Lately I have seen an increase in couples turning to therapy as a tool to navigate the empty nest chapter of their marriage, or an impending retirement of one or both of the partners. A new current of concern is vibrating through the Coupledom – the unknown is looming and the challenges in the relationship that […]
couples therapy
For the Coupledom: How to Take Ownership and Why It Is So Scary
Reader Beware: This post is not intended for the quick fixers or the folks who find exploration of emotion boring! The hardest psychological endeavor in the couples therapy process is the act of taking ownership for perceived hurtful behaviors to one’s partner. Seconds after a spouse expresses their feelings, with lightning speed, their partner launches […]
Conflagration or Communication: Shielding Vulnerability
Words can be incendiary. Words can be inviting. Words can be soothing or exciting. Words can be informing or confusing. The power of words fueled by tone of voice and facial expression, highlighted by hand gestures and body movement, can open up a communication or shut it down. Fact or fiction or subjective interpretation, words […]
Communicate the Mundane and Avoid the Pain
While doing couples therapy, I am often struck by how much is left unsaid between couples, both of a factual and feeling nature, that emerges in sessions days, weeks and sometimes months past the actual situation. The back and forth which typically ensues when reviewing transactions that have caused trouble stimulates in each partner the […]
Holiday Season – No Time To Test The Relationship, Yet Opportunity Knocks
I have written a number of posts on holiday challenges including Valentine’s Day and Christmas. I suggest that folks review these posts in the next week. My clinical observation and I think this is a pretty obvious observation, is that holidays often intensify couples conflict. It’s a bit like the flu season. Exposure to germs is a guarantee; […]
Time and The Coupledom
My son has a passion for timepieces. As a five-year-old boy he “stole” one of his grandfather’s watches. A year later I found it under his mattress. Today he pursues his passion in a more conventional manner, and his pleasure in how time is tracked through beauty and ingenuity is something I share with him. […]
Don’t Wait – That’s The Biggest Mistake!
When asked what is the most serious mistake that couples make, I answer, they wait too long to get help. The energy required to sustain a disabled Coupledom and avoid facing the realization that “we have problems that need professional expertise” could be channeled into using that “help” to improve the marriage. In fact, problems […]
Why Do Some People Stay? What Can We Learn From Hillary Clinton
I am listening to an audio book called First Women by Kate Browser, which delves into the lives of first ladies from Jacqueline Kennedy to Michelle Obama, providing lots of anecdotes and “insider” information about each of the ladies as well as painting a very interesting portrait of their lives in the White House, a portrait […]
Pixar Outs Emotions in “Inside Out”: Denial Folds
Before I saw the latest Pixar film Inside Out I was working on a post, “Wild With Denial,” about how couples get into trouble by denying their problems, denying their emotions – and how it only takes one in denial to throw off The Coupledom. “No we are not having a problem; nope it’s just […]
Lonely in The Coupledom: Post Holiday Blues
How Were The Holidays? The post holiday season can be an especially challenging time for couples. Perhaps you are empty nesters and the kids went back to school. Could be your vicarious thrill in watching your young children’s Christmas joy has waned with the new year or maybe when the grandparents flew back to home […]
Fusion Confusion: Fighting for Identity in The Coupledom
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 […]
Strangers On The Couch: Couples Therapy
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 […]
Lying While Cycling: Do Liars Change?
Big Stakes Question: Will I ever be able to trust you again? Lies, a pattern of lying, finally exposed and then at last a forced coming clean; what does any of that mean? Frankly there is no more powerful issue in couples therapy – in all interpersonal linkages, than this question: Do liars change? Lance […]
Bracing For Santa: Holiday Performance Anxiety In The Coupledom
Anticipating Complications: If you notice, as the days darken and talk of turkeys and Black Friday fill the air, that your insides have begun to retract and breathing has become a more shallow affair, perhaps you are suffering from Holiday Performance Anxiety. And if the communication between you and your partner about when to leave […]
No, You Are The Problem: Finger Pointing in The Coupledom
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 […]
The Passive-Aggressive Punch: The Silent Code of Anger In The Coupledom
Jill is taking a break from the blog this week. Here is one of her most popular posts from the past year or so. Excerpt: Withholding: A common form of passive-aggressive behavior is withholding: sex, affection, information, conversation. Someone in the Coupledom stops chatting, sharing details of family life; someone refrains from conveying essential data […]
Oldies but Goodies: Can You Say No To A Narcissist? Co-Narcissism and The Coupledom
Jill is taking a break from the blog this week. Here is one of her most popular posts from the past year or so. Excerpt: Do You Often Feel Invisible in The Coupledom? Healthy narcissism is a good thing. We need to care enough about ourselves to stay healthy, strive to achieve, pick caring partners, […]
Healing The Coupledom: Neurobiology and Couples Therapy
The Refuge of Stories: Steve Almond, the son of therapists, author and writing workshop teacher, described in a New York Times Sunday magazine article the mushrooming popularity of today’s writing workshops, which he views as a version of the old “talk therapy”, so popular prior to the psychopharmacological and managed care revolutions in mental health. […]
The Un-Romantic Bed
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 […]
Couples Counseling: A Tool For Life?
