Honesty is Necessary in Love
“Love is nothing without truth.”
I had always thought myself to be a fairly honest person, and by society's standards I was. But what society considers honest and what true honesty really is, are two separate things. We've been systematically taught in our culture to make lying a part of our lives. We do it so often that we don't even notice it anymore.
Honesty is telling "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Society's definition of the truth telling is to tell the truth ONLY if it doesn't make anyone uncomfortable, doesn't cause a conflict, and it makes you look good.
I'm not talking about the big lies, but more about the consistent, persistent "lies of omission" and "white lies" we tell people almost everyday. For me, I didn't even consider these small untruths to be lies until I experienced the exact opposite. The whole truth.
It hadn't realized exactly how dishonest I was and how much of myself I was holding back. This dishonesty caused me to feel disconnected from others and created small walls between me and my partner. When I withheld my whole truth, I withheld others from seeing all of me. This may be fine in most relationships but not in my primary relationship with my spouse, I wanted all of me to be loved, even those parts I judged as bad or wrong.
If I wanted to create true intimacy and closeness, I was going to have to let my partner see ALL of me. This was very scary for me because what if he got angry, or hurt, or decided "all of me" was not what he wanted and left the relationship? But then, what kind of relationship would I have if he only knew part of me?
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prevent divorce
Fourteen Principles to Prevent Divorce
1. Choose partners from all four perspectives: mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual.
2. Attend to and support the WE part of the relationship.
3. Avoid sloppy agreements.
4. Deal with all conflicts until you come to mutual satisfaction.
5. Own unacceptable parts in you and your spouse: imperfections, inadequacies, etc.
6. Accept all limitations that you or your spouse have.
7. Allow yourself to be scared, disappointed, and powerless.
8. Express anger only as a five-minute event.
9. Place primary focus on the sameness in the relationship rather than the differences.
10. Listen without defending.
11. Avoid using differences to inflate or deflate yourself or the other in order to prove or defend anything.
12. See other as a reflection of you.
13. Close the back door of the relationship, so leaving is not a threat.
14. Do not end your relationship unless you can say and hold the thought for one week, "I love you and no longer want to be married to you" without any debating, blaming, hostility, or sexualizing.
Emotions
Pain
Ill health
Pain can be so intense that it can make you physically ill. Any existing medical condition could worsen and you need to take extra care of yourself. Keep in regular touch with your G.P. When your body is trying to deal with the emotional turmoil, there is little energy left to fight off any illness. Try to consider this particularly if you are instigating the proceedings.
Pain is inevitable
Continuing to suffer is only an option. Although it may be difficult to perceive at this stage, your goal is to let go of this terrible pain. How can this be done? By 'forgiving' your spouse. You do not have to do this personally; you are allowing yourself to 'forgive' in order to say goodbye with love. 'Forgive' yourself too for any part in this. It may be too early on your journey to contemplate this but try to revisit this section later. Keep this as a future goal no matter how ridiculous it may seem to you now.
A closed heart
Try not to leave with a closed heart as you will need an open heart to appreciate your new life and its new possibilities. When love is present, life works. Try to remember the love that existed once. You were once loved, called beloved. Remember how it felt. Plan to feel like this again. You once lived in this state of love but now your pain is causing you to withdraw. This hurt is making you closed to the possibility of love and happiness. Attempt to look for something positive each day. Gratitude is so valuable.
Looking back without pain
There will be a time when you remember the love that existed without feeling this pain. You must not close off this former life; it is part of who you are. Your memories may be painful now but after time, they will be just happy memories again. Do not destroy your photos and mementos. You may want to see them when you are not hurting so much. If you have children, they will want to see them too as this is part of them. They do not belong to you alone; they are part of both of you and hurt when the other parent is criticised.
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Should I Divorce?
Have you ever wondered "Should I stay married or should I divorce"? You are not alone. Troubles in a marriage easily prompt these kind of questions. The article below will help you sort out your feelings.
Reality Check
Before moving on with what you need to know about divorce, the next few paragraphs will ask you to look before you leap if you find yourself wanting out of your marriage. Choosing to divorce might ultimately be your decision, but it should be one made in a state of calm with little doubt and few regrets.
When someone approaches me and says he or she wants a divorce, my first reaction is to say, "Are you sure?" Decisions made in haste can take on lives of their own, and before you know it, there may be no turning back to save your marriage. Deep down we all know when we are at peace with the decisions we've made- big and small. Sometimes we listen to our gut and sometimes we don't.
