How many times, in the spirit of social ritual, have you asked someone at church how they’re doing and gotten the reply, “Oh, fine”, only later to find out that his or her world was falling apart? We have a history of being conditioned by life to rarely practice true honesty with others. This may…
Most couples entering pre-marriage counseling eagerly anticipate happy times ahead. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be there in the first place. Many clearly want something different than their parents had, but they’re still not sure how to make that happen. Some have already ignored red flags in their courtship and others have preemptively dismissed them…
Tony stood aghast at Marsha’s push back against his proposal to use their vacation time to go kayaking on their favorite lake in the mountains. His wife revealed to him that, while she had been willing in the past to go to the mountains, she had always been partial to spending time at the beach. During…
Most of the time, as we go through the day, we are not aware that the ideas underlying our internal narratives originally came from our childhoods. Yet, these are ideas that influence virtually every judgment we make. They shape our assumptions, beliefs, and expectations, which, in turn, determine not only our views of events and…
John came into marriage counseling ready to bolt from his relationship with his wife because he claimed either she never seriously listened to him or she dismissed the importance of his feelings about almost everything. “What’s the point of being married, if two people are merely living one person’s life!”, he said. His wife cried…