Checking In: When a couple comes in for counseling, they are motivated by a personal crisis, either within The Coupledom or one pressing on the Coupledom. Typical triggers are a particularly volatile fight, an encounter with relatives/in-laws that leads to a clash of attitudes, a financial crisis, a child’s acting-out, loss, an affair, a suspected […]
Do You Need an Education to Stay Married?
The National Marriage Project: The State of Our Unions is a joint publication of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and The Center for Marriage and Families at The Institute of American Values. I have provided a link to download a PDF of the study above and urge everyone to scroll through […]
“The Descendants” An Award Winning Coupledom: What Can We Learn?
A Family Going To The Dogs Hits A Wall: “The Descendants” starring George Clooney is nominated for best picture by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, aka Oscar. At the Golden Globes last month, the film won for best drama, Mr. Clooney for best actor in a drama. It is ranked amongst the […]
Illness and Loss In The Coupledom: Reality Shifts
Loss: I had loss on my mind this week. In fact, I always do but this week a family member shared her profound sadness upon learning of the tragic death of a very dear friend in the “prime of life.” She asked if I had written on loss and grief specific to The Coupledom and […]
“Money Matters” in The Coupledom: Budget 2012
Money Is Big: As the New Year confronts us, money matters can loom large in the line-up of Coupledom challenges: What are the expenditure priorities this year? Who manages the finances? Who pays the monthly bills, or not? Who brings home the dough? Who decides on how it is spent? Who knows where the money […]
Aftermath: Cleaning Up The Coupledom’s Holiday Mess
What Was Your Holiday Like? I counted three holiday disasters in my caseload prior to New Year’s and I expect reports of more in the coming days. Disaster may be too strong a word since I believe most “messes” can be worked on and cleaned up with help. Hence the post. But holiday pressure puts many […]
Who Listens? Let It Be Your Coupledom
Telling Stories: Someone asked a psychiatrist ‘How can you listen to people talk about their problems all day.’ Comedic pause. Psychiatrist: ‘Who listens?’ Of course many of you may have anecdotes or evidence that validates that ironic response but one could insert husband and wife or wife and husband, in any particular order, and make […]
The Coupledom Dreams: Using Our Unconscious To Communicate
Talking In Our Sleep: Lying next to each other, so near yet in our own worlds, The Coupledom dreams, every night in fact, during what is called the REM stage of sleep, which amounts to approximately 25% of sleeping time. Yet what do we do with this rich resource of mental activity as a couple? […]
Marital Myths: I Thought I Could Change Him/Her
Chemistry Compromises Clarity: We meet, we spark and we bond. What are the variables that allow folks to desire attaching themselves to someone? Physical attraction is a pretty heady draw but if met with an unappealing personality, a “dud” may not sustain its spark. There are many additional sources of attachment attraction. “We have fun […]
The Narcissist’s Stocking Stuffer: A Coupledom Alert
Holidays Coming: How many days to Thanksgiving? To Hanukkah? To Christmas? To Kwanzaa? To New Year’s Eve? Enough to create a big fat Coupledom mess. What are the holidays known for in my profession? Opportunity for families to become combustible, leaving memories scorched with flames. Why? Holidays provide fertile ground for narcissistic orgies rich in […]
The Affair: A Symptom of Marriage Rot or A Rotten Spouse?
Affairs Come In Colors: Not all infidelities look alike. The red-hot mega-media adulteries are not the prototype for most unfaithful Coupledoms. The shades of color for the common household variety of betrayal are in grays, not black, white or red-hot. Yet folks on either side of the betrayal highway feel more comfortable thinking in black, […]
50% Of Us Is Done: Marriage Over?
The Unfairness Factor: One of the more profoundly emotional experiences in couples work is watching the demise of a Coupledom when only one of the partners is “done.” The spouse who wants to keep the marriage alive is outnumbered. Yes outnumbered because it only takes 50% of the vote to emotionally dissolve the marriage. How […]
Finding Love Over Fifty Online?
