Relationships

Everyone is in a relationship whether you are married, part of a family, work in an office or have a friend.

In the beginnings of a romantic relationship, there is so much to say and do that there are not enough hours in the day to finish. The physical chemistry is amazing. Mother Nature brings about a natural settling down to enable us to go about the business of life. But, sometimes a distance begins to form and the simplest communications become strained and painful.

Our families are our first relationships and those connections last our entire lives, even beyond death. Those relationships are very powerful and can be determining factors in our emotional development. Families that are healthy and well connected offer support, encouragement and unconditional love. When those connections falter, or have never developed, family members can feel isolation, discounted, minimized and misunderstood.

Friends can become another family and therefore have much the same power as our birth families. While families are an accident of birth, the formation of a friendship is one of choice. The relationship can be much more intense due to the effort needed to become open to the intimacy creating a mutual bond.

Signs and symptoms of a relationship in crisis:

Infidelity
Domestic Violence
Unexplained long hours from home
Loss of intimacy
Lack of interest in mutual concerns
Creation of activities that exclude the other
Sabotaging children’s discipline
Using children as confidants
Intense anger over trivialities
Fault finding and grudge holding
Frequent and unresolved arguments
Indifference regarding the other’s needs