GoodTherapy | Codependency Workbook Exercise Two: Relationship InventoryIf you have completed Codependency Workbook Exercise One, congratulations to you. Please take a moment to pat yourself on the back. You deserve it, because it must have taken a great deal of courage to write about your family history. Most people shed some tears in our therapy session when they share it with me. Then they feel very relieved.

Many people are not ready to share the letter with their family of origin right away. If you have a therapist available or a sponsor, discuss it with that person. If not, review it with a supportive, nonjudgmental friend. Before sharing this with your family, it is important that you be ready to deal with their reactions. Unless they are in recovery, most families will not be able to validate your experience. However, it is very therapeutic to put your family history on paper and share it with another person.

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Now we are ready to begin the next workbook exercise, which concerns relationships. Please make a list of the most important people in your life. This may include friends, lovers, a spouse, family members, coworkers, or a boss. Spend a few minutes thinking about each relationship. How many people on your list do you believe are dysfunctional? How many are addicts, have untreated mental illness, refuse to work, even if they are able, or have other major issues? Are you taking care of some of the people on your list? Are some of the relationships lopsided, where you do most of the giving?

You may wonder why some of your relationships are lopsided. Dysfunctional people can sense that you are a caretaker and are drawn to you. It is almost as though they can smell you. You may find yourself drawn to them as well.

Last night, I saw a married couple where the wife was unsuccessfully trying to stop her alcoholic husband from drinking. She was anxious, frustrated, and very angry. Of course she would be frustrated. She was trying to control something that she had no control over. The facts are that we are powerless over other people, places, and things. Realizing this is helpful to codependents because they can learn to let go and relax. Trying to fix others is impossible, and just upsets the fixer. It also is not helpful to the dysfunctional person. Normally addicts only get help because of the consequences of their using. If the caretaker undoes the consequences, they caretaker unknowingly helps enable the dysfunctional person to remain sick.

Since caretaking may make you miserable and help your loved one stay sick, maybe we can work on not doing it. How? You can begin to learn to set boundaries. For example, you might tell the loved one that you will no longer bail him or her out if he is arrested. You may tell him that you will no longer call in sick if he is too hung over to work. You may tell her that you will only talk with her when she is sober.

I suggest that you put your list away for at least 24 hours. Then pick the relationship that causes you the most stress. Think about a boundary that you may set and write it down. Practice telling your loved one about the boundary. He or she will probably not like it, but in the long run it will be good for both of you. Be sure that you are prepared to maintain the boundary before you set it. The first time you do this, you are taking a major step in your recovery. Be sure to spend some time with someone who will support you setting a boundary.

Close up of couple holding handsIn therapy, many issues are covered, but sex may still be an uncomfortable topic for many clients and even therapists to talk about. Yet many people have sexual issues that need to be resolved in order for life to be the most fulfilling that it can be.

In general therapy, there may be an uncomfortable attitude in regard to clients and therapists talking about sex, an uncertainty of what constitutes sexual issues (considering there is a wide range of acceptable sexual behaviors, experiences, and attitudes in the modern world), and possibly a lack of guidelines for how to address sexual issues that may be occurring in client relationships.

Some experts have offered opinions and guidelines that general therapists might find useful in addressing sexual issues in therapy.

Sara Rosenquist, a board-certified clinical health psychologist who also specializes in sexual and reproductive health issues, said in an email that her clients tend to seek her out specifically for sexual issues, but she realizes this is not the case for many general therapists. “A whole lot of marital therapists are uncomfortable talking about sex, so they don’t ask or they don’t create the kind of climate in their sessions that would give patients the idea that they can talk about anything or bring up sexual issues,” Rosenquist said.

She said that she has certain ways that she approaches sexual issues with clients. “When I’m doing marital therapy with a contentious couple, I may ask outright about their sex life, or they might bring it up,” Rosenquist said. “But I don’t go fishing … I operate under the assumption that I am to work on the goals the patient brings to me with the material the patient brings to me.”

She said for certain mental health issues, it can be likely that the clients also have sexual issues to address. “If a patient is on antidepressants, there is about a 67 percent chance that they have sexual side effects, such as inability to orgasm, which is very frustrating and causes people to avoid sex to avoid the frustration,” Rosenquist said. “If one partner is depressed, there is a 50 percent probability that the other one is, too, and a high probability that the relationship is affected, particularly the sexual relationship.”

She thinks it is best to bring up the topic of sexuality with clients so they feel comfortable talking about it. “My advice to therapists would be to make it a practice to ask directly about sexual concerns and sexual side effects, thereby giving a clear message that you can talk about this in here,” Rosenquist said. “Most general therapists would avoid learning about ‘unusual’ sexual experiences because they are frankly not equipped to deal with it and they don’t want to lose the patient.”

She said that therapists also need to think about what their limits are in regard to treating sexual issues. “It is frustrating to me when the therapist sends them to me ‘just for the sex part’ instead of allowing me to treat the whole couple,” Rosenquist said. “Ethically we are supposed to know the limits of our competence, but in real life people are reluctant to refer out, and most feel that if they have sex, they’re competent to treat sexual concerns. And most couple therapists feel that if you treat the couple communication issues, the sex will fix itself. I find that often the opposite is true—that the sex difficulties are an important lightning rod, and if you treat that the communications improve.”

Along with therapists realizing their competencies in addressing and treating sexual issues, it’s important for them to avoid misdiagnosing or making assumptions with clients who have sexual issues. For example, just because a woman has multiple sex partners or has sex more often than other women, therapists should not jump to conclusions that she has sex addiction.

“A lot of general therapists lump ‘unusual sexual practices’ together as ‘sex addiction,’” Rosenquist said. “Doing so is not helpful. For one thing, ‘sex addiction’ is not in the DSM—but a variety of sexual practices/appetites behave as if addictive. Many variant arousal patterns and even some high needs for sexual contact/release interferes with genuine intimacy because the person is usually ‘scratching an itch’ (using sex to calm anxiety or satisfy a compulsion) and the sex becomes not so personal. Whenever sex becomes about scratching an itch for one person, it will kill desire in the other, and this, in turn, damages the relationship.”

Barbara Gross, a licensed master social worker and a sexual counselor for the Medical Center for Female Sexuality, said in an email that there are four basic categories of female sexual dysfunction that therapists can be aware of: desire, arousal, orgasm, and pain.

Here are her explanations of each category:

Desire: “We define desire as the ‘wanting aspect.’ Many women come to the Center and report that they are concerned that they have no interest in being sexual. It may be that they once had desire but now they don’t, or it is possible that they never really had much interest in being sexual. We often see low desire in women in their 40s, although it may also present in younger women.”

Arousal: “We explain arousal as the body’s ability to become lubricated and to experience heightened sensitivity or tingling in the genital area. Generally when a woman gets turned on, her vagina becomes wet and amenable to further sexual contact. If lubrication is not happening, a woman would be described as having hypoarousal. If a woman is in a constant state of arousal, she would probably be diagnosed with persistent genital arousal disorder.”

