Relationship Counseling Center

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Do you keep ending up with people who are not good for you? Yes, it’s true the person you are picking is behaving poorly.  Since we cannot change someone else’s behavior, we must examine our own patterns in picking the wrong person. In doing this, we can begin to conceptualize healthy relationships and hold that as our new standard.

Unhealthy Relationships:

1. We mistake love for physical attraction, neediness and the need to rescue or be rescued. (Examine how your desperation effects your perception)
2. We choose emotionally and physically unavailable people in relationships. (Examine your fear of intimacy)
3. We pick people who treat us poorly by being punishing, critical, controlling or demeaning. (Examine your low self-esteem.)
4. We lose interest in our own personal interests and activities and become enmeshed with the one person and their interests.  (Examine your boundaries.)
5. We stay in and return to unhealthy relationships. (Examine your fear of loneliness.)
6. We begin sexual relationships or become emotionally attached without really knowing someone.  (Examine your boundaries.)
7. We fantasize about who we think someone is and then are crushed when they fall short of that fantasy.  (Examine what is reality vs. fantasy)

Healthy Relationships:

1. When something is wrong we can talk about it.
2. We encourage each other to be better people.
3. Having separate interests and friends isn’t a threat.
4. We can be vulnerable about feelings with some degree of safety.
5. We can handle difficult situations as a team.
6. We both are dedicated to spending quality time with each other.
7. Trust builds through our growing capacity to be honest with one another.

Remember unhealthy patterns are necessary to learn and grow!

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A perfectionist thinks that anything less then perfect is unacceptable.  Most of us are just plain hard on ourselves for not achieving what we think we should.  The problem is perfection is not obtainable or sustainable, thus you are never satisfied.  Our self criticism can come from a number of places. From a difficult, strict upbringing, or we can be driven to perfection in order to make people respect or love us more.  No matter what the motivation, the resulting painful element is not feeling like we are good enough.  We miss the gentleness and our inherent value as human beings.

Healing the inner perfectionist

• Understanding perfect is boring and uninteresting
• It is the scrapper and underdog that is most admired
• Make it a practice of being the best person you can be, without expectation of an outcome. (See and admit shortcomings, and get back up when you fall off your practice)

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Here are some good reminders to create a stress-free holiday.

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Genuineness
1. If we don’t have to be anything other then what we are in every moment then we relax, we no longer need to be prepared, braced to change something that isn’t true
2. We give others permission to do the same
3. We get all that energy we used to create some artificial persona back, we relax and feel right with the world

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When you are unhappy in a relationship and don’t advocate for yourself it becomes a dangerous position. Unmet needs, if they are deep enough, have to find a way to be fulfilled. If you sense that you are unhappy and find yourself drawn to someone else, it is a warning sign to pull back and deal with the intimacy issues in your committed relationship. To indulge in the other relationship is emotional cheating.

Warning signs:
1.Long-term unhappiness in your committed relationship
2.Fantasizing about other people or relationships in excess
3.Romantic intriguing with people

How to move forward:
1.Cut off all contact with the person whom you are intrigued with
2.Turn back to your relationship and deal with the intimacy issues at hand
3.Get professional help if needed

Although facing the intimacy issues in your relationship may mean the end of that relationship, you will spare your partner and yourself much heartache. You can walk with your head held high, knowing you did the right thing. Many times the relationship can be saved; it just requires some worthwhile work.

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If you want to be in a relationship, you need to be with someone who is capable of showing up and participating in that relationship. So many of us want to be in relationships so badly that we overlook someone’s capacity to have one. If you’re dating and want to be in a committed relationship, pay attention to your potential partner’s availability; watch out for the warning signs. If you’re that person who is unavailable you may want to spend some time going solo or if you need help, get support before going into your next relationship.

The emotionally unavailable
Warning signs of an emotionally unavailable person:
1. Concurrently in another relationship. (duhhh!, but it has to be said)
2. Still processing the end of a previous relationship; which is usually a 3-6mo minimum?
3. Can show up physically, yet pulls back from deepening intimacy. This is the emotionally avoidant person.
a. Has had difficulty in being in long term relationships in the past.
b. Resists having difficult and necessary emotional communications.
c. May have a hard time committing to one person or taking the relationship to the next level.
d. Is going through an emotional crisis while in a relationship; experiencing significant loss or stress.
e. Runs away when things get hard.
f. Are you chasing someone and getting little in return?

The geographically unavailable
This one is pretty obvious. If you are considering dating someone long distance, you are going to be entering into a relationship where this person will not be able to spend time with you physically. It is difficult to build a relationship without a consistent connection and getting together to spend quality time. If you are already in a relationship and one person is temporarily moving away, it is slightly different. If your online profile parameters are beyond driving distance, be careful

The physically unavailable
Some folks love their careers. It can be deeply rewarding to love what you do, however, when someone works so much that they cannot spend enough time to enrich the relationship, they become physically unavailable to be in a relationship. Although people can be in a relationship for a long time while simultaneously overworking, their partners usually end up feeling resentful or hurt.

