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Alex Steele, a college student at Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU), began volunteering at Estes Therapy in Fall of 2013. She was able to be a part of the #BeingLOVEDIs project and she interviewed students at PLNU. In this article, you will read about her experience and what she learned about what other's think it means to be loved.
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Keep your relationship connected during the difficult times.
When you are living with anxiety or panic, it can be debilitating. You feel like you can’t breathe in the midst of it, or worse – you believe you're actually going to die or catastrophic events are always around the corner. It can also be very stressful to be the partner of someone with extreme anxiety. No matter what you say, you feel like you can’t alleviate your spouse’s anxiety and she snaps at you when you say the wrong thing.
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Tools to Keep Your Grief From Breaking You Apart
Losing a child is quite possible the greatest pain you can experience in your life. The stress of the tremendous grief you must walk through is not only detrimental to your own personal mental health, but it can wreak havoc on your marriage. Men and women often grieve in opposite ways, and when you navigate through your pain differently than your spouse, sometimes it seems like you are in it alone. If you experience the unthinkable and lose a child, this is the time when you need most to turn to each other for support, even if your grief looks very different from your partner’s. Here are some ways to stay close as you go through the loss of a child.
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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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You're not alone, at least according to one study.
When you're happy in your relationship, posting about it on social media seems only natural. Uploading pictures, adding your anniversary to your profile, and tagging each other on a regular basis is very common. One professor at UCSC calls these things "digital possessions." So what do you do with your virtual scrapbook when the relationship ends? Social media and break ups aren't a great combination. Looking at old social media posts and content can make it very hard to move forward in your new life. Here are some tips for how to begin to get over a break up even if you have social media connections.
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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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Steps to share your concerns about her choice
When you watch you friend in a relationship that is less than healthy, it can feel pretty helpless. If she actually declares that they're going to tie the knot, you will feel even worse. It's like standing on the curb together and watching as she starts to step into the street.
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Why coming to counseling with one of the 3 A's will sabotage your effort
Yes, couples counseling can be a real life line for your marriage. But only if you are willing to do the work and come to counseling ready to be emotional, honest, and take real action. If you have any of the three A's: abuse, addition, or an affair -- your results won't be the best they could be. In fact, you might make very little progress at all. When you go to couples counseling with one or more of the three A's, you are wasting your money and time. Here's what I mean:
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A quite innocent friendship of sharing and opening up to one another quickly grew stronger than you have ever imagined. It can start with a friendly text message, a flirty comment, and WHAMO! The chemistry simply takes over and emotions began to grow. Emotional affairs aren't intentional. They often happen when the "love tank" has been depleted and the reserve tank is empty as well. Once chemistry hits with a new person, our body releases Dopamine and Epinephrin (a natural chemical high).
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The importance of trust
Trust is an essential part of the foundations of a relationship. Without trust, your partner won't be able to turn to you for support, comfort, or guidance in issues both big and small. Without trust, there is a wall between you and your partner. In order to grow together in the relationship you need to be able to form that special bond -- you need to be able to rely on your partner, to feel safe and supported, to feel connected.
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