Can Dreams Come True After Fifty-Two? I am hearing a lot lately about older folks meeting up and partnering or even marrying, happily and in many cases, unexpectedly. Unexpected in that either they had been searching for years with no results, or surprisingly lucky when they began their search to find the perfect mate. Perfect […]
Bully Wives? Yes, But They Don’t Know It.
Powerful Impact: Women are depicted as the “weaker sex”; have been for centuries. And in so many ways the inculcation of that notion, along with certain biological and physical realities, has successfully rendered them so, a state many of us fight each day. Yet there are times when sitting in my office, or out socializing, […]
The Divorced Coupledom: Milestones Celebrated In Court
Back To Court: Several times a year, whether I am in session with a patient, or bumping into friends, acquaintances or former patients in the aisles of the local supermarkets, the phrase “He/She is taking me back to court,” is whispered to me in tones of distress, anger, irony or weariness. Weariness often more than anything laces […]
Oldies but Goodies: Sex In The Coupledom: A Powerful Absence
Happy Labor Day Weekend! Jill is taking a break from the blog this weekend to rest and relax post Hurricane Irene. Here is one of her most popular posts from the past year or so. Excerpt: No Shame Needed Here: The fact that a significant number of couples are not having great sex, frequent sex […]
Oldies but Goodies: Weight Gain, Sex, And The Coupledom: Weight Tells A Story
Happy Labor Day Weekend! Jill is taking a break from the blog this weekend to rest and relax post Hurricane Irene. Here is one of her most popular posts from the past year or so. Excerpt: A Forbidden Topic: Weight talk in a relationship is so tricky and full of traps that most couples avoid […]
The Singledom Blues
The Suitable Other: I have been asked by folks, who are negotiating the worlds of post-divorce, widowhood, breakups and unwanted celibacy, to share some thoughts on The Singledom, a phrase used here to encompass a life in search of the suitable other. What’s New Under The Dating Sun? Mainly the pace and the method of […]
The Coupledom Contract: Who Gets Thrown Under The Bus?
The Costs Of Accommodation: There are many unspoken and even unconscious clauses in most Coupledoms. They may include never confronting your partner with the reality of their tone-deaf singing or limited grace on the dance floor. Perhaps the overcooked spaghetti goes unmentioned, or the gardening attempts that are less than stellar. None of these accommodations […]
Successful Launch: 8-2-11
Celebrating With Balloons and An Earache: Truly all went smoothly yesterday. Aside from an earache, probably swimmers ear (she is being taken to her doctor today by staff, amazing), the move-in was a triumph of coordination and readiness. Seven ABD staff members were present, setting up, cleaning or just greeting our daughter and her apartment-mate […]
What Is The Media Doing To Our Marriages?
The Famous Unfaithful: A couple recovering from an infidelity described being rattled by the constant news reports of the famous unfaithful. The upside of the battering ram of infidelity reminders is that the husband is regretful and pained by his actions, which bolsters his commitment to working on his marriage. His wife sees his struggle […]
What Are The Daughters Thinking? DSK, Schwarzenegger, Clinton
Imagine: Can anyone imagine DSK’s lunch with his daughter 17 minutes after he left the Sofitel Hotel and his encounter with a hotel housekeeper? Whatever that moment was in the Sofitel, DSK shifted to dad mode within minutes of being “someone else.” His daughter Camille is a 25-year-old Columbia University graduate student. After her dad’s […]
Oldies but goodies: The Divorcing Coupledom: The Art of Uncoupling
Jill is taking a break from the blog this week. Here is one of her most popular posts from the past year or so. Excerpt: In The Beginning There Was A Bond: When the Coupledom, the domicile of the couples’ relationship, splinters, what can be preserved and what must be discarded? These are daunting questions […]
The Rich Coupledom Under Siege
A Mansion Divided: Several years ago I began working with a young married mother of two whose husband was prospering mightily on Wall Street. She was alarmed by an increasing sense that extended family members were assessing her family’s capital worth with personal gain in mind. She was just one of several patients with whom […]
Levels Of Betrayal: I Did Not Have Sex(t) With That Woman
Defining Betrayal: The over-active Anthony Weiner, whose nimble fingers have twittered him into some pretty deep you know what, has added a new twist to the ever popular presidential pronouncement, “I did not have sex with that woman.” What is infidelity and what grade are these men in when they come up with their personal […]
Great Couples Therapy: Takes Muscle
What Does It Take: Great couples therapy…what does that mean? Couples who are great in therapy? Couples therapy with a great therapist? Great outcome to couples therapy? Here I mean the therapy couple who hunkers down and does the work with grit, fortitude and risk. It is awesome to observe. A Profile of Great Couples: […]
What Do Your Children Know About Your Coupledom?