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If we are on the computer too long our partners can feel a little left out. Even worse so if they are talking to us while we multi-task online. This article is meant to be a reminder to us all, ‘We need to be mindful of our boundaries between business and personal time spent online and with our families or loved ones.” You may not classify yourself as an internet addict, however most of us can admit, at some level, our gadgets and attention online can and do interfere with our relationships.
Here are some warning signs that your time spent online is getting in the way of your relationships:
1. Surfing the web becomes a more powerful draw than spending time with family or friends.
2. Paying more attention to gadgets than what is happening in real life.
3. Fiddling with your mobile device while on a date.
4. Checking social networking sites, emails or feeds obsessively.
5. People feel hurt when you are talking with them and clicking away on the computer at the same time.
6. Gaming more than 1-2 hours a day
7. Texting or checking email while driving
Help finding the balance
1. Define where work ends and personal life begins, especially for those of us who are online for a living.
2. Set limits to checking email and visiting social sites.
3. Define inappropriate times to use technology.
4. Set a boundary with yourself if your work expects you to monitor business communications outside of work.
5. If your girlfriend/boyfriend, partner or friend is talking to you while online, stop what you’re doing and give them your full attention or tell them that you need to finish up and get back to them later.
6. Never text or check email while driving, even though it is tempting.
7. If your ‘numbing out’ with technology, come back to your life and face the issues you’re avoiding.
8. Stay away from texting or IMing while you’re newly dating someone. It’s too easy to be misunderstood by someone who doesn’t really know you yet.
I suggest you try some of these practices in your daily life for a week’s time. If it doesn’t enrich your relationships, you can always go back to your old life.

By Sevin Philips, MFT

Talking about sex is one of the most difficult and awkward conversations to have.  Most of us never learned how.  As a couples’ counselor, I see common themes that get in the way of talking about sex.

Ways to develop more comfort around sex:

1. Make an agreement that saying what you want or need doesn’t mean something is wrong, only a desire to improve your sexual connection.
2. Don’t let your sexual ego get in the way of being curious about your sexual partner’s specific needs. All people are completely different.  Each of us has different wants and needs.  Let go of thinking you universally know how to please and move toward the mystery of your partner’s body.
3. Make an agreement to talk about your sex life more often: Like most things, the more you do it the more comfortable it will become.  Talking about sex can lead to greater satisfaction and that is not so bad.
4. When differences in sexual desire exist pressure to have sex more often can create a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The pressure of moving towards a partner can make that person want to go in the opposite direction.  To some degree there will always be someone who wants sex more often than the other.  In order to avoid creating more distance the partner who wants sex more needs to back off a bit, giving room for their partner to come forward.  Those in the position of feeling pressured need to mindfully come forward in response to the newfound space. Many times cuddling can be difficult, because it is seen as a way to get sex.  In these cases, make it clear that cuddling can just be cuddling when you want it that way.
5. If resentment or hurt is present in your relationship move towards resolving this.  There is a direct correlation between sexual desire and disharmony in a relationship. Sometimes you need to work on the emotional and trust issues before moving forward in your sex life.

By Sevin Philips, MFT

Stop playing the game of passive communication

Passive forms of communication include passive aggressiveness, guilt, silent scorn, and eye rolling or other non-verbal behavior. Passive communication forms such as these manifest into these passive forms when we are not in environments or family systems that support our true feelings or needs. We withhold our truth in an attempt to avoid saying something uncomfortable, confrontational or potentially upsetting. For some people, this may seem like a caring act. Upon closer examination, however, we find more dysfunction than benefit. Our true needs or feelings get suppressed and eventually come out sideways. Passive forms of communication are not only unclear and ripe with misinterpretation but they also lead to ongoing resentment and a feeling of manipulation.

The best way to break this cycle is to ourselves be more assertive. When we have needs or uncomfortable feelings we risk the confrontation knowing the alternative to be ultimately more painful and confusing.

Steps to overcome passive communication:

1. Stop doing what ‘you think’ the other person wants
2. Notice behavior in others that is unclear or unsaid
3. Check out your assumption with the other person
Examples:
1. I noticed you rolled your eyes, are you upset?
2. When you say you don’t care anymore, are you trying to say you do not want to go with me?
3. When you say I am ‘acting like a baby’, are you trying to tell me you do not like my decision?

The point of this practice is to diminish the use of passive forms of communication to manipulation or control. These steps are not meant to teach or change others; they are here to change our relationship with them. We invite clear communication, support all needs being addressed and if necessary, deal with two opposing needs.

Relationship advice by, Sevin Philips, MFT