What Healthy Couples Know That You Don't

Great relationships start with your relationship to yourself. You will be harsh with others if you are harsh with yourself. There are three parts to every relationship. There is you, your partner & the US. Learning to sacrifice in order to take care of the US is something that is not talked about enough in relationships. Individualism needs to be balanced by recognizing what's good for the US.

Three out of four couples experience significant conflict with their in-laws. In-laws can help young couples or derail them on the path to relationship success. The biggest reasons for tension include in-laws giving unwanted opinions, partners taking their parents' side, and disagreements over how to discipline grandchildren.

Dating is a lot of work! It is all too easy to end up discouraged & want to give up because someone else has once again not followed through & just disappeared. Family & friends often don’t appreciate how painful & difficult the process of dating can be. There is so much pressure to find the right relationship that it can be hard to look for signs the relationship is a healthy one.

What we want to focus on is, do I have too much anger? Do I get angry too easily? When I get angry, do I stay angry too long? Do I do destructive things when I get angry? So, rather than the anger itself, what we tend to focus on, is my anger making me unhappy? Is it making other people unhappy? Am I doing destructive or hurtful things when I get angry?

A collection of wisdom on making relationships work over the decades. You’ve heard me say often “Love is wanting to be a better person for your partner.” So partnerships grow us into better versions of ourselves. There is purpose to being in relationships & it’s not about having an audience to applaud you. It’s about having faith that you need to listen to hard truths about yourself from someone you love. It’s not about taking the easy way out to stay comfortable. To be uncomfortable is the only path to growing up.

Everybody deals with insecurity & it has a huge negative impact on relationships. The focus for those who are insecure is what’s wrong with my partner? Secure attachment, is not about playing games, you’re not trying to win or have power over the other person. It’s not a perfect situation. Secure attachment means you’re able to navigate emotionally. It can’t be about relying on the other person to do this for you. 

In intercultural & in interracial relationships as well, you don't always know what you're getting yourself into. Often, it takes several years, several challenges, a lot of conflict within couples to really figure out what it is that seems to be the issue or why it even is an issue... Both individuals can maintain their cultural identities through negotiation, & also own their awareness of what their own cultural identities mean to them.

Divorce often happens in year 6 to 10. research finds year 8 to be ordinary. In the 50s, it was called “The Seven Year Itch’. If your relationship is struggling in these years, it is an ordinary development. The essence of real love is wanting to be a better person. When someone turns their back on doing the work of change and growth, that's what repair of a relationship requires, then they are unwilling to do the work of real love.

Life is chock full of choices. There are choices that are self defeating or even self destructive. Then there are choices that are life generating. It’s our choices that make up our life. It’s our choices that make the difference in having success in our relationships. Some choices don’t feel like choices because they are entrenched bad habits that usually comfort us in some way. Even when we feel we don’t have a choice, we do.

Many relationships begin because one person is grabbing onto someone else to feel ok. Everybody wants to be loved, but the solution to this, is the age old wisdom that you have to love yourself first. Taking responsibility for our own choices & learning to accept both the good & the bad within all of us is key to self-esteem.

So often in relationships we are quick to focus our unhappiness on our partner. It’s their fault things don’t get better, right? It’s way too easy to blame others & not look at ourselves. This episode takes a look at what YOU can do, whether or not your partner is interested in improvements.

Dig down underneath the resentments to communicate or begin the dead-end path to bitterness. Everybody has a choice about which direction to go in. We avoid the “risk” of asking real questions, so we can stay in the safe zone of not dealing with someone else. We have our imaginary conversations, we decide we know how it will turn out & we bail. Authentic conversation requires real effort in real life.

Trauma deeply challenges our sense of safety and security in the world, which often has an impact on relationships. It’s natural for those who have suffered trauma to feel that building close relationships is frightening because they don’t want to experience more hurt. Someone who is coping with trauma may feel disconnected from themselves as well as their partner.

Responding is harder to do because it is more complicated than just defensively reacting. Respecting your partner is all about responding & reacting is only all about you. This episode will help you think about how to  improve responding to your partner. 

Erectile Dysfunction impacts relationships & couples don’t know how to talk about it & don’t have enough information about it, so this episode is all about correcting this problem. The Cleveland Clinic reports 1 in 10 men will experience ED in their lifetime & only 25% of men with ED receive treatment.

Money & sex are the two things couples argue most about. Most couples don't want to talk about it because they fight. Budgets are like diets, they don't work. Learn here how to think about a spending plan. Instead of beating yourselves up for your past attempts at trying to talk about money, try acknowledging where each of you come from in terms of your family histories without judgment.   

Everybody buries themselves in piles of doubt & insecurities that clutter up our lives & our relationships. Some of us cover things up better than others, but no one escapes obsessing about their fears & doubts. Facing your anxieties & insecurities by decontaminating your brain is achievable. Listen & learn how to do it!

Relationships thrive when the 4 pillars of successful relationships are nurtured. The 4 pillars are Honesty, Respect, Generosity & Negotiating. Relationships are one of the most important parts of life & there are no classes in high school to help you learn how. Make no mistake about it, relationships are a lot of work because everybody is wired differently.

Self-sacrifice has been misinterpreted by too many, as the way to be the "best" partner you can be. For this episode I have Alicia Munoz joining me to discuss how  you can use your own experience of pleasure and joy as a compass to guide you to being more fulfilled as a person, and therefore, a "better" partner. When I heard this topic, I immediately thought of the stewardess on the plane advising parents to put their own mask on first in the event of a plane crash.

Emotionally unavailable men are something many partners experience. I think the greatest pain about this problem is that it leaves both people in a relationship feeling even lonelier. Today’s episode is to help us understand this dynamic & move towards solutions instead of giving up. Relationships can survive difficulties when there is a more balanced understanding instead of blame. Certainly women can also be emotionally unavailable.