Relationship Counseling for Individuals

Conscious Uncoupling Starts With Unconscious Coupling

Couples Relationship Counseling in Seattle!

If possible you haven’t heard, Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin (a movie star & rock star, respectively) announced their divorce this week after a respectable ten-years of marriage.

In fact numerous celebrity duos have recently announced their split as a “conscious uncoupling” — a term they hope sums up just how they’re attempting to go about the whole marriage dissolution thing. Their divorce interactions, they’d like us to believe, involve a thoughtful and mutually compassionate split not overrun by anger and high production drama or defensive emotion. Clearly, “uncoupling” with respect and kindness an admirable goal. But how do and countless couples end up as midlife divorce statistics in the first place?

The seeds of conscious uncoupling are said to be sown somewhere in the less than “mindful” act of unconscious coupling.

Author Abby Rodman explains” “What this means is that many of us choose mates who aren’t right for us by ignoring our unconscious motivations for doing so. Nevertheless, our unconscious — our brain’s holding place for repressed emotions and memories — helps fuel our decisions.”

In other words: “we’re not doing enough psychological due diligence when making such a momentous choice. We simply don’t know ourselves as well as we consciously think. And with the divorce rate hovering at 50 percent, it’s pretty clear we need to dig deeper.”

How do half of us choose marriages that aren’t built to go the distance?

Given our extended lifespans, contemporary marriages must be able to withstand the storms of many decades. And true, some do. However, many more don’t. If 50 percent of marriages end in divorce, it doesn’t mean the other half are happy and satisfying. It only means that some percentage of that other 50 percent is happy. Non-newsflash: many folks stay in unhappy marriages. Suppose you guesstimate that there’s a 25 percent chance of having a happy marriage. Those odds are clearly pretty slim. Emaciated, really! And it all begins with unconscious coupling.”



Abby maintains, “The midlife divorce statistics are trying to show us something important. And, in good conscience, we best not look away. Instead, we might consider that the antidote to conscious uncoupling is conscious coupling.”

And knowing oneself — consciously — is, undeniably, a wise place to start.

Desperately Seeking Happiness

Happiness is one of the most sought after and yet still elusive aspects of life. Happiness is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that everyone wants, but so few people can confidently claim to have discovered. The field of psychology has produced a science of happiness through a variety of studies that has led to a general definition of happiness as the “ability to sustain an overall sense of well being over time.” This ability generally requires a certain amount of emotional flexibility in the context of the many challenges that a person faces daily and throughout life. Modern Mindfulness Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps you achieve the happiness that you value most! Even one session with the right therapist will help you regain your emotional balance and sustain happiness.

Are You in an Unhealthy Relationship?

It’s natural for any couple to have rough patches, but when these rough patches extend into long-term problems it may be time to evaluate the relationship and determine whether or not is is salvageable. Sometimes, we must consider the possibility that not only is it personal shortcomings getting in the way of the quality of the relationship or causing the couple to fall out of love, but that the relationship might actually be unhealthy. A common example is something Robert Firestone coined as a “fantasy bond.” This is a relationship where the couple is not actually in love, but goes through the motions of a relationship to simulate connection.

Miscommunication: When What You Say is Not What You Mean

An important aspect of marriage is the lines of communication that a couple shares with each other. Another important aspect of marriage is downtime. Downtime can mean different things for different people, whether watching football, researching a trip, or maybe just checking Facebook. Even innocent questions asked during downtime, however, can sometimes have disastrous effects when the interruption of the downtime causes a miscommunication. This miscommunication usually involves distracted, terse, sometimes angry responses to simple questions that pull one partner or the other out of what they were doing. This leads to unexpected and unnecessary fights that, fortunately, can be avoided.

How to Handle Loss as a Couple

It can be more important than ever for a couple to come together when faced with a loss. Each person needs someone to be there for them and help them to overcome a situation as trying as a loss, so it is important for someone in a relationship requiring this kind of attention to be sensitive and aware of how to provide it, especially when seeking the same. The challenges of this include struggling to accept your own feelings and deal with all the grief and challenges of your own personal baggage while also helping someone else sort out theirs. Difficult as it may be, these are crucial bonding times.

