living with your partner with the possibility of one day getting married and all the apprehension that goes with that decision. So in this article/blog I’m going to address these questions as I understand them and welcome your comments as well.

I also receive many questions about arranged marriages, and the consequences of that on the couple, as well as about marriages that are not arranged and do not have the approval of family.

Here are a couple of scenarios:

  1. Boy meets girl – they fall in love – they commit to each other and set up house either with a view to getting married or having just done so.
  2. Families introduce the couple – they live with their own families until they get married often not even meeting, or if so briefly in the parents company, before their wedding day.

Researchers have looked into each of these scenarios, amongst others, to determine what situations give the best long-term outcomes for couples.

And here is what the research is indicating:

Generally over the long-term arranged marriages have the highest rate of success. That is not necessarily to say that these couples are the happiest but, due to the cultural structure of their communities, where women particularly often have less input into their life decisions, the permanence of these relationships is pretty much guaranteed.

Another indicator coming from the research is that marriages that have resulted from a courtship whereby the couple has lived separately until their wedding day also seem to have a higher success rate than couples who have lived together prior to becoming married.

The lowest long-term success rate comes from couples who live together before they marry or who live together without marrying at all or who have only known each other for a short period of time before marrying.

My hunch is that there is a common denominator here that is to do with commitment. This commitment however could be self-directed or other directed. In the case of an arranged marriage there may be a commitment based on lack of perceived choice. While on the other end of the continuum, the couple who live together without making a long-term commitment, may actually not have given enough thought to the decision and consequently may feel more able to step away from the relationship if things get too hard.

This is a huge generalisation based on a set of figures which of course is just that; numbers not real people.

I look forward to your stories to tell me of outcomes that are contrary to the research results, for good and for bad, and maybe we can conduct our own research to see what structure relationships take that have the best outcome.

There is another set of figures being published too that says that second marriages have a higher failure rate than first marriages. This is often blamed on the additional stress of there now being children in the relationship or that someone has not learned their lessons from the first relationship and thereby just gets into the same negative place again.

And in terms of going against statistical norms I will be the first to hold up my hand. I met my current partner just as I was ready to end my previous relationship. I don’t mind saying that while we have never married we have now been together for twenty plus years and each year just gets better and better.

So what does all this tell us? Simply this: there is no best way to choose a partner or to choose a type of relationship or even a best time to marry. This might also mean then that there is no optimum time to know each other before committing to a relationship nor a best age to do this.

The most important thing is that you love each other and respect each other and treat each other as if you are the most valuable thing in the world. This presupposes that each of you is at peace within yourself. Sometimes this means making it more about your partner than about you. If you can do this then whatever arrangement you have will work.

A Word of Warning

A really important thing to remember is that relationships can be fragile and need regular nurturing and care. Don’t ever treat another person as someone to own or to have control over or to force into a relationship without their want. This is not respectful or favourable to being loved.

So until next time – Relate with Love

Relationship Remedy Signature jpeg

Your Biggest Relationship Questions Answered

Jun25

Your Biggest Relationship Questions Answered: a special 1 hour Q&A Webinar with

Your Biggest Relationship Questions Answered with Lidy Seysener and Frank Fava Your Biggest Relationship Questions Answered with Lidy Seysener and Frank Fava

Lidy Seysener

Frank Fava

Hi

A Colleague of mine Frank Fava and I are going to be presenting a webinar together next week so this is an invitation to join us and hear the two of us answer all your relationship questions, or as many as we can fit into an hour.

The topic for the event is “The Biggest Questions You Have About Relationships”.

For those who don’t know what a Webinar (Web-based Seminar) is it is an event that happens online where you will hear, in this one at least, Frank and I answering questions on what it means to be in a relationship in 2015. It is also an event where you can post (ie write down) questions as we go for us to answer.

This is the first time we’ve done this kind of event so I’m going to be learning as well.

The place to register your interest in this webinar is:

http://relationshipsrevealed.com.au/qa/

There you will find this introduction:

Introducing Lidy Seysener of Northern Beaches Counselling.
I have the privilege of having Lidy as a guest speaker and expert on a special 1 hour Q&A Webinar.
Change yourself and you change your relationship.
We’re going to be answering your biggest questions on being your best self in relationships and getting “Relationship Prepared”.
If you can’t join us LIVE: Register anyway, and I will send you the Recording of the session the following day.
See you there!
Frank Fava
Relationships Revealed

So just click on the link and RSVP directly there and I’ll look forward to answering your biggest questions about relationships then.

