Happy Couples Need Therapy Too

I was recently chatting with a good friend of mine, and we reached the conclusion that nowadays people expect to meet someone, and automatically be happy as in those beautiful and colourful story boards many couples are sharing on Instagram. You meet him or her, there is a spark in the eyes, your hearts are beating heart at the same time, you feel in love and you stay in love ever after. It seems that's the only definition of love and relationships easily accepted and it is not working, it is not love.

A very simplistic way to see relationships, but which also explains why so many people nowadays prefer to stay single, keep browsing dating apps over and over again, years after years, hoping to see that spark in the eyes of someone whose picture was heavily photoshopped. After all, it is so easy to refuse the chance of a new start when you assume there will always be enough people hanging around online. Plus, when you have a heavy luggage of past relationships, staying around as much as you can because afraid of starting anew and eventually being hurt again is a more comfortable safe option.

I think everyone has his or her own way to react to heartbreak and heartache. Often, it is better to get better and clear with the past stories before starting a new one. Some can easily start again, some need time. Some will maybe never be the same after a serious break.

However, regardless of your choice, a relationship is not gonna work by itself, from the day 1 or not even from the day 1,000. If two people really want to be together, there is a lot of effort on both sides to overcome adversities, difficulties, different histories and cultural backgrounds. And even if things are really easy and there is not a complicated past between the two, assuming that things will come along well without too much effort is a lie.

Probably, for people in their early 20s, things are smoothly. You can trust easier, you have an open heart to share and you can really find love easier. But once you are going straight to your late 30s, things are becoming complicated because your life experience is different and it is good to be so. All you need, is to build the realistic expectations based on communication and the common interest of being together.

Personally, I think that regardless how much you are into a person and want to be together, every single step towards being fully part of a relationshio is terribly hard. Very hard, particularly if you are a very analytical person, always careful to details and observations and simple facts. Feelings are confusing, the mind is always prone to make projections and overthink, ending up being scared by the next step. 

Of course, easy is to say 'good bye' and give up because, who knows, maybe this relationship too will leave you heartbroken or it is just a new version of your old failed relationships. After all, isn't it easy to be alone, enjoy your own comfort and swipe right or left your dating apps. Or not thinking at all about relationships.

However, how rewarding it is - at least for some - the experience of getting to know another person. The beauty of sharing and caring about someone else. The goosebumps of seeing an answer for spending time together. 

It should not work out with everyone, but give a chance when it is worth it, while trying to understand that all the good things in life need work, a lot of work, and so are the relationships. 

When things are going hard and both of you are going through hard times, asking the help of a couple therapist might give both of you a new chance. Giving up is the easiest thing, but when you feel and know that this relationship is worth, don't leave it until all chances were played. A family therapist can help tremendously to build up trust and find the right ways to communicate, especially when people do have different cultural backgrounds and personal and emotional experiences. It will not gonna work out instantly, but when there is a will and you want to be together with the other person, stop fighting and shouting to each other and rather go together to an expert that can help you find peace. Relationships are a long and complicated journey, but how beautiful is to share your journey with someone you love and you know there is no one better than him or her. 

Love with someone is much more rewarding than being on your own. But be sure that you think and evaluate and fight for your relationship as much as you can. Couple therapy can save your future.  

How to break free from narcissists

Why are we attracted to toxic relationships ? What push us to repeat the same experience over and over again although each and every time we end up devastated? How can we break free from narcissist men that are eating out precious life and energy? 

Based on her experience as clinical psychologist, Candace V. Love is going to the roots of the phenomenon: what element from our evolution from childhood onwards made possible the attraction towards self-absorbed, self-serving narcissist partners. Such relationships do have a common pattern: start right but 'turns bitter with disappointment'. The men are nice and supportive and sometimes with a good financial status too. But they can change from a day to another into opressive tyrans and besides the smiling mask a psycho can easily hide. None of the promises of love and appreciation are fulfilled and once set for a marriage and children, a separation seems almost impossible and spending the rest of lie in suffering and frustration a high probability. Such narcissistic are killing you softly and getting back into dating should be done slowly, only after the proper therapy was followed. 'Narcissistic men need their partner to look and act on a certain way because their partners are merely ''a reflection'' and extension of them'. They 'cannot stick with a partner who challenges hem or disagrees with them'.

No More Narcissists! is a very helpful and systematic book about this phenomenon. It analyses case-studies and explores the family psychological dynamic. More often, the victims of narcissists grew up dealing with various degrees of emotional distress and for each typology there are specific relationship life-traps associated. Besides the analyses, the book contains useful exercises and tests aiming to identify various situations and recommending the ways out of them as well as for identifying your core beliefs. 

The focus of the book is exclusively on women and does not cover the eventual reasons and genesis of the narcissistic behavior by women which most likely has the same family root. However, women can be narcissists and dominant too.

Available to order from June 1st, it is a book recommended to anyone decided to break up from specific relationship patterns that prove to be dramatically and heartbreakingly wrong. Therapy is the next logical step to follow, but until then, you may realize where do you stand and how important is to change your dating and sentimental life.

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher via NetGalley.com

Apart or together? Some relationship advice

The first time when I heard about a married couple that choose to live in separate apartments was some years ago and I was not sure if I understood correctly the story. I was surprised and curious to understand why, after all they are still together as long as it seems there are details that keep them apart. The couple is still together and as far as I know they keep having once in a while some separate lives. 

This book is telling one of these stories and I was very interested to read it because of a different perspective on couple. In this case, it is about monogamous couples, married and decided to keep being together. Based on the experience of the author, it explains various reasons for such a unique step and how to create intimacy and take conscious decisions about the time spent together and other arrangements. In the author's words: 'Take a clean eyed look at what you as a couple want, need and consider best for you. And go with that'. 

First and foremost, the couple should have enough money to afford two separate homes, but once this issue solved, the common life plan follows. Another 'advantage' of the couple is the absence of children. The dialogue and better understanding on both parts are important for creating a good balance between the time spent together and separately. The book takes the apartment room by room outlining the reasons for separation and how to get together in a more natural and stress-free way. 

On a different note, this book helped me to discover how simple being I am, without too much concerns about how the books are organised - as long as the books are with me - and many other home details that I skip elegantly. 

After all, it is a matter of personal decision and couple dynamics and each and every couple knows better what suits them the best.

Disclaimer: I was offered the book via NetGalley, but the opinions are, as usual, my own.