Connect2 Marriage Counseling

Tag: Beginning couples therapy

  • Repeating and “You” Sentences

    When we say or hear repeating and “you” sentences, it is a sign that we need to slow down. Repeating is a sign that we don’t feel heard, or we feel misunderstood; that our mate is brushing aside our words and the meanings behind them. So we repeat (turn up our volume) in the hopes of…

  • Give More

    Give More “We limit ourselves every day without even knowing it, simply by doing what we always do, falling into patterns, not pushing ourselves further. But every one of you has expressive reserves you’ve not yet discovered . . . tap into them, and go further, and give more than you ever have before .…

  • See Me. Hear Me. Don’t Fix Me.

    It seems so simple. How come it is so difficult to just See me. Hear me. Don’t fix me?  But to see, listen and not fix is harder than to reassure or apologize. Just Get Me and Love Me for Who I Am We need to know our spouse gets us. We are competent, intelligent…

  • Couples: Parallel Play or Interactive Play?

    Couples: Parallel Play or Interactive Play? Are couples interacting and enjoying one another? Or are they living parallel lives, co-parenting, good roommates, going to functions, socializing, but always with others so they are not alone together? Parallel Play Young children play alone, enjoying a box as much as the gift that came in that box.…

  • Kids and Marital Satisfaction

    Kids and marital satisfaction have been studied a lot. Research “More than a hundred studies show that marital satisfaction falls off a cliff after the birth of the first child and doesn’t get much better until the last child leaves for college,”  writes John Gartner, Ph.D in ‘Child.ol’.a.try’ in Psychology Today. Yikes! How Come Kids…

  • Are You Communicating More or Less?

    Are You Communicating More or Less? Isn’t it true that everywhere we go these days people are talking, texting, scrolling and swiping on devices? I find myself wondering if we had this much to say before we had these devices? I don’t recall being on our landlines telephones constantly . . . And yet, is…

  • Do More, Faster and Faster. Limits? Not for Me!

    Dr. Stephanie Brown, internationally renowned expert and founder of the Addictions Institute in Menlo Park talks about her latest book SPEED. Interviewed by Chandrama Anderson, MFT, with a couples focus, Stephanie talks about the desire, the lure, even, to do more, faster and faster. Limits? Not for me! As you watch the interview on the Connect2…

  • Not Witty or Fun for Families

    As a follow on to the last post, about serial relationships, on TV, at least, it all looks witty or fun, in which the “conversation with their ex, in front of their new spouse while their kids look on soaking it all up” I would venture to say from what I see and hear in…

  • Body Language and Tone

    In “Couple Watching” I wrote about observing couples’ communication through body language and tone. I want to clarify that we can not assume what is going on from what we see. Tone Maybe she’s talking in the ‘tone’ because she’s found that by this point in a given conversation, she can’t get his attention any…

  • 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…