When we make decisions and take action while our doubt mechanism is in full gear, we know we will eventually pay for it. To avoid this scenario, respect the little voice inside you, if it says "wait." Your gut instinct is asking you to reevaluate the situation before making your decision. Before making this significant change in your life take a good look at yourself and your concept of marriage.
When you're looking at the choice to divorce, forget all about the idea of the romantic fairy tale. It's time to take a good look at marriage and understand what it really takes to make this type of partnership work. Depending on how realistic and honest you are when evaluating your situation, when it comes to a divorce, you may find that the grass may not always be greener on the other side. For a good dose of reality, sit down and write out a pro and con list of staying married vs. the realities of divorce and being single.
Consider the following: children, your career status and ability to make money, finances, life style changes, cost of divorce, being single again and the threat of sexually transmitted diseases once you're back on the dating circuit. (You may be thinking, "I never want to date again, but trust me, you will.)
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25 tips for relationship success
by Susan Quilliam
What's the key to successful relationships? Here, Susan Quilliam reveals the simple things you need to know to deepen your partnership and make your relationship work
1. Without quality time, your relationship will not survive. Carve out at least half an hour a night, and at least one day a month when you the two of you spend time exclusively together.
2. You will both need security, comfort. A good relationship is built on compromise and a great deal of give and take on both sides.
3. Keep your dependence and independence in balance. Tell and show your partner how much you need him, but don't cling, as that can make your partner feel trapped.
4. Encourage him to listen to you, by showing appreciation when he does. By the same token, show interest when he talks to you. Be aware that most men aren't mentally programmed for conversation in the way women are. They need more silence and internal time.
5. Make him appreciate you. Don't wait for a spontaneous compliment, but say something good about yourself and ask for his agreement.
6. Teach him, preferably early in your relationship, exactly how to give you a fail-safe orgasm because it's unlikely he'll find out alone. If you don't yet know yourself, find out.
7. Learn to do the one thing that is most likely to restore good feeling in your relationship - giving your partner a genuine, loving and approving smile.
8.Often those subtle quirks that first attracted you to your partner can, with time, turn around and become toe-curlingly annoying habits. Learn to love him, warts and all.
9. Hidden resentments poison a relationship; so if something bothers you, say it. Remember that while men are wary of emotional conversations, they love to find solutions. Express your problem and then ask him to help you find the answer.
Chapter 5
How to Be an Effective Listener
The first four chapters discussed the need for effective listening, fallacies about listening, the process of listening, and the types of listening. They provided the background you need to improve your listening skills. This chapter is a prescriptive one. It offers practical suggestions on how to be a better listener.
While there are many ways to construct a list of suggestions, we will consider them in terms of what works best in three major categories:
1. What you think about listening.
2. What you feel about listening.
3. What you do about listening.
You can learn to listen effectively; look now at the components of that learning: thinking, feeling, doing.
What You Think about Listening
Although thinking, feeling, and doing go hand in hand, the thinking (or cognitive) domain of learning is perhaps the best place to begin. After all, effective listening takes effort—it requires maximum thinking power. Here are six suggestions.
1. Understand the complexities of listening. Most of us take good listening for granted. Therefore, we don’t work very hard at improving. But listening is a complex activity, and its complexity explains the emphasis given in previous chapters to understanding the fallacies, processes, and types of listening.
Knowing the fallacies about listening can keep you from being trapped by them. Knowing that the process involves more than just receiving messages will help you focus on not just receiving, but the other components as well. Recognizing the five major types of listening will help you to consciously direct your energies toward the type of listening required for the circumstance of the moment.
Listening requires an active response, not a passive one. Effective listening doesn’t just happen; it takes thought—and thinking can be hard work. But there is no other way to become an effective listener. Think about the complexities of listening, and work to understand them.
2. Prepare to Listen. Preparation consists of three phases—long-term, mid-term, and short-term. We said earlier that becoming an effective listener is a lifetime endeavor; in other words, expanding your listening ability will be an ongoing task. But there are two things you can do to improve your listening skills for the long term: (a) practice listening to difficult material and (b) build your vocabulary.
Too many people simply do not challenge their listening ability. Since most of today’s radio and television programs do not require concentrated or careful listening, your listening skills do not improve through continued exposure to them. And you have to stretch if you want to grow. Force yourself to listen carefully to congressional debates, lectures, sermons, or other material that requires concentration.
