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25 Ways to Have Fun and Be Playful in Your Relationship

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Below, I share with you some creative ways to express your love and have FUN!  As always feel free to share with others, and it is actually encouraged!  I mean who doesn’t want more love, better communication and connection in their lives!

  1. Play Lover’s Olympics – no money needed just some creativity.  Don’t forget a special prize for the winner.  Some ideas are:
    • Shot for Shot – paper and a trash can
    • Race – from one point to another
    • Timed Task – who can complete a task the fastest
  2. PILLOW FIGHT!!! Enough said – so much fun and great stress relief.
  3. Have an “Attitude of Gratitude” – write down 25 or more things you appreciate about your beloved, take turns sharing with one another what you wrote.
  4. Go on a trust walk – one person leads the other while blindfolded and then switch.  Talk about the experience, how well did you trust this person?  Was this an easy task or hard task, why?
  5. Have a surprise day for no reason, surprise your beloved with something as if it was a special occasion.
  6. Stop saying “no” and start saying “yes” to your partner’s wishes for one evening.  Remember to take turns, perhaps go ride bikes and race to see who wins.
  7. Feed one another – chocolate, ice cream, or any yummy treat your partner loves.   For extra surprise and fun…blindfold the receiver.
  8. Discuss something you would like to change within your daily regimen, such as going to bed. Perhaps you hold each other and talk about 10 good things about your day or you move the TV out of the bedroom.
  9. Get reacquainted – ask each other interesting questions the will enhance and deepen your connection and understanding of one another and that facilitate conversation.  Such as:
    • If you could never speak again how would you express your love to me?
    • What was your first thought when we met?
    • What was your favorite part of your childhood?
    • What is one value you learned growing up that you bring into our relationship today?
    • If we only had one more day together how would we spend it?
    • Power Outage – pretend for 1 night there is a power outage in your home!  No electronics, no stove, no microwave, what would the 2 of you do?  This one is also great for parents and kids.
    • Water balloon fight!!!  I have done this before and it was sooo much fun. We laughed, we plotted, we bombed each other with water balloons. At the end we were both wet and had a great laugh. Best done outside, just saying!
  10. Cook a meal together – select the meal, shop for the ingredients, and divvy out the tasks.   Cook, eat, and make sure you clean up together.
  11. Just for fun make out like when you were younger.
  12. Get silly – play a game of “Simon Says”.
  13. Thumb Wrestle – may the best thumb win!
  14. Game Night – pull out a board game, bring on the appetizers and enjoy.  Make sure there is a prize for the winner.
  15. Roll the dice – grab 2 dice, for 1 of the die assign tasks such as 1 = hug, 2 = kiss, 3 = foot massage so on and so forth.  For the other die this would be for the amount of times or minutes.  For example, roll the pair of dice.   On 1 die you roll a 3 and the other die rolled 6.  This would be a 6-minute foot massage.  There is no telling where you can go with this game, but keep the TMI to yourself :o)
  16. Snuggle!!!!  I have to say this is my favorite past, present and ALL time.
  17. Eye Gazing – sit on the floor Indian style or in a chair knee to knee and gaze into each other’s eyes for a period of time without words.  This is a VERY intimate exercise.  Many people have a hard time with this level of intimacy, you may giggle or laugh, some may even cry, it is all good!  You are showing your true self to your partner.
  18. Take a walk or a stroll hand in hand if you feel like it break out into a skip, hop like a kangaroo, just get your silly on!
  19. Get your jammies on, put the jazz, R & B or whatever you fancy for music and have a dessert night.
  20. Do something fun you have never done before.  Groupon and Living Social or so great for these ideas.  Just plan something already!
  21. Either create a bucket list or get out your bucket list, go down the list and start planning to make one of those items a reality.  This year I will have fulfilled 3 items on my list!
  22. “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.” ~ John Lennon.  Don’t let life pass you by without really living it.
  23. Pick an activity you used to do when you were dating and go recreate the moment.
  24. “Adventure Night” – this one comes directly from me to you!  It is a Katie special.  This is one of my favorites.  You get in the car and the passenger picks a direction to drive. The driver starts driving, then the passenger continues to choose different directions without any agenda. You drive with no specific purpose and then you start looking around and find something new and fun to do.  This is a great way to take the pressure off anyone person for having to make a decision and choosing the same ole, same ole stuff to do.
  25. Feel free to write us, tweets us, or inbox us to tell us how you did and what was most useful! We always love to hear how we helped reignite the spark. Northerners don’t forget to send us your most creative snow people replicas!Like the 25 Playful Tips?  Sign up for our newsletters and receive more great information.

