Connect2 Marriage Counseling

Category: Couples Therapy

  • In-laws to Love, or In-Laws from Hell?

    I fell in love today. It was not with my husband (this time). It was with a Macintosh computer. It happened once before; I can barely remember the year – it was a Mac Plus, there were hardly any apps for it. I spent hours with it in my attic apartment on Kipling Street in…

  • Love Means Having Someone to Lose: Engineers Not Exempt

    Formula 1 race driver and World champion Niki Lauda reminds me of a lot of Silicon Valley engineers I’ve met. I saw the movie ‘Rush’ a few days ago with my teenage son, and I was struck by Lauda’s brilliance, calculated risk-taking, and execution (I promise I won’t spoil the plot for you). Lauda initially…

  • If You Don’t Ask, S/he Can’t Say “Yes”

    True story. An attractive, smart, single, working young woman – can you say eligible, what the heck are you waiting for — told me recently that she wishes guys would approach her and strike up a conversation. Let’s see, what do you have to lose? Maybe you’re shy. Maybe you’re a geek. Maybe she’ll say…

  • From Crazy in Love to Love of My Life

    When we were courting (yes, I know that’s an old fashioned word), we were on our best behavior without any effort. We were trying to win over our beloved. S/he was the most amazing person we’d ever met. So beautiful/handsome. So sexy. Our hearts beat faster just thinking about each other. We couldn’t wait for…

  • Couples Therapy: Professional Opinion of “Hope Springs”

    I realize that Tommy Lee Jones has been in a lot of movies. I see many movies with my teenage son, and so when I saw Meryl Streep with Tommy Lee Jones, all I could think of right off the bat was, ‘Agent K.’ I think many people wish they had a neuralyzer to use…

  • Premarital and Couples: Do you Fight, Flight, or Freeze?

    When you are triggered or flooded — i.e., upset or overwhelmed — do you fight, take flight, or freeze? These are the biologically wired-in options for humans. This has made us survive as a species. You need this tool; it also gets in your way in your relationship at times. I often see couples where…

  • Premarital and Couples: Guilt

    Guilt is a feeling of regret or remorse for something you have done wrong or badly, or when you have hurt someone. In contrast, shame is “I am bad, or I am not worthy.” Guilt, as with all of your feelings, lets you know there is something to which you need to attend. Feelings are like road signs:…

  • Are you Kinder to Strangers than to Your Partner?

    Is there a grain of truth to the statement “I am kinder to a stranger than I am to my partner/spouse?” If so, consider these questions: How did I get here? How long has this been true? Is this new for me, or a repeating pattern? How did I treat my partner before? What’s my…

  • Premarital and Couples: Here Be Dragons!

    I wrote about the The Four Stages of Competency, that begins with the Unconscious Incompetent, perhaps also known as our unconscious. Jung referred to it as our “shadow” side — the parts of ourselves we don’t know about, and frankly don’t want to face. When I wrote the back cover copy for my Connect2 Personality…

  • “Who we are . . . depends in part . . . on who we love.”

    One of my favorite books is “A General Theory of Love.” Lewis, Amini and Lannon write poetically about love research, and they talk about limbic resonance, limbic regulation and limbic revision. The limbic part of the brain is the emotional brain. The gist of it is this: when in proximity to one another we exchange…