Marriage and Significant Other Relationships

Being able to relate to others on a personal and intimate level is necessary if you are to maintain good mental health.  Close personal relationships with a spouse or other loved one, your children, other family members, and friends can be a sources of love, pleasure, support and excitement.  However, they can also be the source of grief and anguish if they are heading in an negative direction. 

Like most people, you probably manage several relationships on an ongoing basis and each relationship has its own set of rewards, requirements, expectations and potential problems.  Each one of these has its own level of intimacy and each one has the potential to influence the way we feel about ourselves and the world at any given time.  Most of the time it is our closest relationships, or lack of close relationships, that cause us the most stress and affect the way we feel about a situation or about ourselves. Understanding what you really want out of a significant relationship, your role in a establishing or preventing intimate relationships, learning to sustain healthy relationships, and choosing to end (or not enter) unhealthy ones, are skills that can be learned.

Relationship problems arise from a variety sources.  Sometimes it is because you never properly learned how to give to others, how to let go of the desire to control, or never learned the components of what true intimacy involves.  You may have lost touch with your own instincts, have become overly anxious about a relationship to the point where you are no longer able to act naturally, or you may have lost the self-respect and sense of personal worth that is needed to love another in a healthy way.  You may have had relationships in the past that caused you to lack, or lose, the ability to trust or maybe your expectations of yourself and others are unrealistic.  Any of the above, and many other additional factors, can hinder you in personal and intimate relationships.

Regardless of the cause, distress in a relationship can lead to many problems including codependency, loneliness, stress, fear, depression and anxiety just to mention a few. You may hope your relationship troubles will just go away on their own, but a troubled relationship may only worsen.  If you are having ongoing problems in any of your relationships, help available. The earlier you seek help the better since the longer a problem is left unresolved, the more convoluted it becomes.

There are many treatment strategies available to help you as an individual, as a couple, or as a family unit if you are having relationship problems. These strategies include individual traditional psychotherapy, mediation, couples counseling, and family therapy. All of these strategies can help resolve conflicts, help heal wounds, and put a relationship back on a healthy track. Treatment can be short term, often helping you in only a few sessions to get through a crises or specific problem, or you may need counseling over a longer period of time, particularly if your relationship has greatly deteriorated.

In romantic and intimate relationships, I have found that, if possible, working with both partners is often the most productive approach. Each person needs to eliminate any expectation that someone else (the partner) will solve all their problems or meet all their needs.  No one relationship can give you everything that you need or want and you, in turn, cannot be the sole support for someone else.

You and your significant other need to understand that each of you have your own set of needs, expectations, hopes and dreams.  You need to be aware of these and be able to express them to each other.  Unstated expectations can be a real problem. You and your partner may have different ideas about what the nature of your relationship is and different thoughts and feelings regarding what it takes to keep the relationship active and healthy.

I have been able to help my clients change, rebuild, and strengthen their relationships with loved ones or help them to determine if they should end the relationship.  Couples, marriage, family and individual counseling can give you the understanding, tools and techniques to communicate better, negotiate differences, solve problems, love and even fight in a healthier way.  Asking for help is often difficult but sometimes necessary. If a relationship is valuable and you are having difficulty, help can be just a call away.

The more you understand about relationships and their dynamics, the better you can cope with their effects. For more information about relationship and intimacy problems, please click on the linked websites listed below:

"If you really want help dealing with your feelings and emotions, changing your behavior, and improving your life, I will be happy to help you.  I am available almost any time and any place.  You can call me directly and there is no cost or obligation for the initial telephone consultation.  Or you can reach me by email.  I look forward to the possibility of helping you to improve your life."   Dr. Vince Berger