Orgasm: “An orgasm is a natural release of sexual tension through a series of muscle contractions that produces a pleasurable sensation. There are two types of anorgasmia, primary and secondary. Primary means that the individual has never had an orgasm. Secondary means that they were once able to have them but the individual is unable to have them now.”

Pain: “Women with vaginal pain generally have one of two types of sexual dysfunction. Vaginismus is the inability to have vaginal penetration. Vulvodynia is generally pain on the outer part of the vagina. Women most often describe it as a burning pain, though it is sometimes experienced as itching or general discomfort.”

There is a whole section in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) on sexual and gender identity disorders for therapists to refer to as well, and different associations are devoted to sexuality research, information, and careers, like the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists and the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality. These are all possible resources for therapists in regard to sexual issues.

Gross thinks there needs to be work on guidelines in general for therapists on addressing and detecting sexual issues. “I don’t think there are good guidelines for detecting and addressing sexual issues,” she said. “Many women suffer for years without being properly diagnosed or treated. For low desire they are often told to relax, take baths, and drink wine. These suggestions are ludicrous and result in further frustration and hopelessness.”

There are treatment options available for low desire, arousal and orgasm difficulties, and painful intercourse, she added. All of these sexual issues can be caused by different factors, so she said a comprehensive assessment is needed to look at psychosocial and physiological factors.

“In regards to pain, intercourse simply should not be painful. That is the basic guideline,” Gross said. “If you are having pain during intercourse you should seek help. Women often feel it is something that will resolve itself. We generally do not find that to be true. Both vaginismus and vulvodynia are treatable. If you have difficulty inserting a tampon, getting a pelvic exam or find penetration to be difficult or painful, seek help.”

She said certain myths need to be dispelled as well, including these most common ones she has dealt with:

Myth Number One: Women can have orgasms from intercourse. “Seventy percent of women CAN NOT have orgasms from intercourse. This is a fact. There have been countless scholarly articles about it and books published that attest to this fact, and yet I see women each day who feel they should be capable of doing it. They shouldn’t, and women and their partners should spend more time on clitoral stimulation, which consistently works to provide women with orgasm. And, everyone, men and women, should let go of the notion that women have orgasms from intercourse. Some do but most do not.”

Myth Number Two: Oral contraceptive pills have no negative side effects. “For millions of women, the pill is a great form of contraception. For women who are susceptible to sexual dysfunction, the pill can wreak havoc on your body. It can destroy your libido, deprive your vaginal tissue of necessary hormones for vaginal health, which in turn can cause pain. And it can reduce sensitivity in your clitoris. I believe this information should be shared with women when the pill is prescribed, and most often it is not.”

Myth Number Three: Sex is easy. “Good sex is a process of exploration both with yourself and with a partner. Like learning to read, good sex takes time, and you have to [learn] the basics first. You have to start with knowing your body and what feels good, and then you have to explore what feels good with each partner you have. It is not like it is in the movies. It is not a seamless scene without starts and stops and embarrassing moments. However, if you take the time, learn about yourself and who you are with, it is obviously one of the best parts of life.”

What are certain guidelines or information that you think would be useful for general therapists to have or know in order to address sexual issues in clients?

Related articles:
Dealing with Sex and Relationships in Recovery
Depressed by Disappearing Libido?
Sex and Anti-depressants

GoodTherapy | Is Retaliation an Option in Marriage?“I’ve been suffering for years,” Marcelle said. “When I tell Andrew that he’s hurt my feelings, he gets angry. Can you imagine that? What kind of human being gets angry when he sees his wife crying?”

This is a good question, and one that I get asked often. The answer is that a person like Andrew, who gets angry at being told that he has—once again—done it wrong, is a human who has never heard a word of praise and experienced more criticism in his life than he knows what to do with.

Such a person—often, but not always, a man—is highly conflicted. In moments when he does not feel put on the defensive, he cares deeply for his wife, loves her, and doesn’t want her to hurt. On the other hand, when he thinks he’s being attacked, he reflexively circles the wagons to protect himself.

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“So finally, I got good and angry myself,” Marcelle went on. “How much of this can I take? I get mistreated and I can’t even express myself. That’s not right! That’s not fair! I deserve better, so I told him a thing or two. I let him have it. And, frankly, I felt much better after that.”

That’s a typical pattern—and highly destructive.

The Elusive Satisfaction of Retaliation
Marcelle has every justification in the world to feel hurt. It is also human for her to be angry at the cause of that hurt when he is so unsympathetic. But her reaction in this scenario is wrong. For one thing, she’s hurting herself more by lowering herself to his level. If she acknowledges that his anger is hurtful, then her anger is hurtful too. If she acknowledges that anger displays a lack of humanity on his part, then it displays a lack of humanity on hers as well.

Later, alone with her feelings, Marcelle will confide that the good feeling of “giving it back” was short lived. Over time, the idea that she had betrayed herself by stooping to his level gnawed at her innermost being. She had always liked herself for her own kindness and goodness. “Now who am I?” she wondered. Not only did she reduce herself to a level that she did not respect, but in doing so, she also became alienated from herself.

Many victims of mistreatment feel this way. They feel estranged from the person they thought they were, they don’t like the person they’ve become, and they’re still depressed over the way they were treated. They add depression to depression. Being mean and striking back is completely self-defeating.

How Retaliation Makes Bad Behavior Worse
There’s another, even worse problem with Marcelle’s reaction: it ensures that Andrew’s behavior will also get worse. Now that’s bad.

Andrew doesn’t want to be the bad guy that he is, but he has no clue how to make the awful feelings go away when he is repeatedly reminded of his failings. When he hears what comes across to him as a criticism, he is thrown into a pit of despair. After all, if he knew how to handle the problem in the first place, he would not have created it. Growing up in a home in which such things as compassion, sharing, consideration, and respect were not taught or modeled, he is unaware of how to deal with situations which call for these traits. How can he fix a problem he’s clueless about?

But Andrew does know the one thing he learned very well growing up: how to defend himself, strike back, or tune out. It’s only natural that when he feels attacked, he’s going to do what it takes to prevent those old feelings from rushing in. What better smokescreen than for him to attack back?

Will he feel better? No, just as Marcelle didn’t feel better when she retaliated. Will the marriage improve this way? Obviously not. What should be done?

Alternatives to Retaliation
Marcelle has to switch her approach from telling Andrew what he did wrong to what she wants him to do. It means changing a negative sentence to a positive one. This might not seem hard to do, but listen to what Marcelle has to say about it: “What about my feelings? Are you telling me to stifle my feelings? He’s my husband; shouldn’t I be able to tell my own husband that he hurt my feelings?”

Marcelle has a point. She should not have to stifle her feelings; she should be able to express them to her own husband. But we are not operating in a fair and just world. Her husband simply cannot hear this until he has healed from his past pain.

