Showing all posts tagged couples

Reduce Arguments, Yelling, and Fighting in Your Relationship

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Reduce Arguments, Yelling, and Fighting in Your Relationship

Why do we get into arguments and why do we continue engaging them once we’ve recognized they’ve begun? Most of the time, we don’t aim to argue when we enter into a discussion. In fact, a lot of us might say that they just seem to happen; as though independent of us or our involvement, arguments mysteriously happen. Luckily for us, arguments don’t just spring out of nowhere, and we can manage them in an effectively.

Don’t get me wrong; there are venues in which it’s an asset to don a steely arguing style. This kind of arguing has no place in our intimate relationships. Better save that for when you’re fighting for social justice.

When we’re arguing with someone, we love it’s most likely because both members were trying to be heard, seen, and understood. Somewhere during the conversation, we felt that our needs weren’t being met, we became frustrated, and our need to be right took over.

What we’ve begun to do- yell, blame, self-defend, none of it will be helpful to our connection with our loved one. It’s alienating and will take us further from our goal of connection and mutual understanding. As soon as we’re aware that we are stepping into or have already begun engagement in an argument, we need to pause. It’s helpful for us to think about what we were trying to communicate to our partner(s) at the start, before the yelling, before the detours.

Then, it’s helpful for us to be mindful of our voice. Lowering our tone and slowing our cadence begins to calm us and allows for our loved one(s) to calm. This gives us all some space to breathe, think about, and listen to what’s being said instead of enduring rapid fire. Do you notice that you’re talking over one another? Yeah, not a lot gets heard that way. Let’s make sure everyone is given their time to speak. Respect one another’s voice. If someone jumps in and starts talking over someone else, it’s ok to say something like, “Wait a minute, I’m not done,” or whatever you feel represents you.

Stay away from accusation and fabrication or hyperbole. Now is not the time for us to be critical or exaggerate about anything.

It’s also helpful for us to keep ourselves compassionately curious. Engaging our compassionate curiosity allows us to wonder about our loved one. Where are they coming from? What must they be feeling and why? What was their expectation and how is it different from what is presently happening? This encourages us to feel empathy for our loved one. It’s much less challenging to interact in a calm, respectful way that is easy to understand when you are coming from a place of compassion and empathy.

Once we’ve connected to our empathy, we can think about admitting our mistakes. Taking responsibility for any wrong-doing cleans up our side of the street and helps decrease any resentment experienced on the other side.

As the tension de-escalates and we ground ourselves, we have the energy to put toward respecting our partners’ opinions, experiences, and feelings, however, different from our own.

Once we’ve reached an agreement or tabled the discussion, it’s a great idea to exercise our humility with the proceedings and outcomes, whatever they are. We’re on the same team as our loved ones, remember? The objective is to feel more connected to and understood by one another, not alienated and distant. When we think about arguments in such terms, we allow ourselves to see that we’ve been misidentifying our actions when we refer to “winning an argument.”

Love and Be Loved,

Natalie             

Cultivating Emotional Connectedness in Your Relationships

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Cultivating Emotional Connectedness in Your Relationships

How often do you find yourself thinking, “We’re just not as close as I wish we were,”? You might have this wish about any relationship, a partner, a friend, a family member.  When you don’t feel as connected as you’d like to be to someone you love, it can feel destabilizing and incredibly dissatisfying. If you’ve had this particular conversation with said loved one, expressing your desire to be more connected and you’re still not experiencing the closeness you desire, it can begin to feel hopeless.

Sometimes the two of you can have conversations about this that feel helpful. It allows you to feel that you’re working together to shift this, to deepen the relationship. Other times, you feel as though your conversations go nowhere and you’re on your own. You’re both dissatisfied with the level of emotional connectedness, but it feels as though the other member of your relationship is unwilling to put in the work.

Whichever less-than-ideal situation you find yourself, there are things you can do to empower yourself which will help you to take active steps toward cultivating the emotional connected you seek.

An important place to start is by showing up for yourself. Showing up for yourself allows you to feel self-supporting, nurtured, and in touch with your resilience. This might look different for each person, but there are some basics. Taking care of your health is an essential target that many people miss. Balancing the time you need for sleep, exercise, work, and play doesn’t always feel like a choice. It helps if you look at how you choose to spend your days. Whether you are going to school, pursuing a dream of starting your own business, or working two or three jobs. Ask yourself if this is your choice. If it’s not then the next question you might want to ask yourself is “why am I doing this?” If you answered, “because I have to,” take some time to check in with yourself about why. Most of us have more choices than immediately occur to us. Showing up for yourself also looks like employing thoughtful and nonreactive self-advocacy when you don’t like the way you are being spoken to or treated. You can show up for yourself by being protective of your time and ensuring that you provide down time for yourself. Showing up for yourself also means not taking on more in a relationship than you what you genuinely feel comfortable. This means emotional, financial, household, and any other type of responsibility. When you show up for yourself you are less likely to martyr yourself in relationship, more likely to show up fully for others, and less likely to experience feelings of resentment.

