relationship tagged posts

January 23, 2023,  Counselling, Family, Games People Play, Life, Relationship, Script  No comments

The answer may be not just in what Vanessa and Mark observed in their families of origin but also in how they were treated. Once we began working together what came to light was two very important points. For Vanessa being shielded from arguments, as well as criticism of any type, in her family also meant that she had not learnt any skills for managing conflicts now as an adult in her most important relationships. Consequently, any raised voices or criticism was felt as a personal insult leaving Vanessa feeling constantly bruised and battered.

For Mark, on the other hand, his unrelenting exposure to conflict in his family also left him feeling bruised and battered as he was constantly made the victim of his parents and siblings’ tirades...

December 23, 2022,  Family, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

The Theories behind Choosing Your Partner

Several theories aim to explain why we are attracted to some people and not to others. Some say that attraction is usually based on an interest in complementary qualities or characteristics—those we feel we may not have ourselves but subconsciously would like to have.

Subconsciously, you might even believe that if you do not have certain characteristics, then maybe you can somehow live them vicariously through someone else, just like when you get really excited about something your kids have achieved. So excited even that it can bring you to tears.

You may be genuinely excited, but you might be so involved in your children’s lives and successes that you almost feel as if you yourself are performing and getting the credit.

Other...

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 ...

November 15, 2021,  Family, Life, Relationship, Script  No comments

Couples who come into my office are often surprised that the partners they fell in love with seem to have become quite different people. Sometimes, knowing the mistakes their parents made in their relationships, couples have openly vowed not to become those people. But guess what so often happens? They end up becoming those people after all. 

So often, the couples I meet notice that everything they ever vowed not to become, they have become, and they are surprised to find out how powerful their subconscious scripting is.

This is usually how it is for most of us until we become aware enough of our own patterns of being to review our scripts so we can make better-informed, conscious decisions about keeping the part of the script that is working well (the positive script) and about...

October 21, 2021,  Family, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

As I now understand it as an adult, one of my script beliefs came to be that my needs are not important. I felt that I was only as good as the cog in the wheel that drove the machine that was our family business.

The interesting thing to note here is that it was fairly likely that my parents never actually intended for me to acquire this belief, let alone having it be one that I would grow up with and take into my own adult relationships. My perception of my life as I was growing up created my script beliefs, regardless of my parents’ intentions.

And, of course, this belief did go with me into my adult relationships and into my fi...

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...

February 24, 2020,  Counselling, Family, Games People Play, Life, Love, Relationship  No comments

I would like to say something about the title of my book Love, Lies, and the Games Couples Play. Put simply, love, and all that it embodies for us, is what each of us seeks in life above all else. It is the main reason we enter into relationships in the first place because it gives us a place to belong and to feel connected to others.

The “lies” in the title refers to the mistaken attitudes and beliefs that we hold about ourselves and about others. These are most likely based on someone else’s thinking which in the first instance were probably our parent’s. And as these beliefs were presented to us at a time when we were not able to make well-considered decisions for ourselves, they are not necessarily reflective of our current subjective truth.

Those beliefs, and the w...

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...