So Marcelle’s real job is to deal with her “shoulds.” Theoretically, she should be free to express herself, and in reality, she shoots herself in the foot when she does. What are Marcelle’s options?

Retaliation is not one of Marcelle’s options, but she will find that if she follows the options above, she will be empowered and happier, even before Andrew has started to “get it.” Eventually, he will “get it” and then they will both be happier.

Sad couple cuddlingWithout the tools to manage it, recurring and intense depression often breaks up relationships. The truth is, depression is hard to handle. One way to help make it through depressive episodes is by preparing a depression plan when the partner who experiences depression is not depressed. The aim of the plan should be to create a shared understanding about the changes in thoughts and behavior that depression causes, as well as a commitment to “stretch” to get through the difficult period of depression.

Separating the Person from the Depression
It takes a great deal of effort, on the part of both the depressed person and their partner, to separate the person from the depression. Yet doing this can be very important to maintaining the relationship. Try thinking of “Depression” as a third party in the relationship: an entity with its own unique thoughts and actions that it expresses through your loved one’s body. One way to do this is to establish the difference between how the depressed person acts when they are depressed and how they act when they aren’t.

For example, during an episode of depression, the depressed person may get much more sensitive to criticism. If both people know that, it can help them to remember that that behavior is the depression, not the person. The partner may want to be more careful not to be critical, or to not react to the depressed person’s overly sensitive reaction to criticism. “That is Depression speaking (yelling, crying, acting insecure, calling me names), not my loved one,” can be a useful mantra.

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This doesn’t mean the partner should take abuse. Partners still need to set limits—calmly, firmly and before accumulating resentment—about anything the depressed person does that doesn’t feel respectful. This may sound something like, “I know you’re in a lot of pain right now, but I won’t allow you to call me names under any circumstances. I’m going out now; let me know when you are confident you can treat me respectfully and I’ll come back.”

For the depressed person, it can also be helpful to remember that no matter what terrible things the depression is telling them (she doesn’t love me, she thinks I’m disgusting…), those thoughts are the depression interpreting what the partner says and does through a filter that turns everything to the worst possible scenario. If the depressed person can identify that this is the way Depression causes them to think before the depression happens, it can help them to remember that those feelings are likely distortions of reality, even though they may continue to seem real in the moment.

The depressed person can also prevent damage to the relationship by attempting to translate what they want to say (“You’re a skank”) into their own fears and sad thoughts (“I’m scared you’re going to leave me”) before saying it out loud.

Identifying Depressed Belief Patterns
Try making a list of messages that Depression gives, in general and/or for the specific person, in order to be able to look at it when depression hits. If every time the depressed person gets depressed, they become certain that their partner is having an affair, put that on the list. A list can be written from the point of view of the depressed person or the partner, or each can have their own. An example from the depressed person’s point of view could look like this:

“When depression hits, I see things differently and characteristically believe:

“When I’m not depressed, all of this looks different. When I am depressed, I believe the depressed point of view is reality and the nondepressed point of view was distorted. This is not true and not helpful to my desire to feel good.”

Setting Boundaries for Caretaking
While it can be helpful for the depressed person and loved ones to define reality, loved ones can get burned out on reassuring the depressed person. They should do it only as much as it is possible to do so without resentment. They may need to pace themselves—can they do it once a day? Once a week? Give what support is possible without getting burned out or resentful, or starting to agree with the distortions (maybe I don’t love him, maybe he is disgusting). The rest of the time, the depressed person needs to do their own work: some alone, some in therapy, and some with other friends and people they feel comfortable talking to in order to soften the distortions.

Many years ago, a mentor of mine talked about how she coped with taking care of her partner who was dying of cancer. She wanted to be there, but not to feel resentful and burned out. She told her partner that she expected her to do everything she could possibly do on her own, and then my mentor would do the rest. So if her partner could get up and get a magazine for herself but didn’t feel like it, my mentor wouldn’t get it for her. This left her available for the kind of caretaking that her partner absolutely needed and allowed her to sustain her energy over a long period of time even as her partner’s needs increased. I thought this was a brilliant way of thinking about caretaking for loved ones. It’s so easy to want to rush in and do everything in the beginning and then burn out. Pacing oneself and seeing the other person take as much responsibility as they can helps the caretaker so much.

It is important for the depressed person to commit to “stretch” as far and do as much as they possibly can—as much as they would be able to do if they were alone. Then, if the partner is willing to act in a caretaking role, they can do what the depressed person absolutely can’t do. With depression, this can be tricky to identify. Only the depressed person knows where that line is, and it can be difficult for even them to establish. It also may change from day to day or minute to minute. A depressed person may have to spend a whole day psyching themselves up to get up and take a shower or to make a phone call—but then they may be able to do it, whereas earlier in the day they absolutely couldn’t.

It is also important for the depressed partner to “stretch” by giving expressions of love and gratitude to the caretaking partner. It may be very difficult for the depressed person to do this, but it is usually possible if the depressed person commits ahead of time and the caretaker reminds them that the relationship needs it.

Caretakers need to consciously keep their own life going as much as possible. If they can’t expect to be emotionally nourished by their partner when they’re depressed, they need to be sure to be “fed” by other family and friends, activities they enjoy, work, or whatever is available. They might consider going to Co-Dependents Anonymous for support with keeping boundaries and not giving too much. This can, ironically, free people up to be more available to the person who needs their care.

Maintaining Balance
Most depressive episodes do pass, and the person who experiences depression returns to their nondepressed personality and functioning. Both depressed people and loved ones have to try to remember this fact as they do everything possible to get through and resolve periods of depression. The most important thing to remember is that neither person should make big decisions about their relationship, or judgments about how things will be, until the episode is over.

Couples seek therapy to achieve better communication, increase trust, and enhance intimacy, among other reasons. Surprisingly, almost half of couples who enter relationship therapy do so with the goal of determining if the relationship is viable enough to continue. Although there is much research examining how therapy goals influence outcome, little attention has been given to the relationship between viability goals and outcome in couples therapy. To this end, Jesse Owen of the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology at the University of Louisville led a study that looked specifically at how treatment goals expressed at the beginning of therapy affected eventual outcome with regards to maintaining the relationship.

Using data collected from 249 couples treated by various therapists, Owen looked at goals of improving the relationship compared to goals of clarifying the relationship’s viability. Owen examined intake paperwork to determine goals and discovered that the partners who had a goal of improvement had better outcomes than those who sought clarification. Specifically, couples who entered therapy to find ways to improve the existing relationship were nearly 80% more likely to be together six months after treatment than the couples who entered therapy wanting to know if they should separate or not. More than half of the couples who wanted clarification at the beginning of therapy had split up six months later.

