How to Change the Emotional Climate of Your Relationship
This information is drawn from my clinical experience and not from any other sources. If you live with a partner, in a family, with roommates, or simply spend time around the same work colleagues day after day, you naturally generate your own emotional climate together. Like the weather, it’s something you can’t not notice—the tension your partner carries home after a hard day, the sugar-driven mania of your kids—and is often quickly changeable—the depressing morning staff meeting almost evaporates by the time you’re halfway through your lunch with a close friend or are surprised by a loving text from you partner.
Read full story9 Questions to Assess the Health of Your Relationship
While different therapists will approach a couple's problems in their own way based on their clinical approach and personality, there are some basic questions that can always be helpful in assessing the state of a relationship.
Read full storyWays to Deal With an Explosively Angry Partner
This article is based upon my years of clinical experience and does not reflect any particular individuals. Marley admits that she is sensitive, is good at reading people’s emotions. She can tell when her colleague is depressed or irritable, or her mother is having a hard time. But she struggles with her partner, Andy, who can go from 0 to 60 in a nanosecond. He explodes, he makes threats, and she'll have no idea what set him off. Sometimes she gets angry and pushes back, which only makes things worse. Other times she tries to leave, but often he follows her, yelling and chasing her down the hall. She is feeling like she is always walking on eggshells. She is getting fed up.
Read full storyHow to Make-up After an Argument
Ask Sam and Whitney how their weekend was and you’re likely to hear the same story each week: Saturday started fine, but then they had a big fight Saturday night. They each retreated into their own silos for most of Sunday but then finally made up Sunday night. And then the rest of the week was pretty good ... till the next weekend.
Read full story5 Conversation Killers
Some arguments are arguments at the start. One person is angry, in your face, waving their hands, and it’s off and running. For most, however, an argument starts maybe as a sarcastic comment or even a rational conversation, but then things start to heat up. Once it does, it’s hard to cool down.
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