Building your vocabulary will improve your conversational skills and your reading skills as well as your listening skills. And the more words you learn, the better listener you will become.
Mid-term preparation for listening requires that you do the necessary background study before the listening begins. Background papers, prebriefs, and an advance look at a hard copy (or an electronic display) of briefing slides or charts will assist you in being ready to listen.
Short-term preparation may be defined as an immediate readiness to listen. When the speaker’s mouth opens, you should open your ears. That is not the time to be hunting for a pen, reading a letter from home, or thinking about some unrelated subject. Good listeners—really good listeners—are in the “spring-loaded position to listen.” It is important to prepare to listen.
Violence Against Women
G. Erlick Robinson
(1) University of Toronto and The University Health Network, Toronto, Canada, CA
Summary ¶Although North America is viewed as a place where women have equal rights and status, violence against women is still rampant. Forty to 51% of women experience some type of violence in their lifetime including child abuse, physical violence, rape and domestic violence. The perpetrator is most likely to be a current or former partner. Such violence stems from historical views of women as property and may flourish because of the publicrsquos reluctance to get involved in family matters. The concept of violence has been expanded to include non-traditional types such as sexual harassment, breeches of fiduciary trust and stalking. Treatment of victims of violence must include ensuring their safety, encouraging them to make healthy choices and helping them to understand they are not at fault. Education at all levels is required to change attitudes which perpetuate violence despite laws which forbid it.
Keywords: Violence against women; abuse; womenrsquos mental health; treatment of victims; gender issues; sexual harassment; stalking; breech of trust.
Five myths that will kill any love relationship:
Music, movies, friends and fairy tales teach us how to love but they teach us the wrong thing. Accepting such lessons without question is dangerous to the health of your relationships. Here are five myths that can kill any love relationship. You'll be wise to avoid them.
1. Love is enough.
2. There is nothing to learn.
3. If you love me, you'll _______.
4. My mate will change.
5. I'll do my half.
1. Love is enough: This is a lie. Love isn't enough to hold you together. You need to be able to communicate, understand each other, and solve problems together. There will be no happily-ever-after when all you do is to ride off into the sunset together. What the movies and the romance novels really don't tell you is that on the other side of that sunset, the next day, life together begins. And life brings with it challenges. At the very least, you now have to find out how to share the same house, the same room, the same bed, and the same money. In addition, you now have new friends, relatives, and strangers to deal with. It's no longer the dating scene. You don't go home at the end of the day, weekend, or whatever. You are now both home. Those charming things you like about each other are now with you all the time. There is no escape.
Closeness brings intimacy but it also brings a need to change and adapt. Change is difficult. You can tolerate only so much change without being affected. So getting married is a major change. The rules are different now. You can't even insulate yourself from these problems by living together first. In fact, studies show that living together before marriage is an indicator for a higher chance of divorce.
Even though you can't avoid problems, you can prevent their damage. What you can do is to create a safe environment at home where you can talk with each other. When you can talk without fear of criticism, anger, or any other lack of support, you can talk about anything. When you can talk as true partners on the same team, you can solve problems. As difficult as this is, once you have accomplished the task, you can use it forever. The book "Talk to Me: How to Create Positive Loving Communication" can help you create that safe environment so your love can prosper.
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A Heads Up Relationship Can Go A Long Way: "A Heads Up Relationship Can Go A Long Way
By Dr. Richard Boyum
There are a lot of different ways to look at what allows a relationship to work. One of them is focusing on how a relationship works above the neck. Consider using a rating scale of 1-10, with 1 being low and 10 being high, to rate you and your partner's relationship on these above the neck characteristics. See how the two of you together do.
Eye to eye contact How well do you and your partner look at each other eye to eye? When you are involved in a serious discussion or casual chatter, do you look at each other and hold eye contact? Seeing eye to eye is important. Also, when you look at your partner what do your eyes see? Do you find the look appealing and positive? When you are being affectionate do you and your partner share at least some of this experience with eyes open, face to face? When discussing a difficult subject can you keep in touch eye to eye?
Ear to ear contact Do you hear what your partner has to say and enjoy listening to them? Do you find the description of their day interesting to hear about? Do you seek out and want to listen to their thoughts, opinions and ideas? Do you like the sound of their voice? Do you understand what they say? In really good hearing like good harmony you can hear your"
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Find Your Way through Divorce
by Jill Curtis
If you or your and your partner are thinking of separating, or if you are in the middle of breaking up, how can you best find your way through the minefield? Have warning signs been ignored? This book is a down-to-earth guide to help you through the process without avoiding the question of whether or not divorce is the only option.
