Ask Dan and Jennifer » relationship counseling

Do You Have Both Feet in Your Relationship?

Wendy Strgar — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:49:29 +0000

Although I don’t remember the exact day that I pulled the one foot that I had out the door back into my marriage, today, celebrating 24 years of marriage, I can’t remember the last time that it occurred to me that I would ever leave.

It seems like I should remember when that change took place as it so profoundly changed the very fabric of what we were doing together, but like most things in life that are daily, we don’t see them as they are happening. They are clear as we look back.

The Not So Fairy Tale Marriage

We never had a fairy tale marriage, and in fact anyone who claims to have one is probably either not really present or honest. Our love for each other was uneven and the common issues of attraction and initiation- who wanted who, first and more, plagued our ability to connect for years.

The classic, “I am not in the mood” or “I am tired” responses create a cycle of defensive and offensive reactions that is almost like a pre-patterned dance. It’s a scenario that many couples just don’t have enough language to find their way out of.

In hindsight, I know now, that there is no winning side to that argument, but whichever side is your familiar view can color your lens so completely that the other side seems like a holiday. The shame of rejection is really no better than the guilt of turning away.

The pain is equal. I have read that the rejecting partner is the more powerful of the two, but having been on both sides, I don’t think its true- both sides make you unable to connect and leave you feeling equally powerless in having the relationship that you really want.

Choosing The Relationship

Two things transpired in my marriage to lift this issue and allow us to experience sexual desire with out the burden of fear and unmet longing. The first one was choosing my relationship without reservation. Being in my marriage with both feet in the door,

I had a lot more balance and flexibility that gave me more room and ease in dealing with the issues that kept me distant and disconnected. When I gave myself permission to truly stay, to not be looking for the reasons to leave, it changed my relationship to both the issues and my husband.

Finding True Forgiveness

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What Are You Really Fighting About? It May Not Be What You Think…

Melody Brooke — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 16:02:25 +0000

Jeanie was so upset with her husband.

He had always been difficult to feel physically connected to.

He had always had a subtle pulling back when she would reach out to touch him, but it had gotten worse in the past few months.

She brought him into therapy fearing that they were on the brink of a divorce, if not an affair.

Why Is He Always Pulling Away?

Jeanie’s husband, Frank, was a sweet, mild mannered man with some anger issues that had been a problem in a previous marriage and were still somewhat of an issue with Jeanie.

The bigger problem was that she felt him pulling away from her touch, and she was certain this meant he didn’t love her any more. After a few sessions, it became clear what the problem really was about.

Frank was terrified of losing her to death.

He had witnessed his mother’s death at the age of four; she died mid-sentence while she was talking on the telephone on her bed in front of him. Then, at 15 he held a girl in his arms as she died from a drug overdose.

When he tapped into this in session the fear and pain he felt was palpable.

Recently he had lost his father to a lingering cancer that left his father comatose for months. The little boy inside of Frank felt that if he just didn’t allow himself close, then death could be avoided. Thus, he found himself pulling further and further away from Jeanie. The pain and shock of his early losses still dictated his emotional and intimate life.

Frank is not any different than the rest of us.

Our Behavior Is Rarely As "Rational" As We’d Like To Believe

We behave in unconscious ways that dictate how we interact with each other, what we feel and what upsets us. We go about our lives as if it were a logical, rational process and the choices and actions we take made some kind of sense.

That’s where “rationalization” comes in to play. Frank had convinced himself that Jeanie’s return to smoking cigarettes had caused him to withdraw from her. But actually, her smoking had started in response to his pulling away.

But that’s how our brains work to trick us into thinking that what we do makes sense.

Emotions make no obvious, logical sense. Emotions are always laden with the memories of times when we felt similar things at some time in the past and are linked together through a complex network of memories that links them to the earliest memories we have.

When Frank connected to his sense of pain about his father’s death it took him directly to the death of his mother, which he had experienced so traumatically, at four. And, the time of his father’s death, he went back into the emotional state of the four year old. He was no longer the 30 something man that seemed to be sitting before me, he was emotionally and mentally four.

This is what happens all the time in our conflicts with our partners.

Arguments Are Always About Something Deeper

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Could Your Need for Control be Ruining Your Relationship?

Melody Brooke — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 15:19:25 +0000

All of us seem to have a craving for power. We are all driven to get control over the situations we find ourselves in, and mostly, over our partners.

We think to ourselves – "If she would only do what we want her to do," or "If he would only do what I need him to do," then life would be better. In some ways, these things might be true.

How we go about getting what we want often turns into attempts to get power and control over our partners. This, of course, happens when we ourselves feel powerless.

When we feel powerless we feel overwhelmed, out of control and helpless. It’s unbearable. So, we try desperately to regain a sense of control.

Common Ways of Gaining Power Over Our Partners

Physical/Emotional Intimidation

Some of us do it by puffing ourselves up as big as possible, yelling, screaming, intimidating with our full force. (If we are physically large it’s easier to pull this one off).

We can do it by throwing out intimidating words if we are smart or college educated (women have an advantage here, having more command, generally speaking, over language than men).

Subtle Manipulation

If we are charming we can do it with our manipulative pleasing behaviors, charming our partner into doing what we want them to do.

Abandonment

Oh, another great one is to threaten to abandon our partner. If our partner is really attached to us, this can be very effective.

Withholding Information

My personal favorite is to withhold information. Yes, this is a power play. I know it doesn’t seem like it on the surface, but it is a very controlling behavior.

What we are doing when we withhold information is that we are controlling our partners’ reactions to what we are doing by not telling them. If they don’t know about it, they can’t get mad at us.

All of these are very effective if what you want is a partner who is controlled by you, intimidated by you, and kept at a distance.

