Turn Towards Instead of Tuning Out
Do you ever tune out your partner or just give him or her half of your attention?
We’re all guilty of not really tuning in sometimes when someone is talking to us. We may not even realize what we are doing.
But it turns out that these small interactions are powerful…
In fact whether we tune in or tune out can show whether a relationship is heading toward success or failure according to research conducted at The Gottman Institute.
Read More»Talking about Sex: Differences in Desire
- At April 26, 2015
- By Holly Birkeland
- In Growing Closer, Sex, Uncategorized
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Sex is a challenge for many couples. Do these situations sound familiar to you?
- Your partner wants sex more often than you do, and you feel guilty about it, or
- You feel unloved/unattractive/undesirable because your partner doesn’t want to have sex with you
- You don’t touch your partner much anymore because touch is interpreted as attempt to have sex, and the rejection is killing you, or
- You move away from your partner when you get touched because your partner just wants sex
Differences in desire are common. Here are a couple of things to think about:
Read More»Talking about Couple Issues
“I didn’t tell him how much it bothered me…he’d be annoyed and we’d probably end up fighting about it anyway.”
Sound familiar? You’ve probably heard something like this before, or even said it yourself on occasion about couple issues you have encountered. Periodically blowing off steam to someone else about your partner’s annoying habits can help, especially if the person you’re venting to can relate. But venting (or ignoring the problem altogether) shouldn’t replace talking with your partner.
Read More»Tuning In
Many times couples will share stories that tell me they are doing an excellent job of tuning in to their children. What do I mean by “tuning in?” These parents are reading their kids’ words, faces, and body language as a way to understand their children’s feelings. Parents, for example, might look at their 9-year-old daughter and watch for signs that signal whether she’s had a good day or a bad day.
When parents take time to do this, they have “tuned in” to their child. And for many parents it comes naturally to offer an emotional response—anything from laughing with our children to comforting them with hugs, understanding, or problem-solving. In parent language, we generally think of “tuning in” as part of nurturing. Most of us know that this kind of love is included in the parenting job description.
Read More»Intimacy, guilt, shame, and fighting
- At June 10, 2012
- By Jennifer Stoos
- In Fighting, Growing Closer
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Brene Brown has another talk out on Ted.com that is worth 20 minutes of your time. Her talk on shame (and her original talk on vulnerability) highlight how important it is to be able to deal with the sides of ourselves that we are often afraid to show. Brown discusses the differences (based on her research) in how women and men process shame, and makes a case for shame ruling us if we don’t bring it out of the shadows.
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