All Things Communication
If you're struggling to communicate with your partner, you may be throwing up communication blocks without even realising you're doing this harmful practice.
Once we are comfortable in a relationship it's easy to start finding fault with our partner's habits and idiosyncracies.
There are 10 very common communciation blocks. Do any of these ring true for you?
1. Judging/Judgement
2. Criticism
3. Name Calling & Labelling
4. Diagnosing
5. Praise to Manipulate
6. Ordering & Instructing
7. Threatening
8. Moralising
9. Excessive Questioning
10.Refusal of Discussion
Each of these communciation blocks elicits a negative response, shutting down communication with haste.
To improve communciation in your relationship you need to be honest and own the communication blocks you use to shut your partner down.
During the couples counselling process we work with you to eradicate these blocks, replacing them with positive and strategic tools to improve relationship communication.
James and Vicki. Tips for getting your man to listen to you.
1. No Distractions. Phones turned off. Quiet place. No interruptions.
2. Be clear and concise about your desired outcome.
3. Chunk down information - try not to make it overwhelming or take hours to state your requirements.
Does Lockdown have you feeling crazy? Escalating Tension? Written by Vicki Childs. Family & Relationship Therapist. Couples Counsellor. Marriage Educator.
When couples are under stress or feeling uncertain about the future it's normal to experience increased stress levels and escalated fighting.
After months of being in close quarters, it can start to feel like the walls are closing in, this can lead to both partner's having a hairline trigger.
So, what can you do about it? What can you do to lessen the uncertainty and de-escalate the fighting?
Here are 3 Tips to start using:
1. Grant your partner some slack, understand that we are all doing the best we can in previously unchartered territory. If you see uncharacteristic behaviours or traits you haven't witnessed before, gently ask what you can do to help settle things down.
2. Try to incorporate some variety into the ho-hum routine of lockdown. Make and eat something you've never tried before. Take an online class on something that you've always been wanting to do. Order an Uber Eats from a new restaurant you've been wanting to try. Take a leap and do something crazy with your hair (it grows back.)
3. Respect the way your partner deals with their reality. The fact is, you're both going through something challenging. Importantly, remember that your partner does not have to deal with lockdown in the same way you are.
There is no right or wrong way to deal with all that is lockdown.
We are still providing Online sessions with our lovely clients at a time that suits you.
What’s the difference between having good sex and having great sex?
It’s usually in communication.
Being able to openly state what you like and want in the bedroom is key.
There’s so many fun and great ways to show your partner how to take you from a good experience to a mind-blowing, world altering experience. Okay, well at least memorable experience.
🔥🔥🔥
Set the bar high - because why not?
As an aside to the 4 tips here, maybe you can try these:
🔥 Sensually guide your partner’s hands all over your body, stopping and focusing on your sweet spots - hand on hand, double the action.
🔥 Give immediate feedback when you feel good.
Feedback should always be immediate - don’t be afraid to vocalise.
🔥 Be generous with praise.
🔥 Set the scene by telling your partner how much you love or enjoy certain parts of their body before the event. An occasional your arms are looking built or you’re looking toned and fit can be a fabulous prelude to great sex.
🔥 Experiment with different touch. Firm pressure, light pressure, sweeping full hand movements or light and gentle fingertips - give new things a go.
C O M M U N I C A T E
Flooding.
What is emotional flooding?
A person may experience emotional flooding as a result of intense emotions or a highly stressful situation such as conflict.
When a person is triggered, their fight or flight system kicks in, making it so that they are unable to respond rationally and may mentally shut down.
When this occurs during therapy, we take a break to decompress and gather our thoughts.
Happy Wife, Happy Life?
The big cause of relationship splits.
Written by Vicki Childs. Family & Relationship Therapist.
Couples Counsellor. Marriage Educator.
The notion that your happiness and needs are more important than your partner's is not only narcissistic , it is antiquated and dangerous. Often building deep layers of resentment and even hatred.
Who amongst us hasn't heard the popular and ever-growing mantra of ‘Happy Wife, Happy Life?'