If you have any questions about this webinar feel free to reply and I’ll try to answer them.

Regards

Lidy

Are You Thinking About Separation or Divorce?

Jun9

Click on the flyer to see it in full size.
If you would like to attend the free presentation please ring 02 99978518 or email admin@northernbeachescounselling.com.au with the words: “Yes I would like to attend the free presentation”.

 

Are You Thinking About Separation or Divorce?

 

Some excerpts from my workshops.

How to Forgive the Unforgivable

May20

Forgive the Unforgivable

Has your partner made an error that has hurt you? Have you made errors that have hurt your partner?

The closer you are to someone, the more likely you are to ‘step on their toes’. And being in a relationship with someone certainly puts you where this is fairly likely to happen. Relationships are a bit like ballroom dancing really! The chances are even pretty high that you and your partner could have pretty sore toes.

The point here is that it’s normal for you and your partner to make mistakes and to inadvertently step on each others toes. And as long as this is not intentional it is repairable. Like ballroom dancing, once you get the steps right the dance will flow naturally all by itself.

And, except in the case of physical abuse, (I addressed that in my blog of a couple of weeks ago) you can move on from anything. In fact, your marriage can end up even better!

I know…you’re probably thinking, ‘Better? How could it be better than before we messed it up?’

It can be better, but you have to do one thing first. You have to forgive.

What does it really mean to forgive?

Many people say, ‘I forgive you’, but continue to hold anger and resentment in their hearts. Some people even say the words, but their actions show that nothing’s changed for them at all.

Other people will say ‘I forgive you’ but what they really mean is, ‘I can’t deal with it. I don’t want to talk about it any more.’ And so the 3 magic words come out and form a wall that shuts out their partner. True, they may not be angry any more, but that’s because they’ve shut down all emotion and refuse to reconnect.

Saying ‘I forgive you!’ is an entirely different ball game from truly forgiving.

Let’s take a closer look at the word and where it comes from. The root of the word ‘forgive’ is the Latin word ‘perdonare’ meaning: ‘to give completely without reservation’. This is also the source of our English ‘pardon’.

When the Latin ‘perdonare’ was adopted into the Germanic ancestor of English, it was translated piece-by-piece: ‘Per’ was replaced by ‘for’, a prefix that in this case means ‘thoroughly’ and ‘donare’ with ‘giefan’ (to give). The result, ‘forgiefan’, appeared in Old English meaning ‘to give up’ or ‘allow’ as well as ‘to give in marriage’.

In modern English, ‘forgive’ has also taken on the meanings of ‘to pardon for an offence’, ‘renounce anger at’ (I truly forgive you for stepping on my toes) and ‘to abandon a claim on’ (as in ‘forgive a debt’).

What then is true forgiveness? It’s when you stand as close to your partner as you stood the day your feet got stepped on. It’s when you give of yourself like you did before you were hurt.

Forgiveness might also need to be of self as well as of the other. That might sound surprising but for your partner to have stepped on your toes your toes needed to have been there to be stepped on. As the old adage says: ‘It takes two to tango!’

And, by the way, forgiveness may not be easy to do. But it is possible. You can forgive each other and move on.

And once you forgive, you’ll see that your marriage can be better than it was before.
You could even be happy that the mistake was made (in a strange way) because it allows you to realize that you might never have achieved the love you finally have without that error as your catalyst.

Did you know that when a broken bone heals it’s stronger than it was before it was broken? You too can be stronger than before things broke down between you.

Did you ever make love after a big fight? Did you ever think after you made-up, ‘Hey, this is great? We should fight more often.’ Sometimes, while not an excuse to fight, the highest-highs can follow the lowest-lows. This is because in the forgiving you have come to an even more intimate place with each other.

If you are holding onto old hurts maybe it’s time for you to forgive. Give it a go it can be so liberating for you personally as well as for you as a couple.

And if you need help with this check out the ‘Quizzes and Questionnaires’ page at my site www.acouplesjourney.com. You will discover an exercise there to help you in finding forgiveness. Alternatively, if you need further assistance in this, please find a good Counselor. The effort will reap the reward.

So until next time – Relate with Love

Relationship Remedy Signature jpeg

The Blame Game

Apr14

The Blame Game

Is It Her or Is It Me?

Couples invariably get to some point in their relationship when they start asking questions about whether any issues that they have, have to do with them, each other or some external factor.