What is All This Talk About Communication Skills?

“Communication” means different things depending on the context in which the word is used. For example, good communication in advertising or politics is words that will sell those who hear them on either a product, person, or an idea. In relationships, however, communication is not about broadcasting a message, but rather it is an interactive dialogue meant to convey feelings, thoughts, and concerns in a positive way. While most everyone understands how to talk and “communicate” on some level, it may still be important or even necessary to seek counseling on how to effectively communicate within a relationship.

Creating Romantic Abundance in Your Life

Amy Leigh Mercee claims that if you have the internet access and the time to read this article then you have some level of abundance in your life when compared to other people around the world. Most of us have many things in abundance, yet still feel empty and in need of something to fill that emptiness. Mercee suggests that emptiness can be filled by creating a romantic abundance, which can be created whether you’re in a relationship or single. The romantic abundance is an abundance of love in our lives that detours around our desire for external validation.

After the Honeymoon

This article has a pretty easy core idea to get across: marriage isn’t easy. Western culture today tends to romanticize marriage, and, indeed, romantic marriage is an idea that has grown more popular relatively recently, replacing in some places more traditional arranged marriages. While romantic marriages are the norm now, their romanticized nature often doesn’t prepare newlyweds for the realities of marriage. In fact, David Schnarch, the author of Passionate Marriage, writes that only marriage makes a person ready for marriage. While that may be true, Schnarch also writes that an accurate picture of what to expect can at least help newlyweds to better anticipate difficulties.

5 Signs of Emotional Abuse

It is estimated that 1 in 4 women will experience domestic abuse at some point during her lifetime, though it is hard to find real data since most domestic abuses are not reported. Abusive behavior is not solely physical abuse, but can also be emotional abuse which is just as dangerous and damaging. Emotional and psychological abuse can be precursors to physical abuse. There are clear signs to look for when a partner is being emotionally or psychologically abusive. One sign is repeated cheating. While it has been proven that relationships can survive affairs, repeated affairs often show a deliberate or even calculated disregard for the other person’s feelings and emotional needs.

8 Beliefs that are Actually Terrible Advice on Marriage

There is a lot of marriage advice that may seem like “common sense” which is often given by people who mean well that doesn’t actually help the marriage in any significant way. Some can even be counterproductive to saving a marriage. Ongoing marriage difficulties in the face of trying to improve the relationship may have some bad advice at the root. For example, the advice that couples counseling with both partners is required to fix a marriage. At some point both partners need to be involved, but single spouse counseling can help to ease the other spouse into counseling and foster a sense of positivity in the marriage.

Watching Porn in Seattle | The Problem That Must Not Be Named

It’s ironic, but it is hard to have an adult conversation about sex. In some areas, sexually loaded topics are so taboo that you risk your reputation even to raise them. It is not as though we are unaware of this inconvenient truth, despite its political incorrectness in the mainstream culture. Recent research suggests that about 17 percent of individuals who view porn on the Internet meet criteria for sexual compulsivity. That translates to a lot of people, given that about 12 percent of all the Internet traffic is porn and nearly 90 percent of the young male population (about 30 percent of the young female population) view pornography at least occasionally. Unfortunately, this issue is so tricky politically that clinical researchers almost run the other way rather than address it.

Psychotherapy treatment researchers have recently found ways to break the self-amplifying pattern of urge suppression and urge indulgence in OCD, and in OCD spectrum disorders such as hair pulling or skin picking, by using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Several controlled studies have found positive effects for ACT by teaching people to walk in the exact opposite direction than that suggested by the problem-solving organ between our ears. Instead of struggling with futile attempts to control sexual urges, ACT teaches acceptance and mindful awareness of them. Instead of self-loathing and criticism, ACT therapy teaches self-compassion. Instead of avoidance, ACT instigates approaching and sustaining ones’ most authentic values in all important affairs!

Dr. Hart