Offering practical advice and strategies that will be invaluable during this difficult time, Jill Curtis focuses on ways of minimizing the emotional cost of divorce for everyone involved. There are ways you can deal with the break-up of a marriage that will lessen the trauma of divorce. This is the book that will put you on the right track.
*
Is your relationship breaking down? Looking at the signs
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Why do people have affairs?
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Is there domestic violence?
*
Must there be a divorce?
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If it's inevitable, what exactly does divorce entail?
*
What about the children? What is PAS?
*
Understanding the emotional and physical effects of divorce
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After divorce - working with your 'ex', being single again, stepparenting, blending a family
*
A second wedding?
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14 Relationship Principles to Live A Successful Relationship
By David Krueger
Each relationship combines two individual stories to coauthor a new relationship story. The implicit contracts authored by each party in a relationship become unspoken assumptions that can facilitate or derail the relationship.
A crucial part of communication in a relationship is to make explicit the hidden assumptions and implicit expectations. To see the point of view of the other and to communicate that understanding, each must respect the other’s point of view. Understanding and respect are not synonymous with agreement.
The ultimate freedom is not to rely on someone else’s response to determine how you feel about yourself.
Ineffectiveness of communication, simply feeling that what you said was not heard or registered by the other, may result in irritation or anger. So often the content of the discussion is focused on with greater intensity, rather than the process initiating the derailment of feeling ineffective in not being heard.
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Guide to Grieving:
Coping with a Divorce or Relationship Breakup
Allow yourself to be sad. Cry, sob, scream, if you need to. One day you will find that you feel slightly better, and the next day the feelings will diminish even more. Eventually the thought of your ex will not generate any sad feelings. Source: Surviving a BreakUp (CSULB)
In This Article:
Why does a breakup hurt so much...? How can others help?
Opportunity for growth Need to consult a professional?
Parenting, mutual friends, property... References and resources
Keeping in touch with my ex
The loss of a partner through death is an obvious source of grief, but relationships end for many other reasons, and there is often a great deal of pain involved when:
couples have grown apart
a partner has an affair
one person relocates for work
a friend moves to another state
one partner wants to marry or live together while the other does not
one has a problem (medical, financial, addiction, etc.) that the other will not abide
one person feels betrayed or is deserted by the other
the relationship has become physically or emotionally abusive
Whatever the story behind the end of the relationship, as the once-popular song says, “Breaking up is hard to do.” Even when the relationship has gone sour, and even for the person initiating the breakup, the loss is often still a tangible and painful experience.
Why does a breakup hurt so much, even when the relationship is no longer good?
“You’re better off without him.” “She’s a real heartbreaker.”
When you lose a close friend or love relationship, you are likely to feel great sorrow and heartache. But even in the end of a bad relationship, there can be deep pain and grief. There might be the sense of failure, hopelessness, loss, despair, fear, or desperation.
In many cases, the length of the relationship compounds the pain of loss – a divorce after half a lifetime together can seem like the end of the world. Partly, it depends on how much you had vested, spiritually, emotionally and financially. But even short-term relationships can involve an investment in fantasy and in hopes for the future, and their loss can be similarly heart-wrenching.
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Ingredients of Successful Relationships
Developing and maintaining successful and enduring relationships and marriages is one of the primary and most important challenges that we will face as adults. A lot of things may go right or wrong in our lives, but few are as critical to our happiness and well being than a happy relationship with a life partner.
Truly good relationships don’t just happen by accident. While it is not uncommon for new relationships to be blissful and relatively problem free, when some of the newness and excitement wears off, problems are likely to emerge if we haven’t made an effort to nurture the relationship. Having a successful relationship is not too dissimilar from any task. You have to identify the key components of the task, acquire the skills, do the needed work and then follow up to maintain the work you’ve accomplished. Below are a number of key ingredients that many marriage counselors and psychologists would agree form the basis for successful relationships. Using this list, do a brief assessment of your current relationship and identify those areas in which you and/or your partner may need to improve.
