Category Fundamental Human Needs

The Most Fundamental Human Needs

What I have learned from my many years in a relationship, and as a Relationship Counsellor, Coach and Therapist, is that there are several fundamental human needs that need to be satisfied for someone to have a happy life and a rewarding and enduring relationship. These are the “secrets to making love last” I refer to in the subtitle of my book. I call them that because, even though they appear to be common sense when we read about them in context, it seems that these become invisible to us when we try to understand why something went wrong in a relationship.

These fundamental needs tend to form a ladder such that if the lower rung needs are not met, then the higher-rung needs cannot be met...

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Sex and the Stress Factor

Sex and the Stress Factor

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...

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The Language of Love

The Language of Love

Please speak my language

In general, if you aren’t showed love the exact way you imagined love looks, it doesn’t at all mean that you aren’t loved. It has nothing to do with lack of love, but with the fact that we all of us have been scripted not only to value ourselves and others in particular ways, but also in the way we prefer to be shown love. We tend to create a picture of how we see love and this turns into the language of love that we speak with our partner.

Although you experience the expression of love from another in many ways they broadly group together according to the five senses. In the early stage of falling in love our senses become extra sensitive when we’re close to someone...

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Is The Life You Have Good Enough?

Is The Life You Have Good Enough?

Limiting Feelings, Limiting Beliefs and Limiting Behaviours

There are various ways to relieve yourself from a script and a game your mind is used to playing. Many of these are therapeutic which includes many different techniques and practices. In the USA there are about 450 registered associations that offer different help for limiting beliefs, behaviours, and feelings. These three combine to create the scripts we live our lives by.

“Limiting” here means something that holds you back, restricting you from living a truly happy life. It refers to an old way of being that is no longer useful in your life. Feelings, beliefs, and behaviours based on negative past experiences can all be limiting if held onto.

In therapy, you get an opportunity to review those limitations and make changes so tha...

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What Games Do Couples Play? (Part 7)

Lyn and James Game

Some people realize they are having problems at an early stage in their relationship while others they only realize there have been problems when their relationship is about to break down.

As with every other couple, with Lyn and James, the problems appearing are connected with both their childhoods.  Lyn had grown up in a family with three older brothers and a mother who was struggling to manage as she and her husband had separated some years before.

Lyn’s mother was anxious and depressed and on medication and her father was only occasionally available to take care of the children.

As she was still young at the time, Lyn knew very little of what happened to separate her parents...

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What Games Do Couples Play? (Part 6)

Games Couples Play 6

Vanessa and Mark’s Games

Most often on the surface, things can look really good or really bad, depending on what exactly we’re looking at as well as the angle of our perspective. Some couples are envied for the way their love looks on the surface and for the happiness they seem to have.  Vanessa and Mark seemed to have had it all in the beginning and they believed that they had the best marriage going until one day it just all went wrong.

Of course, when something goes wrong with a marriage, there must be an issue with both people and the way their characters combine in creating the games they play. Usually, the issues revolve around consequences of communication styles, games that the individuals play or just incompatible personalities.

The problem started with Vanessa and the way s...

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What Games Do Couples Play? (Part 5)

The Gotcha Game

The “Gotcha” Game

When a game is being played, there are two sides, so while Alex was playing his game, Tamara was “feeding” her own game too. Her needs match his needs in the meaning that for her he is somebody that makes sure she is not responsible for the quality or success of their marriage.

They both blame it on the other – he blames every little thing on her and she blames it on his affairs. This “blaming” is both exposing and defending and specifically, Tamara’s game may be called “Gotcha”.

As in “If it weren’t for you”, this game also belongs to the Aggressor’s list of games. Even though there were many heated arguments, mostly Tamara’s game was even more manipulative than his game and dangerous because it was hidden and passive aggressive.

The role o...

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What Games Do Couples Play? (Part 4)

What Games Do Couples Play Part 4

How and Why Games Began

It seems that Tamara and Alex’s game began when had their first child. However, in truth, the root of the issues presenting themselves has a longer history and it starts with Alex’s early life.

As often happens, when the first child is being born, the father can feel replaced and ignored. This certainly happened to Alex. But added to the background of his relationship with Tamara, or the lack of it, was his relationship with his father and the feeling of rejection he experienced then that consequently escalated now.

Back then, when he was a child, he wasn’t aware consciously of the missing figure of his father because he had everything he wanted.

The gulf between Tamara and Alex grew even wider when Alex went to work for the science and technology company whe...

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What Games Do Couples Play? (Part 3)

What Games Do Couples Play?

Tamara and Alex’s Games

Things need to be clear in order to be understood. By clear I mean the background story and the connection to the current issues to it need to be understood to fully comprehend what the current issues are about before responding.

Usually issues come up when something far distant in the past which has nothing to do with current issue impacts on the resolution and/or even the understanding. Consequently, what you might think about a situation will often be the exact opposite of what I think about it.

Understanding and being clear about each other’s past helps build the future of the relationship better and can prevent issues from occurring.

Each relationship has its stages and it’s important to recognize the stage and its needs.

In fact, to be in a happy relati...

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What Games Do Couples Play? (Part 2)

What Games Do Couples Play Part 2

Beth and Roger’s Games – What Obstructed Their Relationship Progress?

There are few things that obstructed Beth and Roger‘s relationship. Surely the first thing to mention is the miscommunications between them. Having in mind their childhood experiences and the way they have developed certain patterns in their way of relating to each other, it is obvious that their effective communication skills are limited.

By “skills” I mean the ability to say what you really want to say and to give yourself time to understand what the other person is saying.

I also mean the ability to listen not in order to answer, but in order to understand.

It also means being honest with each other in those communications.

Situations like this and the resulting crisis in the relationship are most often a sig...

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