Some of the questions that are asked can be about religion, culture or even age differences as a way of understanding why they are in trouble.

While these differences may impact on the development and growth of a relationship they are not the most important issues as there are just as many relationships with these differences that are successful.

And even in relationships that have no significant distinguishing variances there can be issues that result in the relationship not working.

So if it’s not the differences that ultimately put the greatest pressure on a relationship what is it then?

In all the years that I have worked with couples what I see as the single biggest destroyer of relationships is the “BLAME GAME”. It’s the individual’s unwillingness to take responsibility in their part of what went wrong.

Let me ask you a question – have you ever found yourself saying that if only your partner would be, do, think or speak differently then everything would be ok. Well what about you? What if you would be, do, think or speak differently what do you think would happen?

I constantly surprise clients when they contact me saying that they’d love to come into counselling but their partner doesn’t want to. What I tell them is to: “Just bring yourself into counselling. We can do couples work without your partner ever have to be there”. Then they’re further surprised when they notice things actually changing for them when they put into practice the things I suggest to them to do.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Top of this list of things you can do is to STOP THE BLAME GAME! Everything that your partner does happens for a reason and you are as much a part of that reason as they are.

Firstly they learned, either by observation of their parents are other close family members, or from their own life experience, what to do and how to act when they are in conflict. For some of you this might be to go quiet and withdraw, yell louder than your partner, or distract yourself with something, or someone else.

So when you are in conflict as an adult your tendency will be to return to those old ways of responding. And as you do it your way your partner will do it their way.

So until next time – Relate with Love

Relationship Remedy Signature jpeg

Relationship Release – The Easiest Way to Leave Your Lover

Apr3

Click on the flyer to see it in full size.

Relationship Release – Is Your Relationship in Serious Trouble?

If you would like to attend the free presentation evening please ring 02 99978518 or email admin@northernbeachescounselling.com.au with the words: “Yes I would like to attend the free presentation evening”.

Relationship Release – The easiest way to leave your lover

 

Some excerpts from my workshops.

Should I Give Them A Second Chance?

Mar3

Second Chance

So often I am told about infidelities, hurts and disappointments between couples and then asked whether the offenders should be given another chance.

I think the question is often asked because the offender has felt some remorse for the misdeed and they, both in the couple, are hoping that this is enough to get them back on track. The question is also generally asked following a statement from the injured party confirming a continuing love for the person despite what they have done.

The sad thing is that remorse in and of itself is rarely sufficient to change a person’s behaviour. This is because if the underlying need or belief hasn’t changed then the behaviour may not either.

Let me see if I can make this clearer.

From my experience a typical scenario goes like this. The person who has more invested in the relationship will accept the others apology welcoming them back into the relationship without any requirement. Sadly, while things might be good for a period of time, what most often happens is that the person will likely offend again as nothing has really been learned or really has changed. There may not even have been any real conversation about what happened let alone why it happened.

And here’s another common scenario. There has been an infidelity and the relationship has broken down completely with the couple separating. The person who committed the indiscretion now feels free to enter into a relationship with the party with whom they had the affair who happily takes the person in believing most likely that all manner of wrongs from the other’s partner is the reason for the infidelity. They never even contemplate that the issue may actually have been with the offender and that likely nothing was actually learned to ensure that the person would not digress again.

What often ends up happening is that this couple finds themselves in exactly the same place as the previous relationship and so once again the offender strays from the marriage to attempt to find what is still missing from their lives in the arms of someone else.

What really needs to happen in these circumstances is that each party takes some time to try and figure out why the behaviour happened in the first place. Was it because some need was not being met or that there is actually a mismatch in the things that each party holds valuable about themselves, their spouses and their marriage.

So the way forward is firstly to communicate with each other openly and honestly about what is going on for each of them. They also need to discuss what they feel and think about their relationship and their part in it. Finally, and maybe this needs the assistance of a couples therapist, they need to share with each other what is really important to each of them about being in a relationship and to discover whether there is a match in those values.

If there is a match then the likelihood of them succeeding into the future is reasonably assured.

If there is no match then they need to determine whether they are willing to live with this and the consequences or whether they can save themselves and each other a lot of heartache by acknowledging those differences and separating from each other immediately.

Of course this course of discovery would be better done prior to entering into the relationship in the first place. And this is where preparation for marriage counselling is most valuable; simply ensuring your compatibility prior to saying “I do!”

So until next time – Relate with Love

Relationship Remedy Signature jpeg

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

Relationship Remedy Signature jpeg