Friendship
Recent research has identified that the quality of the couple’s friendship is very important. Being each others best friend, and making that friendship an ongoing priority, can not only provide a couple with joyful companionship, but can also help them weather the storms and crises they will undoubtedly face over the years. Consider the marital friendship as the essential foundation of the relationship. Ask yourself honestly whether you treat your partner as well as you would another close friend, and if not, take steps to correct this.
Honesty and Trust
Other essential core ingredients are honesty and trust. It is very difficult to risk being vulnerable, open and communicative with our partners if we cannot be sure they will protect and honor our trust. Any behavior that undermines the trust and honesty in the relationship also undermines its potential success.
Effective Communication Skills
Effective communication is much more than just talking back and forth. It includes multiple skills such as listening closely so that you accurately receive your partner’s message, not interrupting, trying to understand your partner’s point of view even if you don’t agree with it, giving fair and supportive feedback, expressing your feelings clearly and many other skills. Couples with successful relationships have often had to learn good communication skills, as they don't always come naturally.
Time commitment
Regardless of how busy a couple is, it is always possible to carve out some time for the relationship. Couples who have difficulty doing so may need to resort to a standing marital date night and regularly scheduled time to talk.
Be aware of the assumptions that your mind offers. Could it be something else?
Many of us learned to believe early in life that other people determine our happiness. We might learn to live by this belief before we learn to talk or walk. This is the first false belief we create about our relationships. We can find a clue to this in our subconscious behind comments we make such as "he/she makes me so happy."
The truth is that you make yourself happy. You probably just don't know how anymore. In the midst of life experience we lose track of how we become unhappy and who is responsible. We have created so many automatic emotional reactions over the years that we have become unfamiliar with how to make ourselves happy. When we come back to the the idea that we make ourselves happy it may even seem foreign.
It can become difficult to keep track of which emotions are reactions and which are authentic expressions. There is another person that can often appear to be responsible when we react. We interpret it this way so appears to be true. But there is another possible cause for our emotion. Have a listen and consider this other point of view.
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What you can do to have a great relationship
The Secret of Relationship Success
Mark Brandenburg.com
With a divorce rate in this country that approaches 50%, and a
fairly sizable percentage of marriages that aren’t particularly
blissful, it’s difficult to avoid searching for the answer to
the battle of the sexes.
Would you like to stop searching?
We’ve moved through the old paradigm of getting your needs met
in relationships and it has proven itself to be a miserable
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Abuse/Incest Support: "Hi I have met a partner who had been heroin addict for 7 years or there abouts and has Hep C. I was wondering what harm has the use of the drug had/will have on their health. And I know that Hep C is blood-to-blood transmission but is there any other risks for me contracting it? Say, if we both had cracked lips and kissed? Or menstrual blood etc. And what about our children, anything to be concerned about here?
Also there is the stress element. She gets overwhelmed quite easily about little things and says she feels like using drugs when she is like this. ALthough she says that she doesn't think she ever would seriously. How should I approach this problem? She doesn't really believe in herself and wants to please everyone so that is over taxing too.
The reason she got onto heroin is that her first sexual intercourse experience was a brutal rape. So she had/has issues with that as well. She felt so awful about her body appearance, that men were staring at her breasts that she got a breast reduction. Which I can understand to certain degree, they're still quite noticable (big) and she is still uncomfortable with them. I want her to feel comfortable and not to worry about anyone else's opinions so much and to love herself as much as I do.
All this may sound a bit naiive("
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Communication
Communication Home
Everyone has the skills to turn grunts into words. But having good communication skills is deeper then the spoken words. It is even deeper then waving your arms around like a windmill and other forms of body language. Communication is something far greater and unfortunately complex.
In this day and age, we can communicate and relay messages through space. We gather all sorts of information and understanding about the universe light years from us. Yet a large majority of people lack the effective communication skills to relate to someone only 1 meter away! That means, the chances are this is you.
If you think learning communication skills is unnecessary, continue your everyday arguments. Go away and keep feeling that no one understands you. Continue to wonder why your child, parent, friend, or boss treats you poorly.
If you would like to continue the journey in understanding us complex "beings" and the "signals" we send, improving your life and relationships, join my free newsletter "Earthling Transmission" today by clicking here and signing up. As a bonus for signing up, I'll send you a subscriber only report filled with tonnes of advice on communicating effectively.
Tips on Effective Listening
"We were given two ears but only one mouth, because listening is twice as hard as talking."
