Marriage exists at the edge of human capability. No one is born ready to create a happy, thriving marriage; we have to develop that capacity. It’s like playing the piano or climbing a mountain or ballroom dancing:  possible, but not easy. 

Narcissists often achieve professional success, but they usually lack close friends and are incapable of love. Once learned, narcissism is quite difficult to reverse, so your child will probably be a narcissist for life. This may increase their odds of professional success at the expense of having a satisfying personal life. 

Relationship therapy can help you resolve these immaturities. When you grow yourself up, your partner is likely to follow. You might even find that your own immaturity has been enabling and encouraging your partner to be immature as well.

Dr. Schnarch encourages us to do two things: first, admit we are regressed. Saying “I’m regressed” is a critical first step on the journey to getting better. Then, you start swimming for the surface. If you’re not sure whether you are regressed or not, you probably are. If you’re still not sure, take a look at your most important relationships: do your loved ones feel comfortable expressing their opinions around you, or asking for what they want? Would they be afraid to say something critical to you? Is anyone walking on eggshells around you?

80% of the distress you experience in your adult relationship is an emotional flashback to childhood. The human brain is more optimized for survival in childhood than thriving in adult relationships. In childhood, your brain formed around whatever behavior was needed to coexist with your parents or caretakers. In adulthood, the behavioral patterns you learned are still with you, and they tend to make themselves known in adult romantic relationships. 

Everyone has an inner critic, that voice in your head that says you’re just not good enough, you need to try harder, focus more, and get more done. We learn to talk to ourselves this way in inner adolescence, when we’re making the transition from being told what to do all the time to making our own decisions about what to do.

As a general rule, we tend to be romantically attracted to people who are at least as emotionally mature This means that long-term relationships end up forming between two people with similar levels of emotional maturity. Once a relationship forms, couples tend to grow or stagnate together, so it’s quite rare to find a couple where one person is significantly more mature than the other. 

I measure my effectiveness as a marriage therapist by how much difference I see in a couple at the end of a session, compared to at the beginning of a session. I want my clients to practice participating in collaborative conflict, revealing their true thoughts and emotions, letting go of defensiveness, and stepping into more compassion, kindness, love and courage. When they do, I point out what they are doing, and I tell them to keep doing it. It’s not easy, but it is definitely possible.

Anger is the second act in a three-act play. First, you feel unsafe, insecure, or threatened. Second, you get angry, Third, you act on your anger, turning it into aggression. Anger is a feeling, and aggression is action taken in anger. For most of us, the progression happens so fast that we become aggressive as soon as we feel threatened. Relationships are much better when we stop the progression at the first or second stage. Aggressive behavior always harms intimate relationships.

Developed Dr. David Schnarch, Crucible Therapy helps couples overcome the most difficult relationship challenges. Crucible therapy focuses developing each person’s capacity to love and value each other. It recognizes the difficulty involved in rebuilding a broken marriage, and provides a reliable framework for personal and relationship growth. 

Anxiety kills relationship communication. When you're anxious, you can't calm down enough to listen to what your partner's saying, because you're too busy thinking about what you want to say next. If you want to have a productive relationship talk, start by taking a few deep breaths, and invite your partner to do the same. If you start to go into fight or flight mode, take a break and continue the conversation once you've calmed down. Calm is contagious, and anxiety is also contagious. The more anxiety you bring into the conversation, the less progress you'll make.

When you feel abandoned or overwhelmed, you might blame your partner for these feelings and the physical sensations that accompany them. In reality, this distress has more to do with your childhood than with your partner. While your stress is related to your relationship and your partner contributes to your distress, they are not the cause of it, nor will they be the solution. As a child, you had to maintain a close emotional relationship with your parents to survive. That’s why your body experiences so much distress when you feel abandoned or overwhelmed by your partner. These feelings are not an accurate reflection of what it means to be an adult; they are just emotional flashbacks from childhood.

Touch

One partner is the giver and the other is the receiver. We will switch roles after few minutes.

When I am the giver: take a deep breath and allow my body to settle down. Search my soul for the love I still feel for my partner. Reach out and communicate that love through a gentle caress on the hand or arm. This requires me to let go of the tension, anger, and hurt I have been holding on to.

When I am the receiver: settle myself enough to receive my partner’s touch. Reach out with my heart to receive what is being given. Accept my partners’ gift without judgment.

Children who do not get enough positive emotional engagement from their parents sometimes turn to disruptive behavior as a way to attract negative emotional attention. Family card games, especially games that involve bluffing and guessing, help children learn to tolerate intense emotions, self-soothe, and enjoy emotional interactions with family members.

My favorite way of working through anxiety is to focus my attention on my place in the physical world. This starts with what is happening inside my own body: if I’m anxious, I probably have a sense of pain or tightness in my chest or stomach. That physical sensation is more real than the imagination games that feed on my anxiety, so it’s a good place to start. I notice what my body is experiencing, and open myself up to it: it’s OK for me to feel what I’m feeling right now.

When we were children, we were vulnerable to being abandoned or overwhelmed. We regulated our emotional state by trying to increase connection with our parents if we felt abandoned, or trying to decrease it if felt overwhelming. Our brains were programmed to maintain a reasonable level of connection with our parents, because we needed it to survive.

Our bodies used intense, unpleasant physical sensations to make us take action in those situations. As adults, we still feel those sensations, especially in relationships. Have you ever felt a tightness in your chest or stomach when you want more (or less) attention from your partner? This physical distress makes sense in a child/parent relationship, where the child needs the parent for survival. It doesn’t make sense in an adult relationship, but it happens anyway. Our bodies are telling us lies.

Somatic acceptance is the practice of noticing, accepting, and feeling kindness toward the unpleasant physical sensations that accompany intense emotions. By noticing the physical component of intense emotions, we can increase our emotional capacity and our ability to tolerate intimacy. The practice of somatic acceptance has helped many of my clients let go of their need to “do something” about intense emotions.

During an intense, frightening, or dangerous experience, the brain shuts off higher-level thinking in favor of low-level survival protocols. After the event is past, there is an opportunity to reprocess what happened with the brain fully engaged.

Writing is an excellent way to do this reprocessing. Writing engages the prefrontal cortex and helps us add structure to difficult memories. This can move a memory from the survival category to the “something that is no longer a threat” category. When memories stay in the survival category, they trigger emotional flashbacks, also known as trauma responses. These are the intense feelings we get that have more to do with the past than the present.

The way we breathe changes the way we feel. Each of these exercises can help you feel less fear, sadness, and anxiety.

You can’t fill your lungs if you’re hunched over. Sit up straight or lie down, and tilt your head back to make room for more air in your lungs.

Intentional breathing sends an “I’m safe” message to the brain, helping the body relax.