Relationship Therapy Coconut Creek, Couples Counseling Margate

How Relationships have Transformed Through Time

Relationship have been around for millennia, that’s no surprise; however, the reasons behind why individuals chose to enter into relationships might surprise you. Often, status, land, and building a family to work on the farm were primary reasons for entering into a relationship. Necessity and survival were often the reason people got together, not because of love.

I’ll explore this topic, and what it means for your current relationship, in this video while also looking at how your own relationship has changed over time, regardless of whether it involves survival, love, intimacy, or friendship.

3 Things to Do Right Now in Your Relationship

It might surprise you to hear a couples counselor say couples counseling isn’t for everyone. But it’s true! Counseling is not for every couple. Although I won’t discredit couples seeking counseling when necessary (and often, couples wait on average 6 years to seeking counseling), we’ve got three simple tips you can implement today, for immediate and fast results in improving your relationship.

In this video you’ll learn about how: Appreciation, Touch, and Prioritizing your relationship are all simple things to implement in your relationship today and improve the functioning of your relationship. Although these tips might seem like common sense, it’s surprising how couples can begin to take one another for granted after a few years together, lose their sexual attraction to one another, and begin to put other priorities before their relationship.

In this video, we’ll give you three tips to start using today to keep your relationship happy, healthy, and strong.

How the “Four Horsemen” Can Affect Your Relationships

You might be familiar with the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse in the traditional sense: Conquest, War, Famine, and Death. But did you know there’s a second set of Four Horseman? That’s right. The second set of Four Horseman is the one that comes not on Judgement Day but within your relationship. This video will give a brief descriptions about each of Gottman’s Four Horsemen (Criticism, Defensiveness, Contempt, and Stonewalling) and how these Horsemen can act as relationship pitfalls and dysfunction in communication. Drs. John and Julie Gottman describe the Four Horsemen in relationship as pitfalls or dysfunctions in communication.

Do you recognize when any, or all, of these horsemen are present in your relationship? Don’t stop at this video, check out the other resources available on my website, including the A to Z Relationship Toolbox and Emotional Piggy Bank.

How to Calm an Anxious or “Monkey” Mind

What is “Monkey Mind” and why does it wreak havoc on your relationship? What can you do about your monkey mind? In this video, I’ll explain what a Monkey Mind is and how you can avoid letting the your Monkey Mind get the best of you, and your relationship. Additionally, I’ll give you three tips on how to stop Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs, a pesky nickname for pesky thoughts).

Here’s a sneak peek of what this video has in store for you! The following three steps can help stop your ANTs from wreaking havoc our your relationship:

Be Aware – simply noticing when you’re having these negative thoughts
Label it – how would you classify this thought?
Drop the “I” – change your thoughts from “I” to “We” if you want greater connectedness to your spouse

What is Your Engagement Story?

One of the joys of being a marriage and family therapist is learning about a couple’s story, whether it’s the first time they met, or how they became engaged. The stories we hear are sweet, romantic, and sometimes outrageous! One thing all these stories have in common is the ability to transport us back in time to those happy moments and reminiscing about happy times improves our happiness.

With this video, I’ll encourage your to spend some time reminiscing with your partner or spouse about when you first started dating, what attracted you to one another, or a funny coincidence leading up to you two meeting. Additionally, I encourage you to spend time with other couples who inspire you to share the happy, not unhappy, moments of your respective relationships.

How to Increase Appreciation for Your Partner or Spouse

Long term relationships often face difficulty in keeping positivity alive. After so many years together, things we once found cute (maybe the way your partner snores) are now the very things which most irritate us. It’s hard to find the way back to those blissful beginnings, but we’re confident this one step will set you on the right path.

If you want to know the key to any successful relationship, then you need to build a culture of appreciation. It might sound like a lot, but as this video will show, appreciation can be something small and simple that you can begin implementing today.

How to Enhance Friendship in Your Relationship

Most couples come into counseling or therapy because they want better communication. Before looking at how to get better communication, we look at what communication patterns are currently being played out in the relationship. It’s common to hear in session that most daily conversations go something like,, “Hi, how was your day?” “Fine, how was yours?” End scene. Conversations like this and others that simply recount the “business of the day” aren’t quite the spark needed to ignite the same passionate discourse from when a couple first started dating.

In this video, we’ll give you a few ideas and tips on how to have better communication with your partner or spouse. THe first tip is to ask different types of questions. Try this one on for size: “What’s your favorite tree?” Pretty random, right? And probably not a question you’ve been asked, or asked someone before. Yet you’d be surprised to find out why people choose a certain tree. It might evoke happy memories from childhood or remind your partner of his or her favorite place. These types of seemingly random, open ended questions are designed to get more information about the person. Questions like these, in addition to board games like “Loaded Questions”, can really get the conversation going with your partner and who knows, you might learn something new about your partner in the process!