But, if what you want is an intimate connection where you and your partner are truly partners, you have to find a different way to not feel powerless, helpless and despairing.

Focus on Gaining Control of Yourself Instead

Most of the time when clients come into my office they are both trying to get control of their partner. It’s the only way they know how to get their needs met. The good news is that there is a better way.

When we stop the controlling behaviors it can feel scary, because it feels like our only other option is to stay in the out-of-control state. Fortunately, it’s not the only option.

Learning the skills of navigating an interpersonal relationship that is deeper than one based on power and control is an ongoing effort. We have to learn how to stay in the fear. We have to learn that feeling out of control is not going to kill us or make us crazy.

To simplify the process for you I am going to give you the following steps as a starting point:

5 Easy Steps to Help You Cope with Your Fears

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When Fairy Tale Romance Goes Bad…

Melody Brooke — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:39:49 +0000

Here we are in the 21^st Century.

We have cell phones, Internet, microwaves and electric cars.

We have more information than we can possibly absorb about everything from digging holes to brain surgery.

But we often still think in 15^thCentury terms when it comes to romance…

Fairy Tale Romance – The White Knight and the Damsel in Distress

One young couple I worked with had been madly in love. They met when she was 20 and he was 30. Gary was an established salesman making six figures and Lisa was a social worker, working nights in a coffee shop to make ends meet. When he walked in she said to her co-worker, “There’s the man I’m going to marry.”

Lisa says she said it jokingly, but this is what she had been hoping for: a strapping 6’3’ elegant man with a quick smile and loose with his money. She wrangled a meeting with him and they were quickly swept into a whirlwind romance. She moved into Gary’s 3,000 square foot home and quit her night job. He bought her flowers, jewelry, spa treatments and other thoughtful gifts. Lisa was enraptured with him, and he with her.

Gary admired what Lisa did and wanted to take her away from the stress of living on little money while doing good works. When they married the congregation was in tears, they had never seen a couple so in love.

When the Fairy Tale Turn Into a Nightmare

But less than a year after they married the relationship was in ruins. Lisa had an affair and Gary discovered her indiscretion. Furious, Gary insisted she go to therapy and work things out. Lisa was so depressed by the failure of their marriage and the depth of his rage that she was afraid to break off with the man she had been seeing and couldn’t agree to stop seeing him. Gary’s was bitter and angry. He filed for divorce and started seeing other women. He still went out with Lisa and they occasionally talked of working things out.

Lisa became distraught when he filed for divorce and dropped the relationship with the man she had been seeing. She begged Gary to take her back.

Gary continued to see other women, but after the divorce was final, he was ready to consider reconciliation. They came into therapy hurt, angry and confused. She thought he was mean and irresponsible with money. He thought she was a liar and disrespectful to him.

What Went Wrong…

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Empathizing With a Wife Beater?

Melody Brooke — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 16:42:34 +0000

Jim was a thirty-something man who was involved in a violent relationship. He was not proud of his part in the violence and had been attending an anger management group.

He felt to blame for what had happened and was clearly confused and ashamed that he had behaved this way toward the woman he loves. And worst of all, he had done it in front of his children.

He went on to tell of how he had completely lost his cool with his new wife and attempted to strangle her. She had called the police and now he is facing charges for domestic battery.

Understanding Domestic Violence

Most of us hear this story and feel aghast that someone could behave this way. How could someone react so violently toward someone they love?

A while back I remember seeing Oprah struggle to fathom how a wife batterer could take a frying pan to his wife’s head. She was understandably horrified at such a behavior. Most of us are. But what if we could understand it?

As I talked to Jim I listened to his story. He told of being verbally battered by his wife for everything from house cleaning to not having enough education to suit her. She couldn’t accept his not having a college degree and she couldn’t accept his relationship with his son. The night of the strangling event, she had squeezed his family jewels with her fingernails digging into his skin. Because he reacted in a self-defense measure to her intimate violence, he was arrested and will, no doubt have a record that follows him for the rest of his life.

When we feel that we are being attacked we will respond with whatever self-defensive measure we have at our disposal. When our communication skills are limited, as they are for many men, the only resource we have is to resort to some kind of self-protective measure. Now, he could and should have just left the scene. But honestly, how many of us can think that clearly when we are under attack?

Fight, Flight, or Freeze

Our brains are wired to respond to threat in certain ways. We have all heard of the “fight, flight, freeze” pattern because it is true of all mammals (yes, we humans are mammals). Our primitive brains are wired for our survival and chemicals are released in our brains that tell us to respond in a automatic pre-programmed ways when faced with threat.

Not all threat as is obvious as what occurred to Jim. Sometimes it’s “merely” verbal attacks. Funny, I heard a heavy metal song yesterday “You hurt me with your mouth”. How many times have we seen the public service commercial spot about words hurting as much as a fist?

Yet we expect men to react to the violence of language calmly and without anger. I am not justifying violence. What I am saying is that verbal violence is just as damaging to our loved ones as physical violence.

We forget that in the middle of a fight, don’t we? We are so bent on our own need for a sense of power and control that we will say and do almost anything to regain control. We have to feel on top, we have to feel that we are “winning” the argument.

Then we get angry and tell our friends how mistreated we are when our partners respond with angry, hurtful words or actions. We can always justify our own behaviors but rarely look at our partners’ reactions with empathy.

Understanding Our Partner’s Reactions

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The Top 10 Relationship Success Secrets That Everyone Ought to Know

Lisa Brookes Kift — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 19:33:05 +0000

As a couple’s therapist, I’ve seen a myriad of relationships styles.

People who come in for counseling are clearly looking to change something they see problematic in their partnership. The problems range from the relatively benign tweaks in communication to serious pain and trust violations due to infidelity and all sorts of issues in between.