Owen believes that these results underscore the impact of goal assessment, both for the couple and individual, at the beginning of treatment. Additionally, Owen emphasizes that the clinician has a significant influence on outcome, noting that even when a couple’s primary goal is clarification, they may consider other options as a result of the clinician’s hope and encouragement. The re-evaluation of goals throughout treatment is essential to achieve a positive outcome, even if that outcome is dissolution of the relationship. “The complex intersection of varied hopes, goals, and expectations, occurring often within an emotionally charged atmosphere, requires that clinicians ‘dance’ simultaneously with different partners.” Owen added, “Determining and tracking goals from the outset appears likely to help ensure that the therapist does not step on too many feet too often.”

Reference:
Owen, J., Duncan, B., Anker, M., Sparks, J. (2012, February 13). Initial Relationship Goal and Couple Therapy Outcomes at Post and Six-Month Follow-Up. Journal of Family Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0026998

MichaelPicucci Love resizedAfter 5 years of sobriety, in 1985, I began to notice a pattern in my sexual relationships: Even if I really liked someone, I couldn’t go more than 3 months before my attraction to them fizzled. I would then find some reason to end the relationship, although I never really understood why, and it made me feel bad. Thankfully, while I was leading a weekend retreat on Spirituality in Recovery, one participant pressed for bringing the subject of sex into the process.

Although I was unprepared, it gave me the opportunity to address the issue, and I shared my struggles with the group. When I asked if anyone else identified with the issue, all hands went up. I immediately felt a sense of relief, having previously thought I was uniquely flawed. And then I felt angry that no one had told me about this before, which launched my enthusiasm to shift the primary focus of my work. I began to create healing techniques for underlying trauma and sexual challenges.

The sexual-spiritual split, a deep psychic schism within almost everyone, prohibits loving relationships from forming and enduring. The chasm between sex and love, caused by generational, cultural, religious, and early programming, planted seeds in our unconscious that makes merging with another virtually impossible without the specific healing that new perspectives and experiences can offer.

In the previous article (Part One), I describe the subtle powers of Source Energy, our innate intelligence, to direct us forward. I have chosen sexual healing as the next pathway for expanding our access to Source Energy, although there is no particular linear course. Sexual energy, primal and fundamental to our nature, fully awakens our sensorial nature that always knows our best next step in life. A shift in perspective in our relationship toward the life force in sex can expand our Source Energy.

Like most of us who grew up in the Western world, I internalized sex and all references to it as shunned experiences to keep secret. Many of us received discordant messages in our formative years: love, family, and good deeds provide a happy, acceptable life. Conversely, anything having to do with sex, or even our bodies, was cloaked in a wall of shame and secrecy. While experiences vary, our collective consciousness suffers from this split, locking us out of our own rich, informative, multidimensional sensuality.

There are five key elements to dissolving the sexual/spiritual split:

Shifting Concepts: S.E.X.

Our erotic energy pathways have suffered trauma and distortion. To heal those wounds by utilizing expansive Source Energy, we must gently put our old concepts about sex aside. Most of us never developed a healthy, conscious context for having erotic pleasure. We clumsily fall into sex, gradually shaping ideas about it from what we have observed, and from our own, perhaps awkward, experiences.

When barriers dissolve, we are more likely to have more of what could be called “sacred” or “transcendent sex” and an openness to meaning and purpose for all types of lovemaking, including with ourselves. In paying attention to old sexual identities, we can rediscover, or in some cases reinvent, a new meaning of sex. Our willingness to detach from outdated conditioned thinking is the foundation for transforming sexuality to the sacred.

To help us step out of the cultural box, my partner and I created the abbreviation, S.E.X., for Soul Energy eXchange. It suggests we can choose to enlighten our sexual experiences by focusing on energy that comes from our souls, not just our bodies, and thereby designing a new outlook on pleasure. For those who are willing, it does take a bit of work. It’s rare that I’ve met anyone with an ongoing rich and fulfilling sexual life who did not have to go back in their history to create new contexts for their erotic experiences. But the payoff is huge.

S.E.X. Primary Energies

There are four primary forces in Erotic Ritual’s Soul Energy eXchange (S.E.X.): love, pleasure, lingam, and yoni, which are Hindu Sanskrit terms for penis and vagina. Though lingam energy is typically male identified as drive, pursuance, initiation, and aggression, it’s an energy shared in both genders. Yoni energy, feminine, receptive, creative, and artistic, is also found in both sexes. Love is an energy transmitted from the heart. It can be felt through hands of a lover or from a father or mother to a child. It is gender-neutral. Love means losing ourselves in the beloved. Pleasure takes many forms, but erotic pleasure can be defined as stimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain through visual and tactile stimulation. While some have a low threshold for erotic pleasure, others may find everything erotically pleasurable.

The kind of love we are exploring is the love that moves us to listen and intuit what our lover wants, to care about the other person’s needs. It is best to have the constant energy of love as the foundation for everything in life. The energy of love can be triggered by the energy of pleasure, but it is at its greatest when love is present first.

We have all experienced limiting conditioning in the expression of our lingam and/or yoni energies. Most of us experienced some sort of trauma that blocks our love and pleasure energies as well. Unlocking trauma and toxicity of shame and melting frozen erotic energies are pathways to the sacred. Judgment- free experimentation, using all four of these soulful forces, leads us on a path to the divine, to earth energy, and to a greater connection with the universe.

Perhaps more than in other rituals, through Erotic Ritual we learn that we are all expressions of a much larger source of communal energy. It melts barriers and we feel less isolated. Notice when you are having an erotic experience there is always giving and receiving of energy. Sometimes it’s reciprocated or sometimes one is consistently giving or receiving, and either is fine. Allow yourself to be really present in any prolonged erotic exchange and you will find yourself in a circle of energy. (The yoni expression fully experiences the lingam expression, and vice versa.)

Sexual Concerns

The very private issues that people have shared with me about sex have ranged from not feeling that they are desirable, to experiencing a sexual apathy, erectile and/or orgasmic dysfunction, or feeling detached from a loving partner. Sometimes it’s an obsession with body parts that they just don’t like or think something is wrong with.

Many people carry much the same type of burden, sometimes silently. The principles of Source Energy can have a very beneficial impact in renegotiating and resolving these hardships. With the right resources, including therapy in some cases, the barriers to erotic fulfillment will dissolve, creating possibilities for a blissful engagement with one’s self and with another.

When the sex in a monogamous relationship is unsatisfying, a substantial foundation is at risk. If the condition lingers, with sex becoming almost nonexistent, then the relationship is compromised. Often couples aren’t equipped with the tools to communicate sensitive issues. Their avoidance, sometimes lasting years, continues the downward spiral. Addressing these problems with the assistance of Source Energy can enhance those very skills.

Happily, mine is a loving, growing, and sexually fulfilling relationship, lasting many years. All of our efforts have paid off. Creating sacred time and using it for shame-free sex while opening our hearts, along with taking responsibility and respecting ourselves, have all been key. Sexual loving intensifies consciousness and pure love. In that vast, nurturing ocean there is no ego, nothing to defend, only a sense of just being and connection.

