Both parents can face perinatal depression, not just the one who gave birth. Allow yourself to love and care for yourself. You are worth it and there is nothing better for your baby. Here are 5 steps to guide you to mental well being and happiness. Not just if you’re severely depressed–These steps for mind body and spirit are preventative and relevant even if you are mildly depressed or anxious.
After three decades of counseling struggling couples, and after experiencing transformation within my own marriage, I've been able to identify the core components of a lasting and fulfilling relationship. I'd like to introduce you to what I have found unshakeable over time, what I call The Four Pillars.
We continue to evolve and grow as people along the parenting journey and most couples grossly underestimate the need to continually invest in their togetherness, to address their differences and areas needing repair. So how can couples build a strong empty nest for themselves, whether the kids have flown the coop or are preparing to do so?
Whether it’s about who does more or who makes more, or maybe it’s who works the hardest or who is in better shape. The bottom line is that while couples yearn to come together as one, the human ego has a pesky way of allowing competition to invade the safe haven needed for love to deepen and grow. Here are some common competitive scenarios I hear about:
When a new couple reaches out for help, almost without exception, it quickly comes to light that the problems in the marriage, in large part, stem from this repeated proclamation, “Well, the kids have always come first.” Now here they sit on the counseling couch, and to some degree in a marriage run empty with one or both feeling neglected, unloved.
When I work with couples in my counseling practice, time and time again, I see one or both struggle with some kind of anxiety, depression or other mental health disorder. While not a deal breaker by any means, unresolved mental health problems can lie at the heart of couples’ greatest friction and disconnection.
Inherently tricky to navigate for many, in-law strife shows up most especially between mothers- and daughters-in-law. And pouring into the mix the degree of conflict and division from our unprecedented election year 2016, the views and dynamics among all family members- especially in-laws, makes for quite a vulnerable time. Here are some tips to help make the holidays and this relationship go more smoothly this year, and from now on.
Our married partners tend to hold the license to trigger our buttons like no one else can. The truth is that most of society doesn’t understand what it takes for love to be lasting and fulfilling. We are good at one, or the other. But both lasting and fulfilling — this becomes a perplexing enterprise.
There is hope for couples facing infidelity. The Key is EFFORT, HONEST COMMUNICATION, PATIENCE and WILLINGNESS TO GROW! When an affair becomes discovered it often serves as the beginning of a vital growing and healing process, for each individual partner and for the relationship itself. Many come out of the infidelity crisis stronger and more committed. While I don’t recommend affairs, a majority actually survive the affair.