Filtering through all of this, I’ve identified ten characteristics of successful relationships. These qualities are integral parts of a healthy relationship foundation and I believe increase the chances of weathering the storms that life inevitably dishes out.

The Top 10 Characteristics of Successful Relationships

The ten characteristics are as follows and are in no particular order:

1. Friendship

Couples who have a strong friendship have staying power. They not only love each other but genuinely like each other as people. They enjoy hanging out together. They might even consider each other their “best friend.”

2. Humor

Partners who can make each other laugh tend to be good at de-escalating conflicts when they do arise. It’s the great mood lightener. I’ve noticed the use of funny nicknames can be an indicator of great fondness for one another. The names often stem from a “you had to be there” moment from the beginning of their relationship.

3. Communication

As obvious as this may seem, many couples are not very good at it. Those who are able to openly express their feelings in an emotionally safe environment typically deal with situations as they come up and avoid burying frustrations which always have a way of coming out at some point.

4. Chore Sharing

Those who divvy up the household or parenting responsibilities in a way that is mutually agreed upon way are less likely to hold resentments about what they perceive as “unfair.” Each participates (albeit maybe begrudgingly) and both contribute to the relationship in this way.

5. Sexual Intimacy

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Weathering the Storm – How to Survive Stressful Times Together

Melody Brooke — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 17:24:01 +0000

Life doesn’t always go smoothly, have you noticed that?

It’s easy to feel in love and happy with your partner during times of success and relative calm. But times like that don’t come along all that often.

My husband and I figure we have had one year that was relatively free of stress. Fortunately it was the second year of our marriage. We had weathered the normal “sturm and drang” of the first year and had established a warm, trusting connection between us. We had one year to enjoy that state of marital bliss before life came along to stir things up.

Change is Inevitable

The old saying goes there are two things certain in life, “taxes and death”. I would go on to add a third, change. Change happens continually and most of the time unpredictably. Humans don’t really like change, for the most part. We would prefer to have our routines and daily lives remain stable and secure so that we can know what to expect. Unfortunately, this is not true to life. Life has a way of shaking things up, sometimes at the worst possible times.

Marriages, if they are to last, have to change as well. They have to adapt to the flow of change in life and become more than they originally were, if they are to succeed. Most of us don’t handle it that well and the result is the amazingly high rate of divorce. The popular belief is that we are “serial monogamists” and that it’s normal to be divorced in the 22nd Century. But if you are like me and ever experienced a divorce, you know there is nothing “normal” about it and it causes damage to anyone touched by it, whether you have kids or not.

So how are we to surf successfully through the storms of life and remain connected as a couple?

I am sure there are books on that particular topic, though I have to admit to never having read one. There are lots of books on communication and deepening intimacy, but I don’t think I’ve seen any that directly address the topic of managing stressful times together as a couple. It’s easy to feel connected to another person when things are going well, its something else altogether to stay connected when things are not going well.

Human Nature is to Find Someone to Blame for Our Unhappiness

This is because knowing who is to blame helps us solve the problem. If we know where the problem is we can do whatever it needs to be done to fix it. But, in the case of marriage, that often looks like divorce. We figure, we are unhappy, so it must because of my partner. “Just look at (him/her) (he/she) is so (fat, addicted, mean, selfish, whatever) and obviously doesn’t care about (him/her) self or me. How can I be happy with a partner like that?”

Ah, we have solved the problem!

Now we know what to do, …

How Therapy Can Actually Destroy Your Marriage

Melody Brooke — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 19:14:49 +0000

Generally speaking we choose to go into therapy when we can’t figure out how to make our lives work by ourselves. Maybe we’ve been aware of underlying sadness that doesn’t seem to go away no matter what we do. Or perhaps we have started having panic attacks for no noticeable reason that we cannot contain on our own. We could be tearful much of the time and don’t understand what is causing it.

On the other hand, we could enter therapy because we are unhappy with our marriage and we can’t get ourselves to leave or figure out how to change it.

When we go into therapy for any reason, and we are married, the odds of ending up divorced actually increase. I suspect this is because when we enter therapy we are looking at things solely from our own perspective. We go into therapy hoping to get a different perspective, but often what happens is that we get support in our perspective. Most therapists are kind, care giving types of people who have gone into the profession in hopes of helping people. So when you enter their office they give you support and encouragement, they help you feel better about yourself and your position. If you have a partner and you are unhappy with them, the therapist encourages you to stand up for yourself and assert your needs.

The downside of their doing this is that while it may make you feel better in the short run, it runs the risk of destroying your marriage in the long run. This is because what has happened is that you have gotten help in making you stronger, at the cost of the connection between you and your partner.

In supervision early in my career I remember my supervisor saying that once a person brings their spouse into therapy you become the marriage’s counselor and not the individual’s counselor. This made sense to me at the time.

Since then I have come to realize that when someone comes to me their relationships are as much a part of the therapy as they. This means that I do not take positions against the other parties. I support the person in discovering more about themselves and exploring how their current relationships are impacted by their past experiences. I do not make judgments about my client needing to end their relationships just because my client is unhappy in the situation.

One of my past supervisors habitually demanded that her clients cut off connections with their families. Now, at the time this made sense to me since some of those family connections were with parents that continued to be abusive. And, sometimes, this it can be important to take time-outs in these situations until the clients are strong enough to protect themselves. But most of the time what my clients need is to be able to develop a different kind of relationship with these important people in their lives by developing compassion for both themselves, and for their parents.

To do this the therapist has to themselves be…

Balanced Relationships: You, Me and We

Lisa Brookes Kift — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 15:43:13 +0000

One thing I notice in a lot of couples who come through my door is a lack of balance in their relationship.

