Me/Us? Personal identity, the self-defining kind, helps us to make the big life choices such as college, career, mate, when to breed, as well as small ones such as shoe selection, hair color and movies. Each time we say yes or no to something, we are giving off a whiff of who we are. When [...]
Shared Life
Strangers On The Couch: Couples Therapy
Written by Jill Edelman M.S.W., L.C.S.W.In Translation: “Let me introduce you to your mate.” This is what I would like to say to my patients “on the couch” more often than not. Have you met before? I feel as if my job as their therapist is to be translator, interpreter, facilitator and teacher to two people who at times speak [...]
Tidying Up The Holiday Mess: The Coupledom Hangover
Written by Jill Edelman M.S.W., L.C.S.W.Blight on the New Year: The ornaments are boxed, the ball has dropped and the seasonal remains of the day have been put away yet there remains some unwanted detritus from the holiday past. Those sticky, hard-to-get-off-the-soles-of-your shoes type of goo where some clash or alienation has occurred, either within the Coupledom or between the Coupledom [...]
Married to Wikipedia: The Evolving Marriage
Written by Jill Edelman M.S.W., L.C.S.W.The Expert: About a decade ago, I worked with a May-December Coupledom, the wife almost twenty years junior to her hubby, who were at a marital crossroads. The images each had originally held of the other were now anachronistic. The husband seemed trapped in the patriarchal position of most knowledgeable, the decider and the protector. [...]
Sexual Pain Or Impaired Performance: No Shame, No Blame
Written by Jill Edelman M.S.W., L.C.S.W.What Is Not Spoken: As a couples’ therapist I am accustomed to learning from my patients that they have not experienced sexual intimacy for months or years leading up to their visits with me. Numbers of years. What is equally significant is the common admission that paralleling the absence of physical contact has been the [...]
No, You Are The Problem: Finger Pointing in The Coupledom
Written by Jill Edelman M.S.W., L.C.S.W.Easy Enough: Is there anything easier, almost at any age, than pointing your finger at someone? Towards the end of the first year of life, most babies are pointing at something. And in our final days, feeble though we may be, we still have point-ability. No wonder we stay attached to this skill: it is [...]
What Can We Learn From Katie Holmes? Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow
Written by Jill Edelman M.S.W., L.C.S.W.Katie Holmes: What can we learn from Katie? She is clearly a girl who never stopped thinking about tomorrow. She married a big star, apparently with an ironclad prenup that didn’t rust, and she never gave up her day job. Though some might question the Katie Holmes reference, I am using her to make a point. [...]
Personalize This! The Coupledom’s Achilles Heel
Written by Jill Edelman M.S.W., L.C.S.W.The Common Malady: In human interaction, and this may be a character trait unique to our species, there is a tendency to perceive the behaviors and verbalization of others in personal terms, understood as reflecting an attitude, belief or feeling that is about “me”, because of me, or in relationship to me. This tendency of [...]
The Coupledom Ambles Towards Seniorhood
Written by Jill Edelman M.S.W., L.C.S.W.A Road Trip To The Future: My Coupledom has recently aged out of its “middle years” and into early Seniorhood. And we are hardly alone as we join the ranks of baby boomers who over the next two decades will be marching forth to take their seat at the table of ultimate maturity. The announcement [...]
The Un-Romantic Bed
Written by Jill Edelman M.S.W., L.C.S.W.Bill Maher: If ever there were an unromantic guy, it is Bill Maher with his surgeon-like skill to slice away all artifice and get to the earthy or seamy underbelly of so much of life, political and otherwise. Recently, he made a comment about sleep which got me thinking about the unromantic aspect of sleeping [...]