Brief Theory of Communication
Expressing our wants, feelings, thoughts and opinions clearly and effectively is only half of the communication process needed for interpersonal effectiveness. The other half is listening and understanding what others communicate to us. When a person decides to communicate with another person, he/she does so to fulfill a need. The person wants something, feels discomfort, and/or has feelings or thoughts about something. In deciding to communicate, the person selects the method or code which he/she believes will effectively deliver the message to the other person. The code used to send the message can be either verbal or nonverbal. When the other person receives the coded message, they go through the process of decoding or interpreting it into understanding and meaning. Effective communication exists between two people when the receiver interprets and understands the sender’s message in the same way the sender intended it.
Sources of Difficulty by the Speaker
Voice volume too low to be heard.
Making the message too complex, either by including too many unnecessary details or too many issues.
Getting lost, forgetting your point or the purpose of the interaction.
Body language or nonverbal elements contradicting or interfering with the verbal message, such as smiling when anger or hurt is being expressed.
Paying too much attention to how the other person is taking the message, or how the person might react.
Using a very unique code or unconventional method for delivering the message.
Sources of Difficulty by the Listener
Being preoccupied and not listening.
Being so interested in what you have to say that you listen mainly to find an opening to get the floor.
Formulating and listening to your own rebuttal to what the speaker is saying.
Listening to your own personal beliefs about what is being said.
Evaluating and making judgments about the speaker or the message.
Not asking for clarification when you know that you do not understand.
He Said... - He Said... She Said...: "He Said...
Valentine's Day... Just How Important is it?
Robert Roy �He Said� Columnist
Issue date: 2/10/05 Section: He Said... She Said...
Danya Jimenez
Valentines Day means different things to different couples and its significance will vary with each relationship. There are only two arguments I have against Valentines Day.
First, the day has become overly commercialized and could be called the Hallmark holiday. Jewelry, perfume and chocolates have become the focus of the holiday while love and romance have lost their importance. Couples need to remember that it is not about gifts and presents; it is about the celebration of love.
Secondly, if a couple is in love and devoted to each other then they should not need a designated day to be sweet and romantic. A successful relationship takes work and effort from both sides. Each person should be putting in this kind of effort on a regular basis not just on an annual holiday.
However, if she wants Valentines Day to be a big deal, then it has to be a big deal, because lets face it, a happy girlfriend will make a happy relationship. She deserves it for all the great things she has done for "
click on title to read on
Romantic Ideas to Make it
Valentine's Day All Year Long!
Larry James
To be a special Valentine to your partner takes lots of energy, time, attention and Love. Let's all give some thought about who we are being in our relationship, what we can do to make them better and who we will have to become to have them be healthy and successful.
Celebrate your relationship or reach out and touch someone you love. Consider celebrating with friends or family. Be creative. Take some time to give some thought to how your partner likes to be acknowledged, appreciated and loved.
You must consitently invest in your relationship to receive its dividends. No deposit. . . no return.
Make EVERYDAY Valentine's Day for your partner or someone you love.
1. I proposed to my wife on Valentine's Day. I went to the Olive Garden in the afternoon and left three red roses and a vase and asked the manager to have someone watch for us and when the waitress brought our drink order to have the roses and our engagement ring with a beautiful card delivered. Bring your own Valentine's candles, rose pedals, etc.
2. Send your partner a special note to their office telling them that tonight you are offering a full-body massage, with candlelight and favorite beverage. Let your fingers do the talking. It's a great way to express your love for your partner. Or, hire a masseuse to give your partner a professional massage at home.
3. Have a caterer deliver and serve a beautiful meal to your home for Valentine's Day.
click on title to read on
HANDLING MARITAL PROBLEMS
______________________________
Avoiding facing marital problems
Some married people avoid expressing their unhappiness to "keep peace." Although well intentioned, this concealing of your feelings and pain from your spouse month after month causes serious harm to your marriage. The quiet one is denying the truth, pretending to be happier than he/she is, minimizing the marital problems, endangering his/her own health, avoiding a vital task merely because it is stressful, trying to play it safe, acting uncaringly and hostilely towards his/her spouse, and reneging on his/her sacred vows to preserve the marriage. This is kind of keeping the peace is the kind of behavior that causes problems. Honest openness is needed to maintain a marriage. Don't cop out. Learn about "I" statements and empathy responding in chapter 13, then get to work.