What do I mean by this?

When two people come together there are now three parts to this system; “you,” “me,” and “we.” Imagine if you draw two overlapping circles. There are three parts – the individual pieces on the sides and the overlapping piece in the middle. The outer parts represent each person and the middle is where they join in relationship. Every relationship will look slightly different on paper in where the emphasis is.

On one end of the continuum will be the couple where each person essentially lives a separate life with different friends, few mutual decisions and little time spent together. I once had a couple who literally never sat down to eat with one another and had separate bedrooms. On paper, this couple would be drawn as two separate circles next to each other with no overlap. Essentially, they are extremely “you” and “me” focused with no “we.” In this scenario, one partner often desires more togetherness with the other but their mate possibly fears intimacy and a perceived loss of their independence.

On the other side, there’s the couple who spends as much time as humanly possible together, with no outside friendships or interests. They are totally enmeshed in one another. They live “as one.” The circles would be almost totally overlapping each other, with most of the focus on “we” and very little, if any “you” and “me.” Sometimes, this can be the dynamic in a controlling relationship where one person pulls the other one in very close to maintain control.

The previous examples are extreme and the reality is that most people fall somewhere in the middle. It’s important to mention that these balance styles may work for some people and if it does, that’s wonderful.

However, in my experience, I find that the most content couples are those whose circles overlap in the middle, where there is equal attention paid to “you,” “me” and “we.” Each partner is able to maintain their own identity, friends, hobbies and outside interests while nurturing the relationship. A personally fulfilled person can be more open, giving and loving to their partner than one who has lost their identity. The relationship is where they come together to share their friendship, intimacy, struggles, mutual friends, hopes dreams, meals and bills.

When I work with couples, I always assess their relationship balance and whether it’s working for them both. If it’s not, it first must be understood why they operate that way. There are many reasons that motivate people towards the various styles including family of origin experience (what did their parents do?), fear of engulfment or the opposite, fear of abandonment. The next step is figuring out what they can do differently to create more balance. Often it involves increased awareness, better communication and behavioral change. Ideally, the end result is the two overlapping circles that validate all three parts – the “you,” the “me” and the “we.”

Lisa Brookes Kift is a Marriage & Family Therapist Registered Intern practicing in San Diego, California. She does individual, couples and premarital counseling. For more information see her website at www.lisakifttherapy.com.

Healthy Relationships: Assessing the Emotional Safety

Lisa Brookes Kift — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:45:39 +0000

Couples seek relationship counseling for numerous reasons. As a professional who works with many different couples with a variety of issues, I’ve identified one similar thread that runs through all of them.

Their relationships lack in varying degrees of “emotional safety.” Typically, the couples who present as the most hostile, distant, angry, disengaged or otherwise dysfunctional are the least emotionally safe together. Even people who come for counseling who have less glaring issues can benefit from a tune-up in this area.

So what is “emotional safety” in a relationship?

I define this as the level of comfort both people feel with each other. There are six aspects in which to assess the emotional safety in a relationship. They are respect, feeling heard, understanding, validation, empathy and love. How can one assess their own relationship based on this paradigm? When working with couples, I often ask each partner to rate, from zero to ten, (zero being “never” and ten being “all the time”) how much they feel each of the six mentioned aspects of emotional safety from their partner. I chart it out with each person’s name written on the top of a piece of paper with a column under each. Then on the left side I list the six aspects with rows next to them.

Respect: How much do each of them feel respected by their partner? People who report low levels of respect often experience criticism or judgment from the other.
Feeling Heard: How much does their partner listen to them? Those who don’t feel heard complain of being ignored, tuned out or talked over by the other.
Understood: How much do each of them feel understood by their partner? People with low levels of understanding from the other report frustration around their partner not getting them or twisting their words into an entirely different meaning.
Validation: How much do they each feel validated by each other? Low levels of validation are problematic to any relationship in that one or both don’t feel that their partner gets what they’re saying. Its one step beyond understanding and it doesn’t require the partner to necessarily agree with them.
Empathy: How much do they each feel the other can be empathetic with them? A low number on this is the most toxic of the six aspects in that a lack of empathy in a relationship means a lack of attunement to the others emotions. The partner experiencing a lack of empathy can experience a great deal of sadness or anger. “You don’t care how I feel.”
Love: How much do they feel loved by each other? This encapsulates and reflects the state of the previous five. Couples who report low levels of feeling loved by the other typically have low numbers in the other aspects.

Doing this type of charting makes it easy to compare and contrast how each person feels in the relationship. This tool is very helpful to anyone wanting to assess their own level of emotional safety. Be aware that it might bring up a lot for both partners. If the topic proves to cause too much emotional reactivity then a trained therapist can help flesh out the results and provide a road map to make changes. In my work, I find that it often involves altering communication styles, behavior modification and exploration of both partner’s families of origin. The greatest evidence of change in the relationship are these numbers going up – and they can!

Lisa Brookes Kift, M.A., is a Marriage & Family Therapist Registered Intern in San Diego, California. She helps individuals and couples work through a variety of issues. To learn more about her and her services go to www.LisaKiftTherapy.com.

Want More Sex? Here’s how…

Melody Brooke — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 20:23:58 +0000

Regardless of what you may think. Sex happens in the brain. Our ability to feel desire, the things that turn us on, the things that make us reach climax all happen in the brain. So, if you want more sex, it’s reasonable to assume you should know more about the brain. I’ll give you the primer version.