Little Pitchers, Big Ears? Children are sponges. They are meant to be so. Absorbent. It facilitates learning the art of being human. Parents swell with pride when describing the latest juvenile achievement, seemingly spun from some invisible loom. Yet this sponge-like quality of growing children is recognized by proud parents when it suits us, and denied […]
Great Father/Great Mother: Failed Coupledom?
The New Yorker Captures The Coupledom: If ever you need a visual for what is happening to your Coupledom, pick up several copies of the New Yorker Magazine, and flip through the pages. Inevitably you will find the very image that corresponds to your moment. I did. While preparing my thoughts for this post, this […]
Kate and William: The Royal Coupledom
Love In The Limelight: It is difficult to know which combination is more challenging: a coupledom where both parties are super famous as in Brangelina; one party is famous and the other unknown, by contrast, as is the case of Kate and William; or both parties are famous but one is a superstar; an example […]
The Coupledom: Is It Too Late?
Inspiration: This post was inspired by a friend. He calls it “Nurture the Coupledom.” He and his wife arranged for their child to be left with grandparents for her first overnight to enable them to “go out”, as in a “date night.” I could hear his pride both in his daughter’s readiness for this big […]
Stereotyping The Coupledom
Stereotyping Your Partner: One marvels at the power of gender stereotyping in The Coupledom, that domicile in which the relationship resides. Years, even decades into a marriage, partners interpret behaviors in the language of expected gender norms. Often these interpretations are inaccurate and create emotional distance rather than facilitate connectedness. Dismissive or Disengaged? At the […]
Charlie Sheened? When Your Spouse Is Unraveling, What To Do?
The Foundation is Cracking: An earthquake, a tsunami or the breakdown of a family member? Viewing Charlie Sheen on the T.V. screen, gaunt and pulsating with the energy of an avalanche, full of spit and spin, dark circles rimming incendiary eyes, evokes a sadness and melancholy in me for both him and his family. Though […]
A Parenting Quandary: Respect or Protect?
Well Meaning Parenting: In the trenches of parenting, whatever the child’s age, a primary motivation is to “protect” the child from everything from dental decay to death. The parenting manual, implicit as it is, but part of any species, is to promote the survival of the species, i.e. our offspring. Love as Motivation: In the […]
Owning Your Stuff Builds Coupledom Trust
Trust Busters: There are ample ways to mar and maim belief in someone’s regard for you. Trust marring can be as fleeting as overhearing a derisive comment about you, or as weighty as discovering romantic texts and hotel charges. Like the derma that covers our organs, we have muslin-like layers of protection covering our emotions; […]
Lara Logan’s Brave Battle To “Out” Sexual Assault
The Courage Not To Remain Silent: Many are following the news coverage of CBS correspondent Lara Logan who was sexually assaulted when separated from her crew during the celebrations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square last Friday. Controversy has ensued and comments range from outrage, support, mockery and questions regarding the release to the media of a […]
Sex In The Coupledom: A Powerful Absence
Sexual Intimacy MIA?: “A common clinical adage is that sexuality contributes 15-20% to a marriage’s serving of shared pleasure……… When sexuality is difficult or non-existent, it plays an inordinately powerful role, perhaps 50-75%.” (McCarthy & Metz, 1997). When physical intimacy is missing in action in The Coupledom, its importance soars! No Shame Needed Here: The […]
The Divorcing Coupledom: The Art of Uncoupling
In The Beginning There Was A Bond: When the Coupledom, the domicile of the couples’ relationship, splinters, what can be preserved and what must be discarded? These are daunting questions that deserve deep search and time. Here are a few guidelines for both spouses to use as they engage in the art of uncoupling. Respecting […]
The Secret To A Happy Marriage: Self-Expansion
A Tip To Start The Coupledom Off On The Right Foot in 2011: The sum of one partner part plus one partner part equals two partner parts: No! Not if you follow the research. In fact, as mentioned in previous posts, optimal bonding in The Coupledom should lead to a much greater, broader entity…the combined […]
Jealousy, Envy and The Coupledom: What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Envy=2; Jealousy=3: One simple method of distinguishing jealousy from envy is numeric. Jealousy always involves a third participant, real or imagined. Envy only needs two to do the dance. Both emotions can unsettle The Coupledom. Wikipedia: That green-eyed monster: Aristotle (in Rhetoric) defined envy (φθόνος phthonos) “as the pain caused by the good fortune of others”,[10][11] while Kant defined […]
Acknowledging The Coupledom: The Domicile in Which The Relationship Resides
