Breaking the Cycle of Resentment: How to Let Go and Move Forward
No matter how long you’ve been together, every relationship can have highs and lows. From the excitement of first getting married to the challenges of everyday commitments and responsibilities that come soon after, there are countless hurdles that couples must work together to overcome each and every single day in their relationship. This process involves […]
The True Price of Divorce: Understanding the Financial and Emotional Costs of Divorce
When any couple reaches a breaking point in their marriage and the dreaded word, ‘divorce,’ starts to rear its ugly head, they may already feel like their relationship is on a path towards failure. Whether it’s due to infidelity, lack of communication or an outright betrayal, this is a dangerous path for any married couple […]
The Role of Self-Care in a Strong Marriage: How Taking Care of Yourself Helps the Relationship
When thinking about ways to keep a marriage vibrant and healthy, we often find ourselves considering aspects that involve both partners. Whether it’s maintaining healthy and open communication, making sure to dedicate ample quality time together or simply taking the time to show how much you care about your partner, it’s easy to understand why […]
Is It Just a Rough Patch? Recognizing When to Seek Help in Your Relationship
Every relationship has its ups and downs, whether you’ve been together for a few months, a few years or a few decades. Sometimes, these rough patches are just temporary and can be relatively easy to get through with some teamwork and a little extra elbow grease. On the other hand, these bumps in the road […]
Handling Financial Disputes: Practical Tips for Money Harmony in Marriage
In any successful marriage or partnership, there is often one point of contention that can arise, no matter how communicative and transparent you are with one another – finances. Whether you’re financially stable and secure or carefully budgeting month to month, it can be easy to reach points of disagreement or outright argument when money […]
A Partner’s Guide to Supporting Grief: Navigating Loss Together
There is no experience quite as life-changing as experiencing a tragic loss. Whether it’s the sudden death of a beloved family member or the loss of a treasured career, these life-altering experiences can truly be devastating to any individual. From the sudden absence to the loss of support to uncertainty of the future, there are […]
Surviving the Holidays After an Affair
While the holiday season may bring about fond memories and happy times spent with friends and family, there are some situations that can cause insurmountable stress and despair, such as experiencing the turmoil of infidelity. This betrayal is often felt tenfold during the holiday season, which is meant to be a season of celebrating love […]
The Silent Treatment: How to Communicate Through Conflict Without Withdrawal
While there are so many positive experiences that come along with marriage, the unfortunate truth is that there are some not quite as exciting experiences that every couple faces. Namely, conflicts with your spouse. Whether this is a disagreement over something simple, such as what to have for dinner, or a fully fledged argument over […]
Burnout and Your Marriage: Supporting Each Other Through Stress
When you or your partner are working a high-stress job or consistently coping with high-stress situations, such as providing long-term care for an aging parent, it’s easy to fall into burnout. From losing so much of our daily time and energy to these tasks or experiencing continual stress from repeating the same tasks day after […]
Strengthening Your Relationship Through Life’s Transitions
When it comes to life, it’s key to remember that everything is always changing. Nothing that we have or do is set in stone, which is both a blessing and a curse. As we get older, our children will, too, eventually moving out and leaving us empty nesters. We’ll also reach the point in our […]
Politics & Your Marriage: How to Focus on Your Relationship & Push Past the Divide
When it comes to relationships, one piece of advice that is more common than not is to never talk politics. Certainly a divisive topic, politics can quickly ignite a ‘fight to the death’ mode that can quickly come between the most secure and loving of couples and relationships. This is especially true in the United […]
10 Date-Night Ideas to Rekindle Your Relationship
When you think back on the history and health of your marriage and relationship, it’s easy to see that for many couples, the most exciting period is when you initially start dating. From completing all the ‘firsts’ of a new relationship together, like your first dinner out, first dance, and first kiss, to the excitement […]
Making Your Relationship a Safe Haven: Ideas to Help Lean On One Another During These Challenging Times
All of us face stressful seasons in life. But lately, things have seemed especially challenging for just about everyone. World conflict, financial and economic uncertainty, health and safety concerns. Whether directly or indirectly, these problems are impacting lives throughout the world. It’s times like these that our relationships become all the more essential. We lean on […]
Communication After Infidelity is Hard: Here Are 5 Tips to Improve It
Learning how to communicate again after experiencing infidelity is one of the most difficult obstacles one can experience in a lifetime. However, its worth putting in the work because a couple can never experience a deep connection emotionally if they cannot express themselves and feel understood. Infidelity is painful and creates so much uncertainty, pain, […]
Do you believe in soulmates?
As a Rabbi and psychotherapist, I do believe we have soulmates. In my work with couples, I see how this plays out, particularly from the vantage point of Imago Relationship Therapy. The Journey We believe in Imago theory that a person is always attracted to the most positive and negative character traits of their primary […]
Why It’s Important to Go On Dates with Your Spouse & 3 Ideas to Try
Remember the excitement you felt when you were first dating your spouse? The amount of care you put into your outfit and your appearance? The anticipation of seeing each other and the strong desire to reach out and connect again? Going on dates isn’t something only new couples can enjoy. In fact, even though there […]
Work up the motivation to set a New Years Resolution and succeed (even if all other past attempts have failed)
After the doozy that was 2020 and 2021, is there even a point to setting a New Year’s resolution when so many things are out of our control? That may be your inner perfectionist talking- if it can’t be perfect why do it in the first place? It’s wonderful to have the blessings of a […]
What Surrendering in Your Marriage Means & Why it Builds Trusting Relationships
What does it mean to surrender in your relationship—and why bother anyway? It might help to start by talking about what surrendering isn’t. After all, individualism, entrepreneurship, and equality are so strongly celebrated in our culture, so the idea of “surrendering” to your partner can conjure up a lot of negative connotations—becoming a doormat, being weak, being taken advantage of, […]
Should you work on your own “stuff” before trying couples work?
For many couples, or one partner, even going to marriage counseling is a big stretch. You may be afraid the therapist will take sides or blame you. You may even think that addressing the situation will make it worse. That’s why it is extremely unhelpful for a therapist to tell one partner that he/she needs […]
4 Things to Do When Dealing With a Toxic Family Member
It’s normal to have arguments, disagreements, and moments of frustration with our in-laws and close loved ones. If the disconnect becomes harmful and toxic, far beyond the occasional “button pushing” that all family members engage in it’s time to take action. “Family.” The word is dynamic, diverse, and loaded with history—and for all of us, occasional conflict, too. How […]