Our brains are hard wired to respond to perceived threat in ways that will preserve our ability to survive. These automatic reactions are called “Survival mechanisms”. Our brain fires off chemicals that provoke us into feelings of fear for our survival. Then we have biologically programmed ways to react to fear that aid us in surviving whatever it is that is threatening our survival. You don’t really have a choice about what you are feeling when you perceive yourself to be in a threatening situation. Your brain takes over. Our brains are very powerful in affecting how we feel and how we respond.

You see our brains have been programmed through biology and culture to respond in ways that will insure our survival in primitive situations. Your brain doesn’t really get it that if you perceive your job is being threatened you will not die. It really feels like you will. Your brain doesn’t know that if your husband/wife/partner is angry with you and you think they might leave you that you won’t die. Your brain doesn’t know that when a friend calls your character into question, that you won’t die. Your brain doesn’t discriminate between actual threat for your survival and emotional threat.

Our brains are divided into sections. As we evolved as a species we went from depending on simple functions to the very complex brain that we now have as human beings. Our reptilian ancestors brains comprised of three cleanly defined sections: the front part allows for smell, the middle for vision, and the rear allows us balance and coordination. And those basic survival instincts were cordoned off in a space between the smell and vision sections, a kind of command post with the scientific name of “diencephalon”. This part of the brain holds our drives for food, our "fight-or-flight" aggression reactions, and of course, sex.

Our brains further evolved into what is known as the “mammalian” brain when our left and right cerebral hemispheres developed. More and more circuits had to be added to process the more complex functions of the life and culture of our mammalian ancestors and our brains grew in size. But we still rely on that command post to assist us in our primary need: survival. This relic of the past fights our evolved brains more flexible reactions and tends to take over when we perceive that we need them.

This very powerful tiny walnut sized part of our brain, set inside our brain stem, is called our “hypothalamus”. It injects our system with electrical stimulus evoking anger, anxiety and acute fear. Most of the time, we are able to maintain mastery over this part of our brain. But now and again our animal senses tell us that our survival or our well-being is being challenged and that package of survival programs, called “emotions” erupt.

It’s like you have two brains in one body. Your emotional states that evolved to help you survive; and the other which is ruled by reason. The old brain; and the new brain in one package: your skull.

Okay, now, back to sex…

Who Are You And What Have You Done With My Partner?

Melody Brooke — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 17:10:34 +0000

When I got married I was such a happy person. My husband was gentle, kind, giving, and such a great dad. It came as a complete shock to me the first time he got angry with me.

You see, I am an anger phobic from way back. I will never forget cringing as my grandmother screamed at my mentally retarded uncle. She would go on tirades that filled the house with angry blasts of her voice (this was no small task as the house was a 3 story boarding house). I was never comfortable with anger (especially not my own!) and I would do just about anything to avoid it. Additionally, when anyone was angry I had huge judgments regarding them. Anger, in my opinion meant ugliness, abusiveness and there just wasn’t any excuse for it.

So marrying someone human enough to get angry startled me. I didn’t understand where my loving, gentle husband had disappeared to and who was this person in my bedroom anyway? After all, I didn’t see that I could possible have done anything to have brought on his wrath. I never did anything to deliberately hurt anyone, especially him, my most beloved. The anger that I felt as a response separated us. I felt totally disconnected from him. I couldn’t understand where he got off being so angry with me for nothing I could comprehend. Who was this angry monster and why did he seem to hate me?

That’s how it felt to me. If someone was that angry with you they had to hate you, right? Consciously I knew that was wrong, but it definitely felt that way. The little kid inside cringed at every angry word he spoke.

I was fearful of his getting angry so I started editing what I told him. In other words, controlling him by not giving him all the information. That always backfired of course, because eventually he would discover what I had not told him and it would make him even angrier.

I don’t recall how long it took for me to realize that underneath the raging exterior of my formerly loving partner was a lot of fear and hurt. What’s more, what he was angry about was never really about what I thought it was about, it wasn’t really about what I had said or done, it was about something far bigger, and older.

His anger was what I call a “Self-Protective” stance that he took to manage his hurt and fear. Often when someone is hurt they will become larger than life. They will raise their voice, puff up their physical self to maximum capacity and try to look as threatening as possible in an effort to appear more powerful than they feel (Imagine a puffer fish here). They appear large and loud and scary so that you will be intimidated into stopping whatever it is you are doing that is hurting or scaring them. Underneath there is a kind of desperation and terror. But that is not what they show; they show an overpowering, larger than life toughness to attempt to force change.

The person that had been so frightening to me was in fact scared and hurt. Now, for some of you that might not be new information, but for me it was a huge newsflash. Knowing this changed everything. It empowered me to respond differently than I ever had to an angry person.

Instead of responding as a helpless victim…

Arguments and Fights: Why Won’t You Listen to Me?

Melody Brooke — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 14:08:29 +0000

How many times have you been in a situation with someone you know pretty well, maybe your spouse or your best friend, when you just couldn’t get through to them? For some reason beyond your understanding they just refuse to listen to what you are saying. They argue, they say irrational things, they confound you with statements unrelated to what you are trying to say, they just don’t seem to hear what it is you are trying to get across.

Why is that?

Okay, we have all heard of the “Fight or Flight Syndrome”. That’s’ when your brain takes over and you feel you have to either fight or run away from the situation. But what does this mean to us on a personal level? What it means is our brains are engaged in a battle for our survival and it is sending us messages intent on helping us survive whatever the threat appears to be. That threat could be as simple as avoiding embarrassment, it could be defending against something that you said that the other person perceived as an attack. Whatever the threat, the other person is reacting to you as though you are a threat. They see you as “the bad guy” and themselves as “the victim”.

Now, if you asked them, they would deny this. They are not lying to you, they are not aware that “the bad guy” and “the victim” roles are unconsciously engrained into their way of perceiving the world. Actually, it’s a part of all of our unconscious minds. We can’t help it it’s automatic.