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    Katie Lemieux, LMFT – Lemieux Solutions Unlimited, LLC
    Katie@FamilyAndCouplesCounseling.com
    By Katie Lemieux
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Parental Alienation – When Having a Marriage and Family Therapist is Important

The National Parents Organization put out a great article on a change coming out in the DSM V – Diagnostic Statics Manual for mental health diagnoses and disorders. According to the article in the new DSM V it addresses Parental Alienation.

This is a huge advance in the world of systems. Parental Alienation is being defined as the impact that parents have on their children by alienating them from the other parent. This most often happens in bitter divorces, when one parent has strong resentment towards the other, etc.

Parental Alienation according to the article is “Parental alienation is a mental condition in which a child  usually one whose parents are engaged in a high-conflict separation or divorce allies strongly with one parent and refuses without good cause to have a relationship with the other parent. This process takes place when a parent or caregiver encourages the child rejection of the other parent. Parental alienation is driven by the false belief that the rejected parent is evil, dangerous, or not worthy of affection.”

You can read more by going to the article.

If this has occurred to you or someone you know getting a Marriage and Family Therapist or a therapist skilled in family therapy or systems therapy can be very beneficial. Also involving the legal system to court order therapy requiring both parents to participate can be beneficial as well. If you have further questions on how we can be helpful to you please contact us 954-401-9011.

by Katie Lemieux

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Marriage and Couples Counseling – Shifting the Anatomy of an Argument

This comes from our work with couples and families. All couples and families argue and many of them have tried different things but they seem to talk about and discuss the same argument over and over. Seeing we do couples and family counseling often we have created and suggested shaking things up.  Here are some of our thoughts, interventions and ideas!

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1.  Schedule and Time Your Argument: Do you argue often with your significant other?  Why not set a certain time aside and commit everyday to arguing for a set amount of time. Crazy you think, but why not, you are most likely to do it anyway?

If you feel like arguing earlier put it off until the time you agreed upon, save everything you want to argue about until the time comes. If you set time to argue every evening at 7pm for 20 minutes then do it, diligently.  If you run out of things to argue about keep arguing until the time is up.  When the time is up, stop and resume same time tomorrow or whatever days and times you choose.

2.  Relocate: Take your argument to a different place.  If you always argue in the bedroom why not jump in the shower and continue to argue, perhaps the library, grocery store, stand on opposite ends of the garage facing the wall,  turn back to back and keep arguing…

3. Get Close: get really close! For this one I suggest hugging each other and continuing to argue or wrap yourselves into a sleeping bag and carry on.

One of my favorite stories is from my friend Kim.  When she was a child her mother ingeniously created a consequence that yielded amazing results.  In order to “punish” her for being mean to her younger brother her mother used to make her and her brother sit in front of one another indian style and hold hands.  Kim was so disgusted by her brother’s “puppy dog smell” being mean to her brother didn’t last long.

4. Communicate in a Different Way: Does speaking add fire to the argument? Why not write it out or type out your argument?  It will shift and change the anatomy of the argument.  Want to make some fun out of your argument how about playing “Wheel of Fortune” or Hangman with what you want to communicate to your significant other.  There are many ways to communicate differently.  Feel free to add your creative ideas by leaving a comment for other to read.

5.  Record It:  This is a juicy one, only for the brave!  You get to see, explore, examine how you really behave and act when you are upset.  Go grab your phone, a voice recorder, a video camera, etc and record your next argument then when you are calm and can listen from an objective point of view play it back to explore patterns of behavior, themes, etc.

by Katie Lemieux

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