How Do I Heal From an Affair?

Recovering from an affair is never easy, yet it’s something many couples deal with over the course of the relationship. While traumatizing to the couple, there’s hope for couples who’ve experienced an affair, provided that both parties are willing to commit to working on their relationship. I’m a specialist in affair recovery and part of my practice in marriage and family therapist allows me to work with couples at their most vulnerable; after an affair and searching for answers.

Three areas I like to focus on in affair recovery, which I’ll go over with you in this video, are three areas that when worked on in a relationship, help couples re-create their relationship. These are the Three A’s of affair recovery: Atonement, Attunement, and Attachment. While it’s never easy to recover from an affair, it is possible if you and your partner are committed., and I’m here to help you.

How to Find the Right Couples Counselor

Finding the right therapist can be difference between successful, long-term change and little, mediocre, or no change at all. Many couples looking to find a therapist wonder how they can find the right therapist, and it’s only harder now that phone books and newspapers are replaced by Google, with a plethora of options available to you at your fingertips.

This video will show you three ways you can determine if the therapist you’re thinking about it right for you.

The the therapist’s experience, expertise and training. Does it fit my needs, the needs of my partner, and our needs as a couple? Does the therapist use a research based therapy model?
Interview the therapist. Try before you buy! When you call the therapist, get a feel for how you see yourself opening up to them, or not, and whether you feel comfortable talking to them.
Go with your gut. If your gut is telling you this isn’t a good fit, don’t try to force it for fear of offending the therapist. Therapists know they may not be able to help everyone with every problem, as must a we’d like. A good therapist will provide you a list of referrals to other therapists whom she/he trusts and knows can help you with your concerns.

Couples counseling is an investment in your relationship so spend the time doing research and finding the right fit for you.

How to Have a Better Relationship – Dr. John Gottman’s Work

It’s no secret I love the work of Drs. John and Julie Gottman (I’m a Level 2 Gottman Certified Therapist, after all). The Gottman Method of Couples Therapy is based off over 40 years of studying relationships.

The Gottman Method highlights 3 areas which are the focus of all relationships and these 3 areas are what we’ll talk about in this video and how we use this method when working with couples in therapy. The 3 areas are: friendship and intimacy, managing conflict through communication, and shared meaning. It’s these three areas which can help keep your relationship strong and healthy.

How to Understand Primary and Secondary Emotions

Do you ever remember hearing the phrase, “It’s just the tip of the iceberg?” Did you ever wonder what that meant? Are you still trying to figure out what that has to do with your relationship? In this video we talk about primary and secondary emotions.

We’ll look at secondary emotions first, because these are the tips of the iceberg emotions, the ones that we see in our partner, and ourselves, and our emotional responses to situations. Primary emotions are the deeper, harder to describe emotions like inadequacy, shame, insecurity, and unworthiness.

When you understand your partner’s, as well as your own, primary and secondary emotions, you reach a deeper level of understanding with your partner and can come closer together, rather than drift apart.

How We Became Couples Counselors

Everyone has something in their lives that shapes who they are today and what lead them down a certain path. For couple’s counselors, like myself, it can be a path that involved our own personal therapy of some kind, after a painful experience. This video looks at what brought me into my current career choice and how it shaped my view of counseling, especially when working with teenaged clients.

A bit more personal of a video, it’s important to know a bit about your therapist and what drives his or her work; getting to know their “why”.

How to Deal with an Addiction in a Relationship

Addiction within an affair can be similar to an affair within a relationship. Although an affair is when one person has stepped outside the relationship for sexual or emotional needs, addiction is a betrayal of the other partner’s trust. The individual with the addiction struggles with his or her own feelings of insecurity, shame, and guilt

The addictive addiction needs to be in recovery. There are numerous support groups from Alcoholics Anonymous to Gamblers Anonymous that provide support to individuals who are struggling with addiction. Support groups aren’t limited to in person meetings; AA is even online now!
The betrayed needs support as well, whether through group or individual therapy. We view both parties as equally responsible for the addiction within the relationship, sometimes implicitly enabling the individual with the addiction.
Enact a clear and high consequence for the relationship if the addiction starts again. This will be different for each couple, and we’re not suggesting divorce as an ultimatum. It’s a reminder that our choices have consequences, just like with your place of employment.