Picture this: A husband, let’s call him Jim, is trying to help his wife who is swamped with Christmas preparations. She told him that she has to set up the tables for their holiday dinner and gave him a vague notion of how she wanted it done. Without asking for more details, Jim thinks he can help his wife; lets call her Susan, by setting up the tables for her. He hurries around hastily setting up the tables before she comes back from Christmas shopping, hoping to surprise her. Well, boy, was she surprised. Susan says, “What is this?”

Jim proudly says, “I set the tables up for you.” Suddenly, without warning, Susan explodes on him, telling him this is not at all what she wanted, and why did he think this is how she wanted it? And why didn’t he let her do it? Jim was dumbfounded. He starts yelling back at her how he was just trying to help, and didn’t she want his help? Susan is aghast that he can’t see this is not what she wanted. She starts telling him he was just trying to horn in on her show, that this holiday dinner is important to her because her new son-in-law’s family is going to be there and she had it all planned out. Jim insists that he was trying to help her and she is just being petty.

The discussion erodes from there into an all out fight.

What happened here? Both people were trying to accomplish the same goal, but they got seriously derailed. Why? It’s because their brains kicked into survival mode. The whole argument escalated because neither of them realized how suddenly they had become each other’s enemy. Each saw the other as “the bad guy” and themselves as “the victim”. Whatever understanding they may have had of each other’s stress was out the window and they were each solely focused on surviving the current threat.

So what is the alternative? The alternative is…

The Battle of the Sexes

Melody Brooke — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 14:43:20 +0000

Growing up in the 60’s with a liberal mother I was all over the women’s movement. We marched for Choice, we burned our bra’s, we shouted out “Equal Rights for Equal Pay!” And, we did a lot of good.

Things have changed.

They are not yet as equal as they should be and the Roe vs. Wade keeps being modified and brought into question, but women have made a lot of headway in our culture. We “have come a long way, baby”. And perhaps as a rallying point for women the National Organization for Women is needed to get people to push for women’s freedoms. Maybe we wouldn’t address them without this, what I call, “Self Protective” stance. But it’s a shame.

In the past few years men have begun to organize themselves in a similar fashion. There is a National Men’s Equality Congress this year, there are men’s rights books and magazines, men’s rights online digests and men’s activism agencies. They have brought light to the issue of parental alienation and father’s rights. And for better or worse, Alec Baldwin has suddenly become their spokesman. They have done some great things to help father’s regain position in the courts as important in the emotional lives of children. But again, they have thrust themselves into an extremely “Self Protective” stance. Again, it’s a shame.

As human animals we find ourselves in this “Self Protective” position when we perceive ourselves to be under attack. There is no doubt that women have perceived themselves as under attack from the pedagogical structure of our society from it’s outset. Women have fought for the right to vote, to go to work, to own property, to raise our children on our own and to choose when to continue to carry a child. Women have even had to fight for the right to not be beaten by their husbands.

In our culture, and most others, men have more income and therefore more access to financial power. Money buys a lot of power. It’s easy for those without power to assume that those in power have all the rights they want and that they are persecutory. Women have experienced themselves as the “Victims” of this perceived persecutory power that men have held for generations. There is no doubt that women have suffered.

When we perceive ourselves to be “Victims” we have three choices. We can remain in the “Victim” position and let ourselves slowly deteriorate because this position is one of hopelessness and powerlessness; there is no way out. Or, we can learn to placate our persecutor and please and cater to them while controlling them through our pandering to them, this is called being a “Rescuer. It is a position that women have often, throughout history used to give them as sense of power (think of the characterization of a “Jewish Mother” or a “Southern Belle”). Finally, we can chose to become a “Self Protector” and fight for our rights against our persecutor whom we perceive to be “wrong”, “bad”, and needing punishment (a classic example is of the caricature of a “bra-burning femi-Nazi dyke” from which most men recoil in fear).

The problem with choosing to perceive ourselves as a “Victim” and taking any of these positions is that we cannot escape the battle. Conflict and pain is unavoidable when we are in this egocentric position of perceiving ourselves as the “Victim” of some persecutor that has no soul and no sense of empathy for our plight. We are then stuck in a position of having to fight for our survival against a perceived enemy. We become staunchly adversarial with our foe. We fight until we prevail and our enemy “loses”.

Of course, when someone loses a battle…

How to STOP Arguments and Fights from Killing Your Relationship (Video)

Dan and Jennifer — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 17:09:20 +0000

Endless fights, arguments, and snipes late into the night…

You’ve seen it time and time again. Everything is going great, you and your partner love each other dearly, and your relationship couldn’t be better. Then, it strikes without warning. Someone says something, the other responds, and it’s on!

What appears to be a simple misunderstanding escalates into an argument, a fight, and someone ends up sleeping on the couch. Worse yet, one of you starts throwing things, then storms out of the house. Remember the frustration, the anger, the resentment?

Remember how puffed up your ego got? "Yeah, so there!" OK, clearly that didn’t go as planned. And you can bet nobody gained anything from that exchange.

What happened? How did a simple question turn into a screaming match?

In your mind, the other person "just doesn’t get it". But here’s the problem – in their mind, YOU "just don’t get it".

And what’s even WORSE is having ANY kind of emotional discussion (read: argument) by phone or email. NEVER do that if you can avoid it.

So how can this possibly be resolved without endless fighting and eventually maybe even breaking up?

When a "discussion" escalates into an argument, all sense and reason seems to leave the building. At that point, it’s all EGO, and going downhill hard. Everybody is getting puffed up trying to one-up the other person by saying something just a little more hurtful in response to what they just heard last. A guaranteed path to achieving nothing useful.