A second strength you can exercise to cultivate emotional connection is finding compassionate curiosity in yourself about the other person. Why does this person do what they do, say what they say, react the way they react? What is their experience in their relationship with you? You’ll notice that I put the words “compassionate” and curiosity” right next to one another. This curiosity is something that will benefit you and your quest the more genuine it is so, be sure to practice it freely and often. Ask your loved one how they experienced what you’ve just said that’s gotten them so upset. Allow yourself to be open to their feelings. This isn’t the time to defend yourself; you want to know why they’re upset, not how you can get yourself off the hook. I get that it can be difficult to feel compassionately curious about anything when you’re arguing with someone or engaged in an escalating conversation. Try it out when you are feeling calm or only mildly irritated. When you allow yourself to be genuinely and compassionately curious about someone you love the conversation can become about understanding and less about arguing and yelling over one another.

Another great way to work toward emotional connectedness is by exercising active listening. (This can also be used while you are compassionately curious!) When you are actively listening to someone with whom you are trying to build your emotional connection, you are not seeking convenient places to jump in to argue your case, set up your next defense, or find inconsistencies in their statements. You are trying to find out how they are feeling, what they are thinking, what their experience is, and what has caused them to think, feel, and experience these things. How can you find out this valuable information when you are preparing what you’re doing to say next? (The answer is: you cannot.) You want this person to hear you, right? They want you to hear them, too. Start by slowing down these interactions and give them your full attention. It will catch on.

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

Your Relationship Can Survive Infidelity

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Your Relationship Can Survive Infidelity

Most members of romantic relationships have a list of negotiables and nonnegotiables, things about which they wouldn’t mind compromising and things that are relationship-ending deal-breakers. Some people don’t know what theirs are right off the top of their heads, and others have had this list for years. Take a minute to think of what some of your nonnegotiables are in a romantic relationship.

The most common item at the top of these lists is infidelity. I’ve had a lot of clients who are pretty sure that there’s no way their relationship can or will survive infidelity. The one who was cheated on fears that it will happen again, that they can never regain what they feel they’ve lost, and that they’ll be a fool if they stay. The one who cheated feels like they must forever repent and feels as if they are no longer entitled to their feelings about what has happened in the relationship, and each member feels incredibly disconnected from the other. It takes hard work by willing and committed participants, but, by no means, does infidelity have to mean ending your relationship.

Cheating is often a symptom of a relationship that hasn’t been getting what it needs for a fair amount of time. Some people will read this and misunderstand that to mean, “Hey, they weren’t getting what they needed from you, so they went looking for it somewhere else.” This is not what I am saying. I’m talking about everyone in the relationship, all sides.

Every member of a relationship has needs. We bring our different communication styles, ways of showing and receiving love, histories, and insecurities in with us. At the intersection of where we make space and balance for each of these for every member is where the relationship is. And it’s usually at this intersection where people run into trouble. It can be easy to fall into a routine and stop taking time for one another. Sometimes we don’t appreciate each other as much. Maybe someone in the relationship feels burdened by their role(s) and doesn’t know how to express it. At some point, you were genuinely expressing yourselves, but for whatever reason, that doesn’t feel like an option anymore. Time passes, and these issues get worse. You still love one another, but you don’t know how to address any of this, and it feels pretty hopeless. You’re carrying a lot of resentment, you’re tired, frustrated, and you’re afraid that this is what your relationship is going to look like from now on.

People use cheating as a band-aid for their pain for many reasons. Sometimes it serves to abate loneliness. Sometimes it helps them to recapture a part of themselves they feel they’re losing, or they fear won’t be accepted by their current partner(s). Many people look to infidelity because they fear that, to address dissatisfaction in their relationship, could be to end the relationship. They see it as a way to stabilize themselves in a significant relationship that they don’t want to lose.

The most common reaction to an affair is the one who didn’t cheat to begin harsh punishment for the one who cheated. This is an understandable impulse, but disturbing to the healing process since it implies that the next step is the one who cheated to win back the grace of the other. But both of you are injured parties here. Both of you have been suffering, and both of you are in pain. It doesn’t help either of you to move through this if you punish this person. It will not make you feel better. Likewise, if you are the one who cheated, it will not make it any better if you throw yourself at the mercy of the other. You don’t have to ignore your anger and hurt, and you don’t have to ignore your guilt, but you don’t have to act them out, either.

Common terms used to identify who’s who in episodes of infidelity are “offending party” and “injured party,” but when something like this happens in a relationship, I consider every member to be an injured party. It’s clear that everyone has been suffering long before the affair.

It’s important to explore what happened before, what lead to this so that you can stop living in pain, rebuild trust, regain connection, and make your relationship as healthy and satisfying as you want it to be.

If you have questions about this or would like to set up an appointment, please call me at
(415) 794-5243 or go to my Contact Me page. I look forward to working with you.

