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3 mindful practices for co-parenting in high conflict situations
Our first impression of relationships comes from our parents, whether we like it or not. The good news is that parents have a unique opportunity to help children receive love and construct safe boundaries. Now and again, however, parents struggle in their relationship with each other -- sometimes resulting in separation and divorce, other times requiring repair. What's one to do when there are kids in the mix?
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The holidays are supposed to be a time of good cheer and bliss. But, as we all know, this time of year can also be very stressful. For some people, it can even be overwhelming. If you have conflict with your family, the holiday season can be especially frustrating. Memories of bad holidays from your childhood come to the surface, you find yourself in the same room with relatives you avoid all year, and emotional pain bubbles up.
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Steps on How to Repair and Pick Up After a Fight
Let’s face it: in the heat of an argument you can say things that are hurtful, passive aggressive, or downright untrue. So can your partner. That’s the bad news. The good news is that it IS possible to pick up after a big blow out and repair your relationship, restoring it to a healthy place.
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From an Emotionally Focused Therapy and Attachment Perspective - By Jen Zajac, IMF
There are some couples who fight explosively and often, and others who seem to rarely get into a heated argument. Perhaps you can recall separate relationships you have been in where each has had a different “fight dynamic”. Regardless of how you define what a fight is, we all at some point encounter conflict, or disagreements, in our relationships. If our emotional needs aren’t attended to, even the small things that get dismissed or “swept under the rug” can develop into larger issues later down the line. Merely avoiding a fight does not resolve conflict.
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When your partner brings up something that is bothering her in your relationship, it can be easy to put up a wall and start to defend yourself. But what if you took a deep breath and were careful about how you responded? Your partner is being vulnerable when she tells you something that hurt her, so shutting down with defensiveness will only teach her not to open up in the future. Here are some ways that you can learn to stop being defensive and own up to your own feelings and responsibility.
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Overcoming the Obstacles that Keep You Stuck
Many arguments between couples have fear at the heart. Whether it’s fear of abandonment, fear of being rejected, or a fear of falling apart – sometimes you can lash out at the person who you want to keep the closest to you. Even though the fight might look on the surface like it’s about something else, if you look close enough you can often find that some sort of fear is hiding just under the surface. By managing your fears, you can begin to calm the storm that has begun in your relationship and heal the wounds. Here are some tips for how to conquer the fear in your relationship so you can move into a healthy direction.
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Quick tips on how to stop fighting in a relationship
Arguments in relationships become a cycle — when a specific pain point or topic gets brought up, one partner gets defensive and the other pushes to get the point across. One partner might always flee, and then the other has to chase him. You might also experience arguments more when one person is exhausted after a day at work. These patterns become a comfortable cycle, even though they may be detrimental to your bond as a couple.
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We all experience love in different ways.
Like my #BeingLovedIs project has shown, what it means to be loved can be so different from one person to the next — and no one way is right. If you and your partner have different love languages, it can seem like you’re not on the same page. One or both people in the relationship might wind up feeling neglected, which will cause a crinkle in your bond. The best thing you can do is figure out which love language applies to you and get your partner to do the same. Once you know who you each receive love, you can start to best communicate your love for each other!
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Sometimes you might find yourself in a relationship that is not totally healthy anymore, or where you’re no longer happy. Instead of taking the necessary steps to begin to leave your relationship, you stick around and just hope things will be better. When you’re stuck in a rut and your partner isn’t really trying to work with you, you might just be in denial about what you need to do. On the other hand, if you do still have strong feelings for your partner and hope that things could improve, it might just be time to step up and fight for your relationship.
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Learning tools for Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
When you are living with a partner who has ADD, there are additional challenges above and beyond what the average couple will encounter on a daily basis. You might feel like your partner doesn't listen to you or can't really "see" you. Because your partner has difficulty focusing and may have trouble with organization or forgetfulness, you are bound to encounter situations where you ask for something from the store and he forgets, or you need help with a project but he walks away half-way through. When a long pattern of this occurs is where most problems occur. It can be easy to take your partner's actions personal, even though they are the result of the ADD, and not a reflection on how much he cares for you. If you don't treat the underlying issue, the ADD, it's easy to build resentments over years of forgotten birthdays, impulsive behavior, or distracted conversations.
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Why Opening the Door Can Bring You Closer
Do you have a family secret that you have been harboring from your partner? Is it fear or embarrassment that keeps you from revealing the secret? Sharing a heavy family secret, such as molestation or physical abuse, is not an easy topic to discuss with anyone, let alone the one you love the most. Strangely enough…rather than scare your partner off, revealing a deep secret can help couples grow emotionally closer and build a better bond for their future.
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Learn how to Trust Him
You don't want to be "that" girlfriend who is extremely jealous and seen as crazy. With some education and self-evaluation, you can become more secure in yourself and your relationship, and learn how to stop being jealous. Let's tap into how we can control jealous feelings so that we can build trust and have happy healthy relationships moving forward:
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Getting to the Root of It
Jealousy in relationships is a fear based response. It can sneak into relationships for many reasons, and usually none of those reasons harbor a favorable outcome for your relationship. If you don't know where jealousy comes from, it's harder to stop it in its tracks. Let's go over some of the main reasons why you might start feeling the green monster of jealousy creep up:
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How to make sure you don't adapt to unhealthy relationships
When I left America to live in Spain for a year, I couldn't always find toilet paper in the bathrooms. Something that most people in the US simply expect to be there could not be relied on, so I adapted. Everywhere I went, I kept tissue in my purse, and eventually it just became normal that I sometimes had to dip into my personal tissue stash. I learned to adjust to the situation. When I moved back to the United States, I had a reverse culture shock -- every bathroom had toilet paper and many also have paper towels. Something that I had thought of as "normal" and an expected convenience before I left for Spain suddenly took me off guard. I had a bit of "reverse culture shock" to something I knew was supposed to be there, but I learned to live without it.
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How a Quick Exit Might Be Hurting Your Relationship
Sometimes an argument with your partner can get heated, or maybe you feel like you're having the same fight for the 5th time this week. It can be tempting to storm out of the room and slam the door behind you because you just don't want to deal with it. Sometimes cooling off can be helpful, but exiting a fight as a statement is not a good way to do it. When you suddenly leave, you are sending all sorts of messages to your partner that you may not even realize, and that are pretty hurtful. Here is why you might be damaging your relationship if you're someone who storms out when the going gets tough.
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