Communication in these sensitive areas can at first feel like hard work. With practice, it eventually becomes quite natural. When my partner and I explored having a committed relationship those many years ago, my primary request was that our sexual relations be the first priority in our union. Even in a number of long-term relationships I’d been in there was the sex-spirit split, along with undeveloped communication skills, causing sex and sensuality to wither. They were left with a sense of deadness in a potentially thriving relationship.

Instead, having made the commitment, we began a life of focalized conscious S.E.X. Expansiveness and sexual gratification became a planned, sacrosanct part of our time together. While it might seem to defy spontaneity, let me suggest that there is a significant payoff. Respecting existing realities—being tired, stressed, too busy, or distracted—doesn’t mean spontaneity is stifled. Rather, without earnest communication of our needs and desires, or without planning, we cannot build rich, enduring erotic lives.

Sexuality, Higher Consciousness, and Fantasy

Although it could feel clumsy, it is crucial to learn to express what we need and desire, as well as what we fantasize about. I like to call it reclaiming adolescent awkwardness, to allow people to go where it might be difficult, in order to heal the sexual-spiritual split, a requirement in forming intimate relationships that are authentic.

In sexual counseling, many are curious about where their fantasies come from, often feeling shame for having them. I tell my clients good fantasies are like rainbows, mysterious and beautiful, sometimes fleeting, and they are to be respected. Their origins may vary from abuses early in life to Freudian, or they may relate to recollections of pleasure from our past. Sometimes they mysteriously come from no conscious recollection whatsoever. Focalizing Source Energy filters the shame out of our fantasies and allow us to fall more deeply in love with ourselves. Self-love is essential to grow in sacred sexuality. Having fantasies doesn’t mean we’re bad or that something is wrong with us, as we don’t have to act on them. Only shame is Godless. Removing the shame from our fantasies transforms them, and that contributes to keeping a long-term relationship sexually alive.

Natural Resistance to S.E.X.

With all our knowledge we still encounter resistance to a loving fusion of our sexual and spiritual energies. The delicate nature of exploring repressed sexual history is likely to trigger that very resistance. When we appreciate the essence of our resistance to removing shame, our fantasies can be an entryway to joyous energetic harmony, where we can experience full-body orgasm along with deeply felt spirituality. Full-body orgasm refers to a burst of the four energies in S.E.X. that can take over every dimension of our physical and subtle energy being. When this happens, we can experience expansiveness and sometimes formlessness that is sublime. It is a full-body encounter that is uniquely restorative when we feel depleted and deeply relaxing when we are tense.

If we can consent to the reality that energy and its many vibrations and frequencies make up our physical reality, we can learn new skills to heal, with an efficient pathway to our inner wisdom. When we energetically experience resolution in our bodies from sexual barriers, we land in the divine center of Source Energy. As we tap into it, the more it begins to lovingly lead our lives.

Related articles:
Part I: Source Energy Optimizes Life – Finding Source Energy
What Do Your Sexual Fantasies Mean?
Fanning the Spark of Sexual Passion

Being considered a “perfect child” by one’s parents feels fantastic. Basking in the glow from parents’ approval and love can feel safe and special, like one is living in a magical world where everyone is happy and satisfied. These feelings are very seductive. The child is usually not aware that they pay a price in order to maintain the parents’ continued extraordinary approval. That price is the giving up of one’s unique sense of self in order to comply and be the child and then the adult that the parents adore. Being kept on a pedestal distracts from being aware that one has wants and needs that are not defined by one’s loving parents. This interference with developing an individual self can result in difficult and/or empty relationships as one becomes an adult.

Here is Grace’s story. After Grace and I said our goodbyes during our last session, after 5 years of working together in therapy, I began to think about her journey from the pedestal to the development of a unique self. Grace had become a person with her own separate, individual needs, thoughts, and feelings.

Grace came to see me for therapy when she was 28 years old. She was a pretty young woman who described herself as feeling depressed and confused. She told me she was unhappy with herself and her life. She expressed puzzlement about her feelings, as she described herself as having a successful job, good friends, and a wonderful family. She wished she had a steady boyfriend, but she dated and had been in two almost-year-long relationships. Those relationships “just sort of petered out” and she wasn’t sure why. She shrugged and said, “Something seems off about my life. Nothing feels satisfying; I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

As Grace and I worked together in therapy, Grace began to describe how she always felt her life was wonderful. She was an only child and was especially close with her mother, who always referred to her as the perfect child. She told me that she felt special to both her mother and father. They idolized her and believed she could do no wrong. In fact, she told me she did no wrong. She was happy to do whatever they asked: set the table, be home on time, practice piano, not hang out with friends they felt were not a good influence. Grace felt her parents knew what was best for her and she complied.

In therapy, Grace began to talk about how it felt to be seen as so perfect by her parents. She told me she really liked it. She felt safe and loved when they would tell their friends what a good daughter she was. They were so proud of her good grades and her outstanding abilities on the piano and flute. When I asked Grace if she had ever felt like skipping piano practice or coming home later than expected, she looked surprised by the questions as if such behavior was unimaginable. Then she responded that she never behaved that way.

One day, Grace came to our session wondering about why she didn’t have any differences with her parents. She noted, for example, that most of her friends went away to college. She went to a local school and lived at home. She had no memory of wanting to go away to school but realized that now she regretted staying home for college. Grace’s sense of regret about her life began to pervade our work. Over time, Grace posed a number of questions to herself and to me.

Grace wondered if she didn’t consider the possibility of going away to school because she knew her parents wanted her to stay home. She wondered if she majored in music because her parents were so thrilled with her music making. She wondered why she went with her parents on vacations rather than taking vacations with her friends in college. One day Grace began to cry in our session. She was remembering her middle school friend Fran, who her parents didn’t like. They told her she should stop seeing Fran when they overheard her use a curse word. In our session, Grace became angry at herself and her parents. “How could I have agreed to such a thing? Fran was my best friend!” I asked Grace why she thought she should go along with her parents. What did she think would happen if she asserted what she wanted? Sobbing, Grace said she didn’t know. Her parents were good people; they loved her, why couldn’t she say what she wanted to them? Then, Grace stopped crying and gasped: “Oh! I would disappoint them.” I asked “What would be so terrible about disappointing them?” Grace looked very sad and was silent for a long time. Then she looked at me, tears returning to her eyes: “I wouldn’t be the perfect child!”

As Grace and I explored what it would mean to give up being the perfect child, it became clear that such an idea was frightening to her. She loved the feeling of making her parents glow when they saw her. She believed she kept them happy as long as she continued to be their good and perfect child. If she stopped being compliant and who they needed her to be, she worried they would become sad and hurt, and she believed this would harm them. She also would feel guilty. Talking about Grace’s concern and need to keep her parents happy led Grace to the realization that she not only wanted to make them happy, but she was worried that if she didn’t keep them happy, they wouldn’t continue to think of her as so amazingly special. Grace began to understand that to give this up felt like she would be losing their love. She was willing to consider, however, that in fact, she probably wouldn’t lose their love, but that maybe it wouldn’t continue to feel that she was quite so amazing.