When you decide to enter couples counseling, ensure that you commit to making your relationship healthier and stronger and seek the support of a professional.

How to Go from Being an Empty Nester to a Soaring Eagle

Susan and I love working with couples and one couple we don’t talk about often are couples whose children may be grown and left the house to start their own lives. The house might go from being busy, noisy, and crowded all the time to a little bit quieter, with fewer family members around, what’s commonly known as the “empty nest syndrome”. “Empty nest” carries a little bit of a negative connotation with it, doesn’t it. Today, we want to help you rethink of your empty nest as a soaring eagle club

If you find yourself a newly minted member of the Soaring Eagles club, here are our three R’s to welcome you into the club. The first R, Redefine – now is the time to redefine your relationship and who you both are in the relationship, what it means for you both as a couple now that you have adult children. The second R, Rediscover – with all this new time on your hands, you can see yourself, and your spouse from a different perspective, and new experiences to do together. Our third and final R, Re-establish – go back and establish yourselves in your relationship with new traditions, structures, and rituals.

Consider this your official welcome to the Soaring Eagles as a new chapter in your life, just as it is in your children’s lives, and the exciting new world of opportunities it’s opened up for you.

How Having a Maintenance Plan is Important for Your Relationship

If you’re like many of us, you’ve often tried to implement an intense workout plan, in an attempt to reach your goals quickly, hopefully with the goal of taking it easy in the future. We see this happen many times with couples who come in to counseling, who are hoping to change quickly and effectively after going to a couples retreat or reading a self-help book about relationships. They’ve got the right interventions, but they’ve forgotten the maintenance plan.

Slowing down in couples counseling is not bad; in fact, it can be more beneficial to thoughtfully and mindfully focus on a specific technique, rather than throwing everything at your relationship and just trying to see what sticks or works for you. Just like weight loss, you can’t hurry the results and seeing small, sustainable changes are the healthiest way to move forward.

This maintenance plan and structure you bring to your relationship will be an added strength factor for maintaining success in your relationship once you’ve completed your counseling sessions.

How Are So Many Couples Issues Unresolvable?

You’ve read the tabloids: “Celebrity A and Celebrity B filed for a divorce, citing ‘irreconcilable differences’ as the reason.” Have you ever wonder what an “irreconcilable difference” would include, or what it means for you and your partner?

It might come as a surprise to learn that 69% of all differences between two individuals in a couple are unresolvable. This is something we share will all our couples who come in for counseling. It might seem like bad news yet don’t fear. Part of the therapeutic process is learning to reframe negative issues in a more positive light. This daunting statistic is actually proof that you, and your spouse, are not alone in your issues and it’s also a great reminder to you and your spouse to create realistic goals when entering into couples counseling.

Unresolvable issues are really the core and unchanging beliefs we each bring into the relationship, like values, core beliefs, or personality styles. This encompasses everything from housework, discipline tactics to politics. While you might have a lot in common, you’re entirely different people regardless of similarities. If you can honor your partner’s differences (with your partner honoring your differences). As Gottman trained therapists, we like to reference the “Masters and Disasters” of couples. A “Masters” couple is a couple who is gentle with one another, understanding of differences, and listening to one another; whereas “Disasters” engage in heated arguments and fail to take on the other person’s perspective. Now that you’re armed with your new knowledge, take a minute to honor what makes you and your partner so different and how your differences compliment one another.

How Your Emotional Bank Account Can Affect Your Relationship

Keeping track of the money in your bank account be hard. Keeping track of your emotional bank account can be even harder. That’s right, your emotions are a bank account all on their own! Didn’t think about it like that, did you?

In this video, my colleague Susan and I will discuss why it’s so important for couples to continually make “deposits” into their emotional bank account, slowly and over time to strengthen the relationship. A deposit in an emotional bank account might look something like showing gratitude, expressing appreciation, or giving a hug.

A word of caution: if you’re making emotional deposits and you still feel like it’s not working, remember that when an account is overdrawn, one deposit may not be enough to get your out of the red. It may take several deposits. The key again, is consistency over time. Go ahead, make a deposit in your emotional bank account today!

How Investing in Your Relationship Can Go A Long Way

You might remember when you first started dating your partner, how you were investing in your relationship. Investments start small, first with the time spent together, then increases to money on dinners, outings, gifts, etc. Eventually these investments can lead up to greater expenses like the wedding, the honeymoon, a house, etc. These are big expenses couples incur over the course of their relationship.