Could you agree to disagree?

Imagine…

Intimacy – I Give Up!

Melody Brooke — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 15:12:22 +0000

At 40 when I was divorced and dating I met guys who had given up intimacy. These guys had decided that since they are “no good” at intimacy, they might as well just have a good time and focus only on finding women willing to be sex partners with no entanglements. They didn’t care if the woman was married or not, just that she was ready to hop into bed without any “strings”. Lately I have been meeting women who have also given up, but because they don’t want promiscuous sex, they resign themselves to a life without men.

It seems that when we reach a certain age and we have not been able establish a long-term intimate connection we tend to give up. Now, obviously this is not true for everyone as some people divorce and remarry many times trying to make it work. But many people do give up. I think its sad. Some of the men and women I have met are marvelous people, intelligent, creative, hard working and attractive. They are lonely, though often they try to convince themselves that single life is fine and they are happy. Maybe some of them are, certainly many of them have full, meaningful lives. But usually when I hear them talk about relationships it’s with a sad, wistful look on their faces.

So what are they to do? One woman I spoke with said about her ex-husband, “You know, he was a really great guy, but when we were together it brought out the crazy in both of us.” Without knowing what it is that makes us “crazy” when we are together we are left in a hopeless tangle of feelings and confusion.

Going to therapy is one obvious choice, but what if you have gone to therapy already, but you still don’t understand what when wrong? I went to therapy and learned the reasons for some of my bad choices and some really important things about myself (even becoming a counselor myself). I learned to be more assertive with my friends. I learned to feel better about myself as a person. I processed through a lot of old pain from my childhood. And yes, it did help me make a better choice in partners, but it didn’t fix the problems I had relating. Only after discovering what I now call “The Cycles of the Heart” did I begin to understand what was making me… and my partner, “Crazy”.

You see, something we humans don’t like to admit about ourselves is that we are animals. We have animal instincts. We have hard-wired brain reactivity that forces us to react in certain ways under certain circumstances. The emotions that drive the behaviors that result are compelling and overwhelming. We think that we have to do the things that our brain is telling us is required of us.

What triggers our brain into these survival mechanisms is a sense of threat. For animals, that sense of threat comes in pretty simplistic forms. They observe signals of a physical nature coming from another animal that compels them to react defensively. A growl, a stare, ruffled fur, bared teeth, stiffening of a spine all trigger a defensive reaction in animals. But human beings are a bit more complicated. Our brains store more data than most animals and it gets us confused about what is an actual threat and what just feels like a threat. It doesn’t matter to our brains whether the threat is real; it only knows to respond.

Our partners are important to us so we are really sensitive to threat from them. This is why we may have no problems getting along with our friends but a terrible time making a partnership work. What happens then is that our partners unwittingly say or do something that creates a sense of threat in us, we get frightened in some primitive way, and react defensively. Then, or defensiveness triggers a defensive response in our partner and the cycle begins; never to end.

We both end up acting like crazy people because we are reacting to something that feels way bigger than the situation, that the other person doesn’t understand, and neither of us knows how to end.

Does any of this sound familiar?…

Touch – It’s More Than Sex

Melody Brooke — Fri, 11 May 2007 16:45:59 +0000

Every wonder why a man gets instantly excited by the slightest little touch?

The reasons behind his reaction may not be as simple as assuming that he’s just over-sexed. It may go much, much deeper…

We all associate different emotions (good and bad) with different types of touching such as holding hands, hugging, getting a massage, and kissing. Some of these emotions can be very powerful and have a significant impact on how we relate to others.

Read this great article from featured author Melody Brooke to find out why the way we touch one another is extremely important to a happy and secure relationship.

Touch – It’s More Than Sex

by Melody Brooke, MA, LPC, LMFT

For many men, the opportunity to be touched, even casually by a woman is arousing. And, no, it’s not because men are different than women innately. This is because boys are often raised with little physical nurturance. Some men are so touch deprived that they shut off the awareness of the need for it entirely. As a result they appear cold, distant and emotionally unavailable. They have little understanding of why a woman wants to be touched or cuddled. It completely baffles them.

Many cultures within the larger American culture work to toughen up boys and assume that cuddling, hugging and kissing boys makes “Mama’s boys” or “Sissies” out of them. This creates an environment in which our male children are raised without physical touch. Yet we know, from years of research that touch is a basic need. Babies deprived of touch do not survive; they will quit eating and die. While men, even 5 or 6 year old boys are not infants, they, like all of us have a basic need to be held, to be touched, and otherwise physically nurtured. This need for touch can be hidden away for years, until perhaps in their early teens, a girl steals a kiss or holds his hands. Suddenly he finds himself aroused and from that moment on, associates touch with sex.

Then these poor guys get accused of being hyper sexual because the need for touch, which has been repressed for years, suddenly emerges as sexual desire. The hormone oxytocin carries messages of bonding, safety, overall well being and of love to our brains and to our bodies. It also increases sexual arousal. This hormone is released when there is any type of skin-to-skin contact. This generally happens at the same time as the developmental hormonal changes of adolescence, further complicating matters. From the male perspective then, touch=sex.

Every touch experienced carries a different electrochemical message to the brain. Even small, very light touches can create tremendous brain activity. When you expanded to hugging, the response is magnified many times because it brings with it memories of previous experiences (or lack thereof) and the attached emotional meaning. (Welch, 1988) When a person is upset or stressed, taking their hand usually produces a soothing effect, reducing anxiety, and generating a feeling of greater security as the oxytocin is released.