Feeling less anxious about the idea that her parents would be hurt and that she would not be loved, Grace began to notice that the way she related to the people in her life was similar to the way she related to her parents. She didn’t like to disappoint or make anyone in her life unhappy. She considered whether the people in her life seemed to like her so much because she always went along. She realized that she didn’t express what she wanted if she knew it would conflict with others. One day she excitedly came into our session and said “I think the reason my relationships with men don’t work out for me is that they never really get to know who I am because I never know what I want and I am always avoiding conflict.” She said with a smile, “I am never satisfied because nothing that happens in the relationship is about me!”

Grace’s smile told me a lot. I congratulated her on the discovery she made and our work turned to focus on Grace’s wishes, desires, and needs for herself in the world. While Grace was eager to embark on a journey of discovery to learn more about herself, she was understandably anxious about how this would affect the relationships she was in. Would the people she was close to, her parents, friends, and new boyfriend, still want her in their lives? Would they love her? Would she hurt and disappoint them? Would it feel like love to her if she didn’t feel she was the most special person to the other in the relationship? These were all important and real issues that Grace would have to contend with.

Over the next 2 years, Grace gradually began to learn what she wanted and liked, what she hated, and what thrilled her. She discovered a passion for cooking and went to school to train as a chef. She weathered her parents’ disappointment that she gave up a career as a musician. And she came to believe she had the right to recognize and follow her own dreams. Her parents didn’t glow as much as they did when Grace first came to therapy, but they didn’t stop loving her.

Grace’s friendships changed. Over time and in spite of her anxiety, Grace pushed herself to reveal more of her wants and feelings as she tested the waters and developed more of a voice with her friends. Some welcomed this new Grace and were excited to learn more about her and make room for another voice. Others were not so welcoming to this new assertive Grace, and some friendships didn’t last. Grace’s dating life changed too. She felt more engaged with her boyfriend. She said “Now the relationship is about us because I am more of a whole person.”

When Grace described her new feelings and new ways of relating, she realized that she is much less compliant as a way of being in the world. She no longer felt perfect in her relationships. She knew she had to continue fighting her resistance to keep her needs quiet. Now Grace feels much more authentic with her family and friends.

Grace often smiles at me ruefully and sighs: “I do sometimes miss the feeling of being so special. Now I struggle to express what I want and it’s hard to accept that sometimes my needs aren’t met. But it is worth it. What I didn’t have, that I do have now, is I feel like a person. I usually know what I want and how to get it. I am not so scared that people won’t like me or that I will disappoint someone. In my relationships, I try to talk about what I want and feel. Sometimes it’s hard, like when I have a fight with my boyfriend or when I feel my parents disapprove of my decisions. But now I make decisions. I don’t go along automatically. I like me. How wonderful is that!”

Grace terminated therapy with the ability to continue the process of discovering and growing her unique self. While she was not yet able to assert herself as much as she wished, she was committed to the struggle to tolerate her uncomfortable feelings and risk that others might not always have the feelings she wished they would have.

That is very wonderful!

Related articles:
The Undeveloped Self and the Difficulty of Relationship
The Pink Elephant of Perception
The Fear of Hurting the Other and the Inhibition of Self

Family portrait of family sitting on couchFamilies need to be together. After all, the family as a group exists to provide support, nurturance, food, shelter, resources, and a stable future to each member. While most families have their ups and downs, even stressed, impoverished, chaotic families want to live with one another. When is it in the family’s best interest for members to separate from one another? Can leaving the family home for a short while ever bring healing to the relationships in the long run?

Family separations occur in American culture in formal and informal ways. Formally, families can legally be ordered to separate by the courts because of domestic violence, child sexual, emotional, or physical abuse or neglect, chronic drug or alcohol abuse, and/or failure to educate and when there is a threat to the life, health, and well-being of one or more family members. Typically, less-intrusive assistance has been attempted at many levels before a court order occurs, including weeks or months of child-centered school counseling, family therapy, marriage counseling, social work support, addiction treatment, spiritual community support, or elder advocacy.

All of these actions occur at local, county, and state levels because we as a society believe that we have a stake in supporting and sustaining healthy families. State laws vary but generally have been written with family reunification as the end goal of this intervention process, wherever possible. Violent fathers, neglectful or addicted mothers, and abusive siblings can and often do change and grow into healthier, happier parents, spouses, siblings, and grandparents. We want families to get along well and have what they need to contribute to the world. No one benefits when families are so chaotic and dysfunctional that it takes dozens of people and thousands of hours and dollars to try to help.

[fat_widget_right]More informal separations occur every day, particularly among highly distressed married couples. Unable to live in the same home without physical or emotional pain, one member of the couple leaves the home temporarily and lives elsewhere. Unlike a formal, legal intervention of family separation, this kind of separation is less likely to change the marital interactions at all. What it usually does is create less fighting and conflict in the home, while increasing the stress of the separating spouse and any children in the family. The only person who may feel any relief is the remaining spouse, and this relief is generally temporary. The focus is shifted to the dozens of life details that, once shared, have to be renegotiated, from grocery shopping and bill paying to getting a child to baseball practice.

Unless a separated couple gets professional support and assistance immediately, the family begins to reshape around the absence of the separated parent. Children feel neglected and forgotten, no matter how diligent the separated parent is in spending time with the children. There is just no adequate substitute for living together, and the children’s behavior often suffers. The couples will simply shift their conflict away from one another in the short term and have no real plan of action for getting everyone back together. Because separation only tones down conflict and doesn’t solve it, I almost always suggest that separated couples who want to remain married work at getting back together as soon as possible, and always with professional family or marital therapy. If this is not the chosen path, statistics predict this couple will end up divorcing.

Separation is often a necessary choice when family behaviors become violent, abusive, or dangerous. But in nearly all cases, families should be helped to heal and reunify as soon as possible. Separation is not the best course of action unless it is the only course left for health, safety, or stability’s sake. Every one of us needs to feel like we belong and to be part of a group of people who know, appreciate, sacrifice for, and value us most of all. At our best, these are our families. It’s worth the effort to make them as healthy, whole, and loving as possible.

Related articles:
Three Truths Every Couple Needs to Know About Marriage
Want Family Therapy? These 4 Problems Should Be Treated First
Harness the Power of the Marriage Bond

GoodTherapy | Learning to Accept Love After Experiencing TraumaLove is one of the most elemental of emotions. It is a building block of some of our deepest relationships and a component in many of our happiest days. Yet the ability to freely give and receive love is a fragile skill, which traumatic experiences can all too easily dent or damage.

Learning how to be loved is a vital part of your healing. Here are a few things to think about as you regain your ability to accept someone’s care, concern, and nurturing.