It’s heartbreaking when 5, 10, even 40 years later, couples decide to divorce. What went wrong after all that time? This video will give you a short breakdown of what happens when couples fail to invest in their relationship. As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, I’m trained to look at what investment have (and haven’t) been made in the relationship and I can tell you not all investments are monetary. Sometimes, a workshop, class, or book is enough to help get a couple on the right track of investing in their relationship again and for those couples that need a little more help, that’s what I’m here for.

How to Express Your Needs so Your Partner Responds

Everyone has needs and individuals in relationships are no exception. What many couples struggle with is how to express their needs within the relationship. Sometimes, needs might be expressed in the form of criticism or frustration, something like, “You always say you’ll do X and yet you never do.” If this sounds like something you and your partner struggle with on a regular basis, or if you heard this phrase last night, this video is for you.

If you’re struggling with expressing your needs within your relationship, focus on what it is you need from your partner and say that. It might be that you’re asking for help and what you’re really trying to say is something like “I need some help and I need help by your doing this.” If you say what you need, it can be heard by your partner in a much different way, without defensiveness, anger, or resentment. When you own up to your feelings, it can make the interaction with your partner 10 times better because you come from a place of asking for help and sharing what you want, versus a place of anger.

How Pre-Martial Questions Can Help You Have a Happy Marriage

Congratulations, you just got engaged! Before you get swept up in all the excitement of the upcoming wedding, we’re here to encourage you to take the time to explore some pre-marital questions. In this video, we’ll discuss how premarital questions can be thought of as part of the wedding planning process for many couples. Remember, the goal is not only a happy wedding but a happy marriage.

Some important questions I like to encourage couples to ask one another cover the topics of: finances, children, childrearing and housework, religion and spirituality, person and relationship goals and dreams, and sex and intimacy.

These conversations are a little difficult to have with your partner yet their conversations worth having to give your a solid foundation from which to grow. And don’t worry if you’re already married and haven’t had this conversation yet; it’s never too late to sit down and revisit topics, as people and circumstances change over time.

How Health Insurance Affects Counseling

Many of the clients I see in my private practice wonder about using health insurance to cover the costs of counseling. Health insurance is a topic that’s near and dear to my heart because of how it impacts the client and the client’s mental health history. This video will go over some of the tips you’ll need to know if you’re considering using health insurance for counseling and how to be a more informed customer.

The first thing you should be aware of as a customer using health insurance for counseling is that in order for a counselor to submit to insurance, the counselor is required to make a mental health diagnosis for the individual. This diagnosis stays apart of the individual’s health record, which could have unintended consequences for that individual in the future and makes it of utmost importance your diagnosis with your counselor. Using insurance may affect the duration of counseling, as insurance companies can impose limits on the number of sessions an individual or couple receives. It may also impact how long each session might be, limiting sessions to only one hour.

If you’re considering using insurance for counseling, be sure to check the qualifications of your counselor; just because your insurance lists a counselor as a “couples counseling” doesn’t always mean he or she has received the appropriate training. Counseling with someone who is not fully trained in a theory of couples counseling may take longer to achieve your goals and can often result in feeling discouraged about the counseling process. Trust your gut when it comes to choosing a counselor who’s the right fit for you, regardless of insurance or not.

How Empathy Creates Connection in Relationships

There’s a missing piece in your relationship. Didn’t know that did you? Well, I’m here to help you figure out what that missing piece is and put it back in your relationship. I promise, it won’t take long. In this video, I take a look at the work of Dr. Brene Brown, someone whom I admire and respect, an amazing individual who discusses two key emotions: sympathy and empathy. We often think of these two emotions are synonymous yet we’re very wrong. Sympathy comes from a place of distance and Dr. Brown says this can actually drive a disconnection between two people. Empathy is taking the perspective of the other person, really seeing the world from his or her point of view. Susan and I give a quick demonstration about how empathy can work within a relationship when one person is feeling frustrated.

Using empathy in an argument or disagreement can diffuse a heated discussion quicker and leads a healthier conversation and response.

How Code Words Can Help Improve Your Relationship

One thing I love to introduce to the couples I work with is code words as a way of communicating quickly, effectively, and in a fun way. For example, “Another bomb got dropped today” might be the way you communicate to your partner about a rough day at work while simultaneously asking some support.

Susan likes to refer to life as a continuous merry-go-round. We get busy and we’re constantly going around on the merry-go-round in all of our hectic and chaotic schedules but it’s important to get off the merry-go-round once a day and check in with your partner or spouse and get a “read’ on the relationship, much like you would take your temperature with a thermometer if you felt like your might be getting sick.

The Relationship Thermometer is one of those ways couples can use code words to quickly figure out what the other person needs, like when your partner says, “I’m so well done” referencing a hard workout.

