Dating is challenging for many. Here are some tips to turn it into a learning adventure.
Sometimes, dating can be discouraging, or it can be a learning experience. One of the things I encourage my dating clients to do is to use their experience to hone their intuitive skills – starting from the first . . . → Read More: First-Date Blues – What Can you Learn?
Infidelity is a huge challenge, but relationships can heal from this and actually become stronger.
Sheldon wrote this question to me during one of my free webinars:
“I am trying to repair my 20-year marriage after my infidelity. I was discovered by my wife two years ago. I had been visiting massage parlors and prostitutes for a period of three years. We spent six months in counseling and made a little progress, but stopped going because of issues with our counselor. My wife is still suspicious of me and has no trust in me at all. How long should I expect before I can regain a little bit of trust. I know that I can’t live the rest of my life like this.”
Sheldon, infidelity is a very challenging issue and there is much to learn from it. Something I’m not hearing in your question is what you have learned in the last two years since your wife discovered your infidelity. Visiting massage parlors and prostitutes is a sign of deep self-abandonment. Seeking these experiences indicates that you felt empty inside and were looking to be filled up externally through sexual experiences. If you have not done the inner work of discovering how you were abandoning yourself and have not learned to love yourself, fill yourself, and be a trustworthy loving adult toward yourself and your wife, then it is unrealistic for her to trust you. Continue reading Healing From Infidelity
How often have you had the thought, “If you really loved me, you wouldn’t…
Get angry, yell, curse, call names, say mean, untrue things about me
Project your behavior onto me
Withdraw, run away, shut down, sit spaced-out in front of the TV
Resist doing what I ask you to do
Look at other women, have an affair
____________________ (fill in your own)
I used to have this thought all the time. If someone yelled, blamed me, shut me out, didn’t see me accurately, or went into resistance, I would think, “You don’t care about me. If you cared about me, you wouldn’t treat me this way. How can you say you care about me and then treat me this way?” Sometimes I would even say this out loud. And always I would feel deep loneliness and heartache at being treated this way.