Emotional Unavailability – When Your Partner Can’t Connect
When we commit to a relationship, we usually expect that our partner will reciprocate with roughly the same level of emotional involvement that we put into it. Many of us hope to find a soulmate, a partner who can share and understand our feelings and ways of thinking on an intensely personal level. Others don’t […]
Effective Listening
Communication requires one person to talk and, equally important, the other to listen. Our first thought, when we think about communication, may be to consider the speaker’s ability to convey ideas effectively. What we often forget is that without a listener the speaker may as well be talking to the wind. Just as effective speaking […]
Crisis of Infidelity
The single most destructive threat to a committed relationship is when one of the partners engages in a sexual relationship with another person. This is not an uncommon event. Conservative estimates suggest that about a quarter of women, and a third of men, have violated their marital commitment to their partners. About 65 percent of […]
Ratios Predicting Divorce and Marital Dissatisfaction
When we make a commitment to our partner, our usual expectation is that our relationship will last for life and that our love will see us through the inevitable hard times. Yet, when reality sinks in, we have to acknowledge that while love is one of the components of a relationship’s longevity, it really takes […]
Encourage, Don’t Praise Your Child
We parents want to give or children high self-esteem and teach them to distinguish right from wrong. We’ve accepted the fact that too much criticism and punishment can breed resentment and is less effective than rewards. Our parenting culture now leans toward becoming children’s cheerleaders. We give trophies for non-competitive soccer games where there is […]