I'd be surprised if anyone aged from 12 to 90 years old hasn't heard that phrase echoed at some time at some event. Perhaps it was at the club or pub, or at a social gathering or maybe at a girl's night out.
More than likely, you've heard it doled out as the ‘best advice' a male groom could ever receive.
The origins of ‘Happy Wife, Happy Life' can be dated back to 1903 where it was first seen in print as part of a published rhyme in the Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette, 22 October 1903 (paywall).
More recently, it has become somewhat of an unwritten rule and shockingly used by many couples as a barometer for measuring the success of a relationship. Suffice to say, the notion of ‘Happy Wife, Happy Life' has been widely accepted as THE FORMULA for happy relationships.
But BE WARNED there is a dark side to this ‘formula' which is becoming increasingly apparent and responsible for many shock ‘Goodbyes.'
The idea that one person's happiness trumps another's is just so totally out of whack, to begin with, let alone unfair, narcissistic and downright selfish.
In keeping things real, let's admit, it's a good feeling when things tend to go your way when your requests are met and even surpassed. For some Couples one of the partners is often happy to go the extra mile in ensuring they have a happy wife, in these cases, the more accommodating of partners is generally receiving a mutual benefit, however, in the vast majority of cases, there's a disturbing undercurrent of quiet and simmering disdain. Seldom spoken of until the brown stuff hits the proverbial fan.
While the vast majority of individuals in a relationship know and understand how vitally important it is to carry out actions that ensure your partner is happy and fulfilled, where do we draw a line of even-handedness?
Where does the boundary sit with ensuring a partner is happy as opposed to becoming a complete slave to unreasonable and often increasingly ridiculous demands? Door Mat anyone?
We need to ask ourselves ‘why is my happiness more important than the person I profess to love?'
All couples have emotional Love Tanks. These are our tanks that need to be filled with all of the things that personally satisfy us and make us feel happy and loved within the sanctity of a relationship.
More and more, we are seeing couples with vast disparities in their respective Love Tanks.
Couples who are at breaking point, as one partner desperately attempts to ensure the other is happy at the cost of denying personal needs, all due to some crazy notion promoting inequality as a foundation of love.
It's not uncommon for a couple to now present with one partner doing all of the ‘heavy lifting' while the other accepts and expects that their tank is fully fuelled while the other persons tank is completely depleted, in part due to some MARRIAGE MYTH which was initially penned in a comical sense.
Much of the disparity comes from not speaking the same ‘Love Language' or not committing to filling your partner's emotional love tank.
Knowing HOW to fill, WHAT to fill it with and WHEN to fill an Emotional Love Tank can make an enormous difference to any relationship.
Relationships are about sharing the load. Great unions, with master couples, are those where the load is distributed evenly, where thought, consideration and distribution of happiness are shared equally.
Think about how many times, you may have heard an obviously begrudging or disengaged husband utter the sometimes resigned words ‘Yep, whatever, Happy Wife, Happy Life' – while there is apparent compliance, often underneath lies resentment, bitterness, disempowerment or worse, dampened hatred.
While it's well known that a happy wife will radiate happiness into the family environment; likewise, unheard or unacknowledged resentment DOES build when one person ‘rules the roost' or when one person's satisfaction is paramount or more important than the other person in the relationship.
Many compliant partners plod along trying to uphold the happiness of the other, until they can no longer deny their own happiness. Or until their EMOTIONAL LOVE TANK is empty, when that occurs the relationship becomes NON FUNCTIONAL and usually breaks down.
It often comes as a HUGE SURPRISE to many clients who have practised ‘Happy Wife Happy Life' when their partner's suddenly voice displeasure or in worst-case scenario up and leave.
On many occasions, the partner striving to provide happiness at all costs has checked out of the relationship emotionally, long before physically leaving.
A much more sensible and fair approach to all relationships is HAPPY SPOUSE, HAPPY HOUSE.
When consideration is given to mutual happiness within the relationship, emotional love tanks are fuelled and filled, resulting in genuinely great, rewarding relationships.
To find out more about LOVE LANGUAGES, LOVE TANKS and your own personal LOVE LANGUAGE, book an appointment with us today.
