Loving Well
Loving Well
How To Save Your Marriage
Couples seek therapy for a variety of reasons: they’re fighting too much, not having sex enough, or there’s been an affair. Yet the most common reason couples come to therapy, what we call the “presenting issue,” is to save their marriage. A Google search of “how to...
How One Expat Couple’s Marriage Has Survived 25 Moves in 50 Years
Psychologists Drs. John and Julie Gottman of The Gottman Institute separate couples into two major groups: the “masters” and the “disasters.” Masters remain happily together, while disasters either break up or are chronically unhappy. In Masters of Love, couples share...
Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Your Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering Life within the Pod
If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s this – humans need each other. Even those of us who enjoy alone time and appreciate life’s current slower-paced version will agree, being confined to a mere handful of face-to-face connections 24 hours a day, seven days a week, is not optimal.
This is What Trauma Does
There is a thin line between sacrificing a lamb and striking a deal with the Devil. We give up whole parts of ourselves to belong in our families. In turn, for those of us who dare to come home to ourselves, we risk losing our family and severing the ties that bind us.
I’m a Couples Therapist: Here’s How I’d Handle Donald and Joe
We can explore the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump from a multitude of angles. We can analyze it from the vantage point of history, political science, or social justice. We can fact check it or hone in on themes. We can comment based on our limited perspectives, personal values, and agendas.
What it Means to Securely Function When Your Partner Won’t
I can barely move my lips — they’re all tremble; this is what happens when you live in a cage — everything atrophies, even the delicate flesh of your mouth. The rusty cell door stands ajar without your knowing it. The key is in your back pocket, and you sit there for years.
Connection Doesn’t Have To End When Sex Does
Scan the cover of any tabloid magazine while waiting in line at the grocery store and you’ll probably see advice for how to be better at foreplay or how to make your partner orgasm, but you probably won’t see anything about what comes after sex—a period psychologists call the “sexual afterglow.”
On The Importance of Breaking Promises
Keeping promises indeed builds trust and is essential. But there are many types of promises. Some sworn out loud, pinkies crossed, blood bonded — others dwell in the spaces between words and live out their days as acts: Devotion, steadfastness, and presence, to name a few.
You Found Out Your Partner is Having an Affair—Now What?
Discovering an affair can be a painful and confusing experience. Discovering amid a global pandemic can be even worse. And if you’ve been cheated on before, it can trigger an emotional response characteristic of PTSD.
All in the Family
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing the newest member of our NCCT team, Kasia Novak, a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT), who brings a bounty of insight on the intersection of family systems and couples therapy.
Your Partner Wants Sex More Than You Do—Here’s Why That’s Normal
If you and your partner have a sexual desire discrepancy (SDD), a term psychologists use to describe when one person wants sex more frequently than the other, you’re not alone.
Our Father’s Tears
Here I sit, on the cusp of Father’s Day, feeling both with and without Father — while the earth has a fever and pirates run amuck.
Give. Learn. Speak. Listen
Amid this confusing, heartbreaking, and unsettling time, we are now, as a nation, face-to-face with another enemy. One that has been with us far longer than the coronavirus or stay-at-home order.
Love and ADHD
If you or your partner has ADHD, you may be experiencing an extra layer of challenge. With 8.1% of American adults diagnosed with ADHD, it’s no surprise that relationships can take a hit. Whether you are the person with ADHD or love someone who has the diagnosis, ADHD affects you both in profound, understandable, and treatable ways.
Mothering in Times of Sorrow
When my daughter was two, she found a bumblebee lying on our stone pathway. It was late August in New England – when gold-trimmed monarch cocoons dangle under milkweed, and sleeping pompoms of woolly bear caterpillars nestle in leaves.
Trauma – Holding Hope and Sorrow Simultaneously
COVID-19 is unique in that it is simultaneously resulting in trauma to us collectively, and to many of us as individuals in how we are hit directly by it. It’s poking at grief, gratitude, and guilt concurrently. And because the ramifications of it are still in process, the cumulative losses and gains are immeasurable and unknown.
Judging Each Other’s Grief – Video
What happens when you navigate painful emotions differently than your partner? David Kessler, author and grief expert, states that couples don’t divorce because of insurmountable hardships or loss, couples divorce because they judge each other’s grief.
Co-parenting – Divorce and COVID-19, Part 2
As information concerning COVID-19 continues to come out erratically, it seems nobody is in full agreement on how to handle things. On a macro level, we see each US state implementing varying degrees of responsiveness and caution. On a micro level, our family units must make similar calls. It’s challenging for any parent to know where to draw the line.
How To Stop Your Marriage From Falling Apart
In my latest video, I talk about how your relationship can be steady and strong as you weather the storm of COVID-19. I provide tools and insights that will support you in bringing your best self to the challenges that quarantine and stay-at-home orders present.
Will My Insurance Cover Couples Therapy?
Yes, now more than ever, your insurance will cover couples therapy, and you should make good use of it. Relationships can be hard even under the best of circumstances. But with the crisis of COVID-19, many couples are feeling hit from all directions. There is financial stress, parenting challenges, fear of the unknown, and few resources to recharge.