Relationship Counseling Center

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Sevin Philips MFT: A video asking us to check out our assumptions about other people.

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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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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.

“Video Link”

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

Sevin Philips, MFT offers advice on dating-

Going fast creates ‘False Intimacy’ which leads to getting into the wrong relationships.
Key behaviors leading to false intimacy:
•    Sex too soon
•    Spending the night
•    Spending too much time
•    Trust and time–over-disclosing

Key practices to slowing down:
•    No sex for 10-12 dates
•    Meeting for coffee instead of extended evening dates
•    Little to no alcohol consumption
•    Limiting contact (emails, phone, text or dates)

Sevin Philips, MFT offers Dating Advice

Dating: Is this chemistry or am I in fantasy?
Socialization- Movies/childhood stories
Discernment: Want vs. need,
Ask the question: Do they want the same thing?
Dating Suggestions:
1. Make a list- get clear about what you want in a partner vs. what is essential.
2. Letting go of the person in a good way vs. stop calling
3. Make it a gift not a democracy- Come up with creative ideas; take over on a date night.