If you are familiar with Imago Relationship counseling you may recall that when we first fall in love the brain releases a powerful cocktail of chemicals, which make us feel on top of the world. According to Harville Hendrix, these chemicals are important, because while we are very good at recognizing our ideal partner, we need a little time to get really connected before we discover that there’s a downside. When the initial euphoria of the drugs wears off, we begin to discover that part of being with the ideal partner is discovering some profound differences, which we need to work on together.

Online marriage counseling meets Sienfeld! “The Marriage Ref” is a TV show produced by Jerry Seinfeld where couples reveal their relationship problems, and a referee steps in to say who wins. Now there’s an online version. And you can be “the marriage ref”. Or you can reveal your own disputes and see which side the world votes for. Want to try it – just go to http://couplesspark.com/.

For those of you new to validation, this is what we call the second main step in a dialogue. First you would mirror your partner, carefully repeating back what you had heard. And then you “Validate”, which doesn’t mean any form of clerical processing, but just simply saying “You make sense, and the reason you make sense is…”

The main result from Baker and McNulty was that if you are shy, you will find it just as easy to find a partner as everyone else. But you won’t be as happy. There’s a poignant twist. Your partner maybe blissfully happy with the relationship, partly because you may be too shy to tell them that they need to shape up and meet your needs more

In the earlier post, I wrote about how furious I get when my wife criticises my driving. She feels I’m a bit over-cautious when I change lanes. When she offers this bit of constructive criticism, it gets me livid. How could she criticize my incredibly safe and attentive driving? I stay obsessed about it for hours. I find myself turning around thoughts, finding ways to explain to her once and for all, just how safe and amazing I am as a driver.

Sounds like my problem, right? So how could couples counseling help with something which seems to be mostly about my head going on spin cycle? Shouldn’t I just get my head shrunk so it stays more firmly rooted to reality?

My father died late last year at the age of 86. I expect that when he was a young man he would have regarded 70 as a great achievement, let alone 80. But a very close friend this week had an operation to remove cancer which left her without an eye, and another found that a cardiac check-up led almost immediately to bypass surgery. Yet another is struggling with persistent glaucoma. It’s like I’ve reached the age where my friends are falling apart. “Let’s get younger friends” quipped my wife, the mistress of black comedy. Or maybe I shouldn’t hang out with so many marriage counselors?

Many people go into couples therapy with a simple objective. Change my partner!! Please!

Usually they aren’t looking for a younger model, with fewer wrinkles and a smaller waist-line. They just want their couples counselor to deliver them back the same old partner with some tweaks. Then everything would be great!

Now let’s put aside for a moment the idea that the goal of going to see a couples therapist is to change your partner. Imago couples counseling takes a different perspecitve on that which I can talk about in other posts. Today, I just want to talk in general about the idea of changing anyone, or even changing their opinion.

You wouldn’t fight with your marriage counselor would you? It turns out that actually most of us do just that.  It’s a subtle and unconscious fight.  Couples therapists call it resistance.  It’s actually a natural and unavoidable part of the marriage counseling process.  I go and see a stranger, and the plan is to tell [...]

In a time when marriages are experiencing increased stress from financial worries, many divorce firms are reporting that couples are waiting to move forwards with their divorces, because they can’t afford to separate. It used to be that financing a divorce was easy, selling property to free up surplus equity. Now couples might find that one partner is unemployed, their house difficult to sell, and even if they could, they don’t have the funds to establish two homes.

That’s when my good friend Rod Kochtitzky asked me if I ever looked at a map before I went on a long journey. “You can think of couples therapy as the road” he said. “But the Imago couples retreat shows you where you are going.”