The Number 3: The number three plays a powerful role in human dynamics, both as a positive and a negative. For the threesome that composes a triangle, where one is often missing in the dialogue, the number three can take on heinous characteristics. For the play date, it can convulse into gang warfare. However, in […]
Our Child Is Gay; Hasidic; Autistic; Muslim; Bi-Polar; Asperger’s; Born Again: The Coupledom Adjusts
The Parenting Gamble: Whether you birth or adopt a child, genetically screen or take your chances, what you draw from the pile may please you, challenge you, overwhelm or revolt you in turn. The odds are that many parents/Coupledoms will become members of clubs that they never wished to join, and may be horrified to […]
The Passive-Aggressive Punch: The Silent Code of Anger In The Coupledom
Stalemated and Suffering: When The Coupledom (the domicile wherein the relationship resides) reaches a level of pain and powerlessness as a consequence of countless hurts and misunderstandings, a strange pall descends upon it. Avenues of coping may have been explored: talking, arguing, even seeing a therapist. Perhaps to no avail/relief. Whatever the previous process, couples […]
Weight Gain, Sex, And The Coupledom: Weight Tells A Story
Weighty Topic: In recent days I read an alarming article on newly published obesity statistics nationally, glimpsed a Today show segment on a book about post-its to make overweight folks feel beautiful, and browsed through a piece in The New York Times Magazine on retail’s struggle to provide a profit margin in dressing the overweight […]
Couples Communication: What Are We Teaching Our Children?
Modeling Communication: Without a doubt, the ticket to Coupledom disaster is best acquired by non-communication. Couples who choose therapy are talking just enough to reach a consensus to get help. Couples who can’t talk communicate with attorneys. What boggles this therapeutic mind is where did these folks learn to “not communicate”? As a culture, we […]
Husbands Have Changed: Have Wives Noticed?
Time Out to Consider Dad: Saturday’s New York Times (6/19/10), in anticipation of Father’s Day, published an article by Tara Parker Pope entitled “For Fathers, A Tough Balancing Act”. The article and a similar piece in the New York Times November 2, 2009 by Laurie Tarkan “Fathers Gain Respect From Experts (and Mothers)” inspired me […]
Marriage and The Immune System: Toxicity in the Coupledom
Married Healthy or Married Sick? Over the decades scientific research has suggested that marriage may provide benefits for longevity and health. However, now that researchers have refined their techniques to measure “health” and “stress” in more nuanced forms, the quality of the “marriage” as anyone in a marriage knows, casts vast shades of difference over […]
“Love Means Never Having To Say You’re Sorry”: Excuse Me?
The Healing Power of Remorse: In the 1970 movie, “Love Story”, the line “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” became universally famous. The movie, based on the eponymous book by Erich Segal, popularized the concept, furthered bolstered by the pop psychology of the era, that true love required an unconditional acceptance of the […]
Depression and The Coupledom: The Secret Menace
The Unacknowledged Intruder: Depression and The Coupledom: The New York Times Sunday Magazine featured a fascinating article on the research of Andy Thomson, a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia. The piece entitled “Depression’s Upside” by Jonah Lehrer discusses research into the adaptive components of depression. Fascinating as the research is, it deals mainly with […]
To Marriage Therapy or Not To Marriage Therapy
Elizabeth Weil’s clever cover story in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, “Married With Issues” raises three critical questions for all couples: 1. What should couples expect from their marriage/relationship. 2. How can they tell if it is “good enough” as is or deserves attention. 3. What do they do about it? The answer is […]
Triangle Traps
No relationship is an island unto itself: There are in laws, children, friends, political parties, neighbors and pets, all of whom can serve up a poisonous stew of triangulation unless a couple is trained to look out for this vile brew. Typical triangulations are: a child and one parent talk negatively about the other parent […]
How to Accept and Enjoy Differences
Couples often are strikingly bewildered by their partner’s inability to feel what they feel and act as they do. It does not easily compute that this person, with whom I have chosen to spend my time, thinks so differently and behaves so “unlike me.” And the “unlike me” is the operative word here. The human […]
The Factor of TIME: Underrated and Overlooked
TIME is a most precious commodity. Yet TIME for the couple to be together is often overlooked and undervalued, each partner rushing to do his or her best at the socially prescribed “role” of parent, employee or community volunteer. In therapy, TIME for the couple is valued, precious, proscribed and imposed. Boundaries are firm and […]