Couples observed touching affectionately test as being more securely attached and having a more satisfying sex life. If you are unhappy with the amount of sexual activity with your partner, notice what happens when you become more affectionate in general with each other. Increasing overall affectionate behaviors can have a positive effect on each of you individually, as well as increasing the amount of sexual activity between you…

How to Tell Your Partner Anything and Live to Tell About It

Melody Brooke — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 13:16:36 +0000

Do you have things that you don’t tell you partner because you’re afraid of how they’ll react? Is it easier to avoid the conversation than to deal with their response?

Do you know that your lack of communication is actually hurting your relationship rather than helping it?

Here’s great article from featured author, Melody Brooke that will help you better understand how to have even the most difficult conversation with your partner and how having these conversations can actually help your relationship grow even stronger.

Oh, No, I Could Never Tell Him That!

by Melody Brooke, MA, LPC, LMFT

It took me many years to figure out that my way of communicating was a disaster. I was so paranoid of telling my partner things that would upset him that I had very few things that I could actually say to him. Even when I got over the paranoia, I still found myself not always telling him things.

By choosing to limit what I was telling my partner, I was controlling him. I chose not to tell him certain things because I was afraid of his reaction. I didn’t want to displease him or anger him, so I just didn’t tell him things that I feared would cause those reactions.

For years I was convinced behavior I labeled as “controlling” was a “bad” thing. It would make upset me terribly to have someone tell me what to do or to command me to behave in a certain way. I would be triggered into feeling trapped, angry and resentful. Yet I never realized that my own lack of communication was really the same thing!

The decision making process is key to understanding why we communicate the way we do. If our decision-making is based on fear or control, we are in for trouble. The trick is; how do we recognize our motivations? To know what our motivations are, we have to be connected with our own feelings. We have to be able to name them, and we have to be able to recognize how they are affecting us, and our communications.

The funny thing is that many of us are keenly aware of what other people are feeling (or what we think they are feeling) and yet clueless about what we are feeling. What I have learned over the years is that the same thing motivates all of us: survival. On a brain level we are driven to do that which will help us survive in whatever circumstance we find ourselves.

Rarely in this day and age are those feelings based on actual physical survival, but rather they are based on the survival of our well being. When we feel our well being is threatened in any way, we will be thrown into a survival mode that is as old as life itself. We can’t help it, its automatic. It doesn’t matter how mature we are, if we are put in the right (or wrong) circumstance we will behave in ways we end up regretting and we may even be confused as to why we found ourselves reacting that way.

This brain response limits our choices. When we are in this kind of reactivity our bodies go into what is known as “fight or flight” response. Telling my partner something I feared would make him angry sent me into “flight”. For me, that meant shutting up, holding back, and not speaking my whole truth. As a result I often ended up lying to him through lies of omission. I didn’t think of it that way, in fact, I rarely thought about it because it was automatic.

Once I recognized that pattern I was able to start speaking my truth to him. Scary though it was, it dramatically improved the quality of our relationship…

Sex, What’s That? I’m Married!

Melody Brooke — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 23:43:28 +0000

Have you ever wondered why sex seems to disappear when you get married? Is it complacency? Is it laziness?

Sex, What’s That? I’m Married!

by Melody Brooke, MA, LPC, LMFT

It’s not a joke; most married men I know claim to have less sex than they did when they were single. This seems to be confirmed by the Durex Survey (2001), since couples living together claim to have sex 146 times per year, while married couples make love only 98 times per year. Yet going from roughly three times a week to two hardly seems to justify the statement. But why is it that simply being married reduces the number of times we choose to enjoy each other’s bodies?

After working with couples for over the past nearly 20 years, and going through my own set of divorces, I have come to the conclusion that marital dissatisfaction and a lack of sexual intimacy go hand in hand. Men feel it as a lack of sex; women feel it as a lack of emotional connectivity. But both feel it as something lacking in the relationship. Men tend to blame their wives for being disinterested or lacking in sexual drive, and women tend to blame their husbands for not having a good emotional I.Q. Yet both are unhappy. Hmm. The thing that seems to be consistent is that they each blame each other.

Blame is an old survival mechanism left over from our years as cavemen. We needed to know who was to blame for things in order to survive our harsh environment. This is not something we need to hang on to in our modern society. The assignment of blame acts as a tool to focus our actions and provides us with clear understanding of what to do next. But it also distances us from those we love. Our old brain, our mammalian primitive brain stem tells us that the one we blame is threatening our survival. This does not make us want to make love to them. It makes us want to protect ourselves, in other words, distance ourselves from that person.

Blaming each other and feeling like a victim of the other’s behavior, in my experience tends to lead to divorce. Yet somehow, this is the behavior of choice. What might happen if both partners actually took ownership of the situation and decided that they are both responsible for the lack of sexual and emotional intimacy?

If we can understand that our old brain is in gear when we are in a blaming stance, then maybe we could make a different choice. When we can recognize that we are blaming our partner for something, be it lack of sex or lack of emotional connection, it would behoove us to take ownership of our own part in the problem. We may not be sure what it is; but rest assured you have as much a part in the problem as your mate.

The alternative is to begin to explore what is in the way of the thing that you want. Let your partner know that you want things to be different and that you recognize that you have not made it easy for the two of you to have what you want. Simply admitting that you recognize that you have a part in the problem will take your partner out of defensive mode and improve your communication.

This is hard for people who…

How to Spice Up Your Sex Life and Save Your Relationship (Video)

Dan and Jennifer — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 19:53:33 +0000

Here’s a common scenario…

My partner and I have been together for 2 years and we have been living together for about 4 months. Now that we are living together, we rarely have sex. We are becoming more like best friends and I’m scared the passion is fading.

I don’t want to lose my relationship but I don’t know if I have the will power to save it. What can I do?

Watch this short video to find out how you can spice up your sex life and bring back that spark you had in the beginning…

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