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

You Can Have Better Sex and More Intimacy

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You Can Have Better Sex and More Intimacy

What’s the difference between sex and intimacy? Sex is a behavior that, when broken down, includes the relationship we have with our sexuality and the way we express it. It includes flirting, foreplay, methods for attracting desired partners, different stages of arousal, and acts. There are emotional, cognitive, biological, behavioral, and sociological implications of sex and how we choose to express our sexuality.

Intimacy is a very close familiarity one shares with others. Most of us share intimate relationships with friends, family, and or partners. When we have intimacy in relationship we share our desires, dreams, feel safer exposing our flaws, and allow ourselves to be more vulnerable n that relationship. We allow ourselves to be seen more fully than our relationships in which we experience less intimacy or our more peripheral relationships.

Often, when we share intimacy with someone, our sexual relationship with that person improves. Likewise, when we have a quality sexual relationship with someone, we experience a higher level of intimacy with our partners. As both of these aspects of our relationship improve, we experience a bolstered bond that we find more nourishing, satisfying, and reliable.

Many of the clients I see, both couples and individuals, tell me that they are experiencing less intimacy in their relationship than they find satisfactory and or that their sexual relationship isn’t what they want it to be. Some feel hopeless because they feel they’ve tried everything, and nothing seems to be working. Others dread sharing their level of dissatisfaction with their partner out of a multitude of fears. The most common fears I hear are related to fear of rejection- that their partner will judge them, experience their requests as needy, too kinky for their comfort level, or hear these requests as some judgment.

When these problems show themselves in our relationships, it’s easy to remain quiet about or needs due to these fears. We become frustrated, resentful, and hopeless that our relationship will ever change. In a desperate effort to counteract their genuine desire, some people begin to look outside the relationship in various ways to treat these symptoms or completely cut themselves off from them. Many of my clients come in telling me that they think these aspects of a relationship should come easily and naturally and are confused about why they’re experiencing these problems in the first place. I reassure them that the presence of these problems does not translate into a doomed relationship, a lifetime of bad sex, or a connection capable of stunted intimacy; relationships, sex, and intimacy are not unlike many of the things we want in our lives. They take commitment both, to ourselves and our authenticity, hard work, and risk. And it’s worth the investment.

People who take the plunge and begin to explore their need for better sex and intimacy (both with themselves and with their partners) find a deepened confidence in themselves, in their relationship, and in the rest of their lives. Stick around to find out how and why.

 

Love and Be Loved,
Natalie

Secrets to Stop Yelling and Start Talking

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Secrets to Stop Yelling and Start Talking

Chances are, most of us have entered into conversation and, before long, ended up defending ourselves with variations of phrases like, “that’s not what I meant!” and “you took it the wrong way!” We have fallen prey to misunderstanding, and a discussion has become an argument. This can happen when our intention differs from our impact.

“Intent”, by Merriam-Webster’s definition, is “the state of mind with which an act is done.” Maybe our goal was to come to a better understanding, offer support, explain something, or even apologize. From the time we spoke them to the time our words were processed, our intended message was skewed. It can be confusing and strike quietly, but the difference between intent and impact can have nasty outcomes.

Merriam-Webster defines impact as “influence, effect.” We might have intended to say one thing, but we had another effect. The compliment we thought we were giving about someone’s outfit today might have been received as a derogatory statement about the outfit they wore the day before. The genuine support we thought we were offering after someone failed a test might have been received as an indication that they didn’t try hard enough.

It’s easy to become defensive of our intent when we are coming from a place of love and are met with anger or hurt feelings because of the impact our words had on a loved one. We can’t always foresee these misunderstandings and prevent them from happening because it’s not possible to predict our impact on others 100% of the time. We can, however, use methods to support a more successful recovery from these moments.

When we find ourselves in this situation, it is helpful for us to be genuinely curious about the other person’s experience. How are they feeling? What about the interaction caused them to feel like that? Being curious about the other’s experience and our impact on them will foster our understanding of what is happening and will eventually bring us closer to one another. It is not helpful to continue our attempts to show the other person how wrong they are for feeling the way they feel and different ways in which it isn’t our fault.  This will expand the divide.

It can be challenging to lead with our curiosity, but perhaps this will be motivation; 1) Practicing this interest will almost always diffuse the situation faster. 2) There is a new sense of safety in the relationship since the both members have experienced one’s wish to understand and courage to talk about what didn’t feel like it was working for them.

Often, our go-to technique is to be defensive. It’s familiar to us, and it makes us feel powerful when we think we need it most. I have not had one person come to me and say, “Wow, I’m so glad I was so defensive with my partner. It helped them feel like they could talk to me.” I have had many people come to me and say that they are glad they exercised curiosity while discussing a conflict.

Most of the time we have loving intentions, but when love is not the impact our loved one’s experience, we need to be curious about why.

Love and Be loved,
Natalie