Part of learning how to be loved again is learning how to interact with people who express kindness, care, concern, nurture, and attention. Because you have experienced a traumatic experience, you have learned that people are capable of great cruelty. To avoid experiencing cruelty again, a part of your mind may have decided to ensure that you will never be hurt again. One of the ways that your mind tries to protect you from future cruelty is to assume that people are dangerous. This assumption in turn results in you leaning towards mistrust, avoiding vulnerability, and shying away from emotional intimacy.

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One way to practice opening yourself up to love is to practice opening yourself up to trust, vulnerability, and intimacy. But you have to make sure that you are practicing this with a safe person: someone who will not be cruel, let alone abusive, to you.

First, assess the level of vulnerability you open yourself up to if you take in the token of love.

Once you assess the level of vulnerability, take a moment and decide if this is a level of vulnerability you are safe with. If the vulnerability exceeds your level of healing, claim your right to do what is wisest for you, and back off or decline the token of love.

Consider the giver’s genuineness and accuracy. Is this someone with whom you have enough history to know their usual level of genuineness and accuracy? If you’re not sure, consider only accepting an expression of love that is low on your level of vulnerability. If you do have enough history with this person, then let their history of genuineness and accuracy help you decide whether to take in the expression of care, concern, or love. Someone who has proven to be genuine, truthful, and accurate is most likely extending an expression of love that is worthy of trust.

Consider whether there could be an ulterior motive. How would the giver of this token of love benefit from you accepting it? Could this benefit be damaging to you? When accepting an expression of love that makes you beholden or indebted to someone, think long and hard whether there could be an ulterior motive on the behalf of the giver.

If the expression of care is within your range of vulnerability, and is from a genuine and accurate person who does not have a damaging ulterior motive, then take in the love. Practice taking a deep breath while reminding yourself that you are actively healing one of the most fundamental of skills. Recognize that this is a moment in which you are being cared for, loved, and nurtured. Try not to miss these moments of kindness and care.

If you can believe the giver’s statements of friendship, respect, or love, then rejoice in the fact that someone believes these positive things about you. If believing these messages of love is out of your reach right now, then simply practice listening. Avoid disagreeing and don’t rebut the person’s opinions of you. Give voice to your gratitude, and express your thankfulness for this token of love.

If you are working on your healing with a therapist, try using that relationship to practice accepting care. I hope you have experienced your therapist to be the kind of genuine, accurate person with whom it will be safe to practice accepting love. Those questions about how you are, how your week was, and so on, are not just the standard questions of therapy: they are also tiny moments when therapeutic care and concern are being expressed. If nothing else, practice listening to these statements of care without disagreeing. I encourage you to take in the warmth of your therapist.

Happy woman lounging on park benchMany people, but primarily young, educated, Western women, struggle to sustain a positive body image—for a multitude of reasons that have been discussed in previous posts. Often a negative body image leads to a poor relationship with the body and other aspects of self. It is associated with impoverished self-care and unhealthy eating and lifestyle habits.

Having a negative body image is related to general low self-esteem and depression or anxiety. Women with poor body image often struggle with boundaries in relationship to self and others. In this post, I will attempt to shed some light on the issue of boundaries related to poor body image, a concept often discussed and infrequently understood.

Women with poor body image tend to have a compartmentalized approach to well-being. For example, they may be overly focused on certain parts of the body or particular goals, such as weight loss, while devaluing other important aspects of overall health and fitness. People who have poor body image demonstrate an all-or-nothing approach to wellness, swinging from one extreme to the other, sometimes within the same day. They tend to have an exceptional level of acquired knowledge about what is healthy and set idealistic goals based on this knowledge and also are frequently disappointed and blame themselves when they are unable to attain these goals.

The lack of a holistic perspective is evidenced in an inability to balance fitness with relaxation, healthy food choices with enjoyment of food, and so on. Not surprisingly, it is common to hear that they have dissatisfying relationships with others. The all-or-nothing tendency is implicated in their sense of being overwhelmed in relationships. They sometimes become preoccupied with the other person, swinging from feeling too close to feeling uncomfortably vulnerable even feeling lost in a relationship and wanting to cut it off.

The biggest and most obvious issue I see in working with women with poor body image is that most of the information used to make decisions about relationships and well-being comes from external sources. A total and complete lack of trust in the body and the self’s ability to regulate is obvious in their decision making. There is usually a clear history in the development of this lack of trust with regard to personal, familial, and cultural messages that have been internalized. (A full discussion of these factors is beyond the scope of this article). A lack of trust in the body and in the self leads to poor listening and misinterpretation of the cues that emerge from within. After a prolonged period of not paying attention to these signals, one’s ability to understand and act in accordance to one’s own needs becomes weakened. The needs of others become the focus of too much energy and attention, often referred to as a boundary issue.

Boundaries can be physical, mental, or emotional. Clear boundary violations are easy to identify and are well known as something that is usually morally or legally wrong and/or clearly harmful to another person’s safety, integrity, or well-being. However, there is a huge gray area between what is ideal and what is harmful, and sometimes subtle violations can lead to hurt, shame, self-doubt, and low self-esteem. Violations usually happen by the person who is in a perceived position of power, as in the obvious case of an adult taking advantage of or imposing his or her personal needs on a child, or a doctor over a patient. But there are other relationships in which people can feel vulnerable and open to influence, harmful or positive. In these more subtle cases of power and vulnerability, the delivery of emotional (or more direct) messages about the self can also lead to unhealthy attitudes, self-doubt, and low self-worth. For example, people in positions of perceived or felt power who regularly directly or indirectly impose their opinions and choices can influence others to have doubts about their own choices.

A healthy boundary between people is a perceived buffering zone, whereby a felt sense of acceptable difference exists. Respectful support of differences by people in positions of perceived power and influence can help a person grow a strong sense of self and hence the ability to re-enact these perceived boundaries in other relationships. Good boundaries lead to healthy awareness of needs of the self and also positive choices that enhance the sense of self and relationships. Supporting an individual’s development involves a strong sense of self and honoring differences in others, an open attitude of acceptance and humility. A supportive stance involves allowing another person to feel, think, struggle, learn, and identify what is right for him or her without unwelcome advice or control tactics or too much distance or silence.

Recognizing and accepting differences, a supportive stance, involves sharing personal views and opinions with a sense of humility and recognizing that they are indeed personal and individual and should not be imposed on others. Offering help when it is asked for and refraining from taking over, micromanaging, or rescuing another person is important. Healthy boundaries lead to healthy relationships, and healthy relationships lead to healthy development of individuals.

Where the development of healthy boundaries has been challenged, an individual will often be overly dependent on external information and feedback to feel safe in their decision making and hence may have a poorly developed or negative sense of their own worth. In the case of the person with poor body image, this person becomes adept at information gathering, using perceived feedback to set expectations for the self that are often unrealistic. Perception itself is flawed and is often skewed towards negative, self-fulfilling ideas of self-worth. By engaging in a selection bias, people with low self-esteem will seek out and attend to cues that confirm what they think they know about themselves that is usually negative. In addition, they may believe it is possible to please others all of the time, which is clearly faulty.

