It is often said that successful people do the things that unsuccessful people either don’t want to do, can’t do, or won’t do. I have found in all my years of doing counseling with couples, that the same axiom holds true for them: happy couples do the things that less happy or unhappy couples don’t […]

  It never hurts to revisit an old topic, one that applies to every one of us: I am referring to effective conflict management. Three or four times a week I have a couple in my office and one of them says they are afraid of conflict. When I asked them what that means, typically […]

Reducing Defensiveness There are several things that get in the way of relationship satisfaction, and I suppose it’s up for debate as to which one is the most destructive. The one I see most frequently in my office, usually on a daily basis, is defensiveness.  From what I can tell, no one is immune–we ALL […]

  Yelling at Children This is a topic that has meaning for everyone. All of us have raised our voices, probably more than once. No, I did not come from a home of screaming parents or siblings. However, I do see many families and couples who yell a lot at each other, and the short […]

How To Re-Build Trust   As you can see by the title, the word “re-build” implies that the trust between the two of may have been damaged.  The damage may range from minimal to substantial. The range of events that can have a negative impact on trust goes from minor things that we say we […]