healthy relationship tagged posts

August 19, 2022,  Family, Games People Play, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

“Tamara” and “Alex” met each other when they were both seventeen and still at school. They married when they were twenty. They live in a modest home in the suburbs with their son.

Tamara was mainly a stay-at-home mother, working occasionally as a receptionist and assistant to a local doctor. Alex worked in science and technology at an office in the city.

Many of Alex’s colleagues and business associates were young men who were either single and living it up, or just recently married; there were plenty of invitations to socialize and join in their brand of fun after work, often at bars and nightclubs. They would drink, socialize, and flirt with the women who also came to unwind at the bar at the end of their busy and stressful days.

Alex enjoyed the lifestyle of the ...

June 15, 2021,  Family, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

We learn about our sexuality—acting male or female—from the parent of our own sex, but we learn about our sensuality—being feminine or masculine—in our relationship with our parent of the opposite sex.

Let me add what is actually an inconsistency in this theory. That is that while my siblings, male and female, were exposed to the same qualities in our parents, what they decided for themselves regarding their roles as adults, and how they would be sexually with their own partners, may actually have been quite different from me. This is where genetics actually plays more than just a small part in forming who we become as adults.

As I’ve noted, your own personality will impact on how you actually turn out, but as a general rule, if you are a female you are more than likely ...

May 20, 2021,  Family, Life, Love, Relationship, Script, Sex  No comments

Let’s apply this notion to the concept of being a couple. Your script for life, which influences your values, beliefs, and attitudes (and consequently, what you think, feel, say, and do), also contains rules, or guidelines, about being a couple in a relationship.

Because your script (and therefore your rules for being a couple) was first given to you by your family, you will most likely grow up and live out their relationship rules accordingly.

The relationship rules in your script tell you how to communicate with your partner, how to express love to each other, and how to interact with each other sexually.

So, if your parents showed you that it was OK to put each other down, then you will have that in your scripting as well – either as the person who puts others down or as...

December 23, 2019,  Counselling, Exercise, Family, Life, Love, Relationship, Relationship Tips  No comments

Love – A Never-Ending Story

While I ended this story with “She lived happily ever after,” in truth, the “ever after” has not come to be yet.

The story is really never ending. Every day offers my partner and me new lessons to learn about ourselves and each other and new challenges, which, as we open ourselves to each other in love, provides us with even greater possibilities for ourselves and our relationship into the future.

This is not to say that we never have arguments or disagreements, but because we love and care deeply for each other, we attempt to find a resolution in a way that demonstrates that love and care and which is good for both of us.

Nor does this mean that disagreements are always solved there and then...

November 25, 2019,  Life, Relationship, Relationship Tips, Script  No comments

A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, there was a young girl who, wide-eyed and full of dreams, left her hometown by the coast and followed her knight in shining armor to the city.

Their wedding was a spectacular affair befitting a princess and her prince, and they came to live in a castle overlooking the sea.

Years passed, and it seemed that they had everything they could want, including a lavish lifestyle with all the trimmings. They were a young family of standing in their community, with four beautiful children.

But, fourteen years later, this young girl, now grown and much wiser, looked for more from her relationship than it seemed her prince was able to give.

Through much turmoil and heartache, she ended the relationship and created a life as a single mom...

March 13, 2019,  Counselling, Exercise, Life, Love, Relationship, Relationship Tips  No comments

I use the acronym TOUCH to remember the five ways of funding my love bank.

T is for Time

Relationships aren’t part-time arrangements. And, if your relationship is fed on left-over time (the time you have after everything else has been done), your love bank will very quickly be depleted.

Your relationship must take priority over everything else (other than yourself). You come first, your partner comes second. Your family is third, your work is next, and finally there are your extended family and other friendships beyond that.

This is not to say that you can’t work because you must always be with your family. It just means that you must always keep your family’s needs in mind if you are doing something of lower priority (like working)...

January 24, 2019,  Life, Love, Relationship, Relationship Tips  No comments

Theoretically, the more money you invest, the greater the return. And if you’re a patient investor, you can even double or triple the return. Similarly, the unconditional love you give to your partner is a very wise investment.

And just as you build a money bank by depositing funds you make deposits into your “love bank” when you help meet your partner’s five fundamental needs—physical, safety, feeling, love and belonging, and spiritual—and also when you use the sexual enhancers discussed earlier.

You also make deposits by speaking your partner’s love language at every opportunity.

However, just like a bank, if you fail to make deposits into your love bank, your account is in danger of being depleted by fees and charges...

October 25, 2018,  Counselling, Family, Fundamental Human Needs, Love, Relationship, Sex  No comments

Many couples use the state of their sex life as a barometer for what is going on in the rest of their relationship. I also suggest that the converse works as well: what is going on in your relationship and in each of your personal lives can also affect your sex life.

Libido levels rise and fall with circumstances. Maybe one person is too stressed to make sex good for their partner, let alone for him or herself. Work pressures can distract couples from giving positive sexual attention to each other.

An episode of ill health can affect your sex life. It could be something that directly affects the sex organs like prostate cancer, or just stress, or your diet. Maybe you need to exercise more or you feel overweight. You might need more sleep, or even just more fun.

You should monitor all of t...

September 17, 2018,  Family, Life, Love, Relationship, Sex  No comments

“How often is normal?” is a perennial question.

There is really no answer, because what is normal for one couple may be quite different for another.

But what is normal for them depends on how they both respond to a whole array of things that reflect the state of the couple at any given moment.

Note, too, that some couples prefer frequent sex, and some do not. In fact, some couples have a very happy relationship without any sex at all. Let me qualify any misconception here by saying that the use of the term “sex” in this discussion refers to the physical act of intercourse. For many though, for whatever reason, intercourse is not possible, but this does not preclude these people’s capacity for closeness in a very intimate or even sexual way by some other definition of the term.

T...

August 9, 2018,  Love, Relationship, Sex  No comments

Although it is not always the case, men tend to be turned on sexually more easily than women. Men may also be turned on more easily by sexual stimuli, including fantasy. In addition, sexual tension in a healthy male begins to build again immediately after ejaculation, so men can be ready for sex again quite quickly, although this response slows down with age or health issues. Men can also most often complete the full sexual response cycle sooner.

Men and Sex

Ejaculation can occur on penetration, or even before, but this isn’t always accompanied by orgasm. That takes longer and requires a man to learn to control ejaculation if he is to explore the full range of pleasure he can experience...