Emphasis on interpretation and internalization of other people’s expectations is a recipe for impoverished self-worth. Living according to perceived notions of other people’s expectations often leads to repressed resentment, disempowerment, and disappointment. In some cases, the only way to assert the self is in a passive-aggressive manner, which is usually not received well by others. While indeed it is healthy to have a sense of social expectation and be kind and thoughtful towards others, these behaviors need to be enacted based on a clear and healthy sense of self, which requires an awareness of personal thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and needs and the differences between self and other. Healthy self and healthy relationships interrelate and influence the development of both. The development of clear boundaries has a positive impact on individuals and on others with whom they have relationships.

However, the responsibility for nurturing clear boundaries falls on individuals in a position of power of any kind. Most people in some domain of their lives are in a position to help or hinder the development of another person. It is important that we always be aware of the difference between our own needs and feelings and those of others and to refrain from overstepping and imposing or, conversely, mistakenly taking on responsibility for other people in a way that invalidates or challenges their own development.

Where boundaries were violated, or not properly developed, psychotherapy can help to personalize new ways of being that include more emotional self-awareness and self-regulation, as well as assertiveness and effective communication skills. Healthy boundaries and self-esteem are achievable goals.

Related articles:
Our Bodies/Ourselves
The Vanity Myth: Eating Disorders and Beauty
Self-Esteem and Standards

GoodTherapy | What Is the Right Thing to Do When an Old Lover Connects with You Online?What would you do? An important romantic figure from your past finds you on an internet social media site. Perhaps this was your first love. This renewed connection brings to mind the passion and enthusiasm of youth—before children, financial problems, and middle age. In your mind, you travel back to a time before career worries, mortgage problems, and thinning hair to a time of anticipation, optimism, and more energy. What would you do? Is it a wrong choice to maintain contact on-line? Is it wrong to have a texting relationship? Where do you draw the line? What is the line that would determine that this is an inappropriate relationship?

Infidelity is high on the list of issues that prompt couples to seek relationship therapy. As a therapist who has worked with couples for over 25 years, I see couples struggle with the aftermath of affairs. Typically, both partners are in considerable pain as they work to heal their marriage and build the trust back. Most couples are able to navigate the storm with the help of therapy, good intentions, and motivation to save the marriage.

Recently, social media has been a player in the triangle when individuals find the old flame or school love that has been out of their lives for the last 15 years. The story has become well known. At first, the reunited lovers are happy to find each other on line and enjoy the new “friendship” and reconnection. There is no threat to the marriage. The new spouse is told about the on-line relationship and nothing seems amiss. But slowly over time, the relationship returns to romance. The now married partner struggles with the old emotions getting stirred up again and begins to feel guilt. They try to work it out on their own by not telling their current spouse about the feelings only to find the appeal of the former romance growing stronger. They decide to meet for coffee. They don’t tell their current spouse because they don’t want to worry them. The secrets continue to grow until they become lies. They kiss and an affair begins. It ends when their current mate stumbles upon text messages or email. A few more lies follow when the wrongdoer is confronted and tries to limit the marital damages. At this time, the current spouse is hurt by the infidelity as well as the lies and denial. The lies become worse than the offense. When they come to my office for therapy, they work on repairing the damages and fixing the elements of the marriage that weren’t working before the affair. It is a lot of work to do.

When I review the choices that the wrongdoer made along to way, it is clear to me how the situation could have turned out better. Here is my advice on choice points. As soon as you begin to have feelings for another person, tell your partner, even if this disclosure causes you pain, embarrassment, or discomfort. Have long conversations with your spouse. Expect the conversations to be difficult. Expect to talk about any unhappiness that may be seeping into your relationship. Dissatisfaction that didn’t have words previously will now have names.

The names of these dissatisfactions are stress, money problems, job troubles, parenting issues, or other family concerns. These difficulties are some of the things that send partners into the arms of someone else. They are looking for an escape from the demands of life, and the old flame takes on the bright shining light of deliverance. The deliverance is short lived. The once bright light that looked like a beacon of hope in the storm was more like a kraken leading you towards the rocky shores of a shipwreck.

My advised choice point looks quite logical in hindsight, but if you are in this situation now, it does not look so simple. If there is something going on in your life that you can’t tell your partner, then the relationship is in trouble already. Talk over your choices with a trusted friend or counselor. There is more at stake here that finding relief from stress. You may be making a choice that will change your life forever. Most people who cheated on their spouses say, afterwards, that they wish they could take it back. Choose wisely.

 

Extradyadic involvement (EDI), also known as infidelity, occurs in many relationships. At times, the infidelity is known to both partners, and at other times, only the participating partner is aware of the EDI. Regardless, EDIs have significant negative consequences. “Many negative emotional and behavioral correlates of EDI have been documented including partner violence, acute anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and symptoms similar to those of posttraumatic stress disorder,” said Christina M. Balderrama-Durbin of the Department of Psychology at the University of Colorado. “Relationship distress and dissolution are also commonly associated with EDI, with infidelity being the most frequently cited cause of divorce.”

Poor communication, often exhibited in couples with EDI, can also be a predictor for infidelity. “Dissatisfied couples are more likely to engage in negative conflict communication behaviors including criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and withdrawal,” she said. The most common pattern of communication in conflicts is known as the demand/withdraw pattern. “During conflict interactions, distressed couples often display a dyadic conflict pattern in which one spouse blames, nags, criticizes, or pressures the other for change, while the other spouse withdraws or avoids conflict,” said Balderrama-Durbin, who observed demand/withdrawal behaviors in couples who had a disclosed EDI, couples with an undisclosed EDI, and couples with no EDI.

After observing 170 couples during a conflict, Balderrama-Durbin found that the couples who had undisclosed EDIs used demand/withdrawal behavior the most frequently. “Specifically, male and female demand behaviors, and male withdraw behaviors, were significantly higher within couples where there had been an unknown EDI compared with those in a relationship with no history of EDI,” said Balderrama-Durbin. She also discovered that the participating partners with undisclosed EDIs were more demanding than those with disclosed EDIs. “Conversely, demand behaviors were higher for nonparticipating partners who knew his or her partner engaged in EDI compared with nonparticipating partners who did not know his or her partner engaged in EDI.” Balderrama-Durbin added, “The present study affirms that even undisclosed aspects of a couple’s relationship can be associated with observable negative conflict communication behaviors. Findings indicate the importance of investigating unique interaction patterns in relationships when an EDI has not yet been revealed or discovered.”

Reference:
Balderrama-Durbin, C. M., Allen, E. S., & Rhoades, G. K. (2011, December 26). Demand and Withdraw Behaviors in Couples With a History of Infidelity. Journal of Family Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0026756

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