Advice for MFT & Prepare Enrich Facilitators: In honor of Step Families day September 16th, we want to celebrate all kinds of healthy relationships by highlighting the uniqueness of blended families. We have asked the advice of our trusted step-family experts – Tace and Carmen Wieczorek, Trainers and Certified P/E Facilitators, and Ron Deal, co-author of The Smart Stepfamily […]
“The first duty of love is to listen.” – Paul Tillich Researchers have found that the top two predictors of happy couples are good communication and conflict management skills. Communication and conflict are closely tied together. Communication is the means by which conflict is created, navigated, and resolved. Although it is true that effective communication […]
Questions guide us in all that we do. Some questions we ask to ourselves; some to others. We walk into a room and think or ask, “What’s going on here?” We hear the telephone ring and wonder, “Who’s that?” We see a friend and ask, usually quite automatically, “How are you?” Not every question […]
Is there a new name popping up in conversations with your spouse, stories where this person figures prominently, and you sense there may be the beginnings of an emotional affair? It’s not uncommon for married people to have what are called “work spouses,” which means they are close to someone at work that is of the opposite […]
Although there are six components to a good apology, two are most effective. Can you guess which two? These are: Expression of regret Explanation of what went wrong Acknowledgment of responsibility Declaration of repentance Offer of repair Request for forgiveness Top of the list is acknowledging responsibility, explained Professor Roy Lewicki, the study’s first author: “Our […]
What affair victim hasn’t fantasized about a way to get revenge on their cheating spouse?
The Emotional Affair As we previously discussed, emotional affairs are real – and they hurt just as much as physical affairs. Your partner does not need to be physically intimate with someone to be cheating on you, and they do not need to engage in physical contact to be intimate with someone else. In order […]
You remember the beginning of the relationship with your partner, right? It was filled with all-nighters, gifts, and doting attention saved just for you. Now that your relationship is comfortable –which is not necessarily a bad thing—the doting has stopped and it has you wondering if your partner might be bored with you. When you […]
Do You Really Know Your Partner? You might think you know your partner really well. While it is fantastic to feel comfortable and familiar with the one you are with, you might know them as well as you think you do. People change every day and it is important to keep an open mind to […]