This can be especially helpful around family gatherings or social events that were a little more difficult in the past, and you and your partner can get on the same page quickly about how to handle the situation. There you have it, just one quick and easy way for you and your partner to get on the same page. For more creative solutions for your relationship, check out my website.

How the 5 Love Languages Can Help Your Relationship

Today’s Vlog features Gary Chapman’s book, The Five Love Languages, and it’s a book many of the couples we work with reference when they first come in for counseling. It’s a great book to read and is easy to understand and start incorporating into your relationship.

Chapman highlights the five love languages: words of affirmation – verbally acknowledging your partner, quality time – spending un interrupted time together with your partner, receiving gifts – small tokens of appreciation for your partner, acts of service – doing things for your partner, like chores around the house, and physical touch – being physically close to your partner through touch.

While easy enough to understand, most couples try to show affection towards one another in their individual love languages and it often misses the mark. If one person in the relationship speaks the love language of acts of service, while the other speaks physical touch, chances are the couple is going to be at odd with one another regarding how to show love and affection and it may even start to negatively impact the relationship. If you know you’re love language, and your partner’s love language, it helps you both get on the same path towards a happy relationship.

How a Frog Can Help You Understand Domestic Violence

The National Football League (NFL) has been a big proponent of spreading information regarding domestic violence, featuring a very chilling commercial where a woman calls 911 under the guise of ordering a pizza, and is asking for help without alerting her abuser. It’s a commercial that might stick out in your mind too, if you or someone you know has ever experienced an abusive relationship.

As couples counselors, it’s important for us to understand domestic violence and be aware of the myriad of reasons it occurs and why the individual being abused stays in the relationship. It might seem like common sense, “If someone hit me, I would leave” yet domestic violence is much more complex than the physical abuse and one analogy we’ve found to be most helpful in helping individuals understand domestic violence is the frog in the pot of boiling water.

If you were to imagine putting a pot of boiling water on the stove, and then putting the frog in the water, what do you expect might happen? It would jump out. The water is too hot and is an instant burn, signalling to the frog to get out. What you do you think might happen if you put the frog in a pot of lukewarm water, neither too hot or too cold, and slowly turned up the heat? The frog will stay. A frog’s skin is a membrane and it adjusts to temperature over time. By the time the water boiling and too hot for the frog to survive, it’s too late because the frog is cooked.

This analogy explains why individuals stay in abusive relationships for so long: because it happens slowly, over time, and often violence is the last thing in an abusive relationship. Social isolation and financial control are just two of the many ways domestic violence shows itself in a relationship and how it occurs overtime, without sending large warning signals to the individual.

If you, or someone you know, may be experiencing an abusive relationship, we encourage to reach out or educate yourself by visiting the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence website, with an emergency exit link, https://www.ncadv.org/, or calling their hotline at 1 (800) 799- 7233 (SAFE) or visit www.ndvh.org.

How to Communicate Better

Communicating in a better way isn’t just helpful to couples; communication is a big part of all relationships, families, friends, co-workers, etc. The saying, “Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument” rings true here. Susan and I have devised a formula for you to quickly and clearly communicate your feelings, in the spirit of K.I.S.S: Keeping It Simple, Silly!

The next time you find yourself having an emotion, start with an “I Feel” statement. “I feel [insert emotion]” followed by a specific behavior, “when you [insert behavior]”. Some quick examples of how this statement changes communication are: “The house is a mess!” versus “I feel overwhelmed when you don’t help clean” or “You’re so insecure when I go away” versus “Help me understand why it’s upsetting to you when I go away and how can I put your mind at ease?”

These are just a few simple ways to tweak your communication style to better help you, and your partner (or whomever you’re communicating with!) have your feelings heard and get your needs met in a respectful and loving way. If you’re looking for more tips on improving your relationship, or need more practice communicating better, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Types of Betrayals and How to Build Trust

Betrayals aren’t limited to infidelity. The most traumatic for many couples, it’s important to pay attention to the smaller betrayals the occur during relationships that are often overlooked. Along with infidelity, absenteeism, either being spiritually, physically, or emotionally distant from your partner and being “checked out of the relationship” so to speak.

Additionally, building alliances through complaining to other family members about your partner can be a big betrayal, as well as a loss of sexual interest in your partner.

With all these type of betrayals, trust becomes even more important in relationships. Like any good house needs a strong foundation, trust is the foundation of every relationship. In order to build trust, you need to have consistent communication and being transparent, especially around electronic communication. Lastly, understanding where your partner is coming from if he or she expresses concern and validating the feelings will go a long way in keep that foundation of trust strong.

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