Some writers, e.g. Cole & Laibson (1982), believe that the hiding of disagreements between husband and wife also gives children a distorted view of marriage and deprives the children of the chance to learn how to handle conflict. We need to realize that (1) all thinking people disagree occasionally and (2) anger doesn't have to destroy love. Many happy couples fight verbally or argue. Cole and Laibson think parents should "fight" (disagree or argue but not get verbally or physically abusive) in front of the kids and especially show the children that arguments can and should lead to workable solutions. Children shouldn't witness certain arguments, however, such as about sex, child-rearing, money, relatives, or divorce, nor should the children become involved in the argument if it is just between the parents. Always assure the children that they aren't causing the marital problems. No parent should ever involve a child as an emotional substitute for the spouse, an ally against the other parent, or as a pawn in the marital wars. The rules for fair, good, constructive "fighting" are given in chapter 13; two psychologists have written a book on how to conduct effective, beneficial family fights (Rubin & Rubin, 1988). If you can't follow these rules and the arguments become vicious, name-calling, destructive battles, both partners should get counseling.
click on title to read on
Debate Resumes on the Safety
of Depression's Wonder Drugs
By GARDINER HARRIS
Warnings by drug regulators about the safety of Paxil, one of the world's most prescribed antidepressants, are reopening seemingly settled questions about a whole class of drugs that also includes Prozac and Zoloft.
Doctors are just beginning to react to the finding - reported first by British drug authorities in June and then endorsed the next week by the Food and Drug Administration - that unpublished studies about Paxil show that it carries a substantial risk of prompting teenagers and children to consider suicide.
Because the studies also found that Paxil was no more effective than a placebo in treating young people's depression, the regulators recommended that doctors write no new Paxil prescriptions for patients under 18. Experts say that the suicide risk is highest in the first few weeks young patients are on the drug.
The concern that Paxil and drugs like it could cause suicide had been weighed, and rejected, by regulators a dozen years ago, amid early concerns about the group of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or S.S.R.I.'s. In the meantime, millions of people have taken the drugs, and many experts say that they have prevented far more suicides by teenagers and children than any reading of the new findings suggests they could have caused.
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Study Finds Stronger Link Between Paxil And Suicide
http://www.MyFloridaPharmacy.com
August 22, 2005
Norwegian researchers are raising new warnings about the anti-depressant drug, Paxil, saying it is associated with a higher risk of suicide in adults. The drug, which is currently not approved for use by children, has been the subject of 16 scientific reviews, which were analyzed for the Norwegian study.
The review, published in the BMC Medicine journal, compared Paxil, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline, with a placebo. The authors say they found seven suicide attempts among those taking the drug, compared to one for those taking the placebo.
The ultimate conclusion would be that Paxil doesn't work as per it's objectives and instead causes many more problems.
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Zoloft Side Effects - suicide, withdrawal, agitation, aggression, hostility: "
Zoloft bottleLACK OF EFFICACY
Most people are unaware of the fact that Zoloft and drugs like it are not particularly effective in the treatment of depression or other “mental disorders” for which they are approved and prescribed. Pfizer and the other drug manufacturers do not want consumers to be aware of this fact. The truth is, however, that in clinical trials, Zoloft often proved no more effective than placebo (an inert substance like a sugar pill). That is not to say the drug has no effect -- and thus, no side effects -- but that it lacks effectiveness in treating the condition for which it is prescribed (for instance, in depression)."
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pharmaceutical companies articles, information and news: "Pharmaceutical companies mired in Enron-style accounting, tax fraud
(NewsTarget) Pharmaceutical companies in the United States and abroad are finally being punished by governments for bad business practices -- including tax avoidance and accounting fraud -- according to blogger Robert Weissman, writing for The Huffington Post. Weissman points out recent cases against..."
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Clearing The Air: Why is a pharmaceutical company funding smoking bans all around the country?: "Why is a pharmaceutical company funding smoking bans all around the country?
You guessed it, it's all about the money they'll make in return.....selling nicotine patches.
Update: The latest RWJF grants to finance smoking bans, are found here.
Meanwhile our politicians are duped, wittingly or not, and thousands of people are put out of work, by the exaggerations from the non-profits; American Lung, American Cancer, American Non-Smokers Rights Foundation, American Medical Association; nearly every university in the country including the U of M, etc.; all of whom have accepted hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying money from the very same pharmaceutical nicotine affiliated Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
While the reality about secondhand smoke has been proven by a local health department to be 150 times safer than OSHA regulations require."
Disorders made to order: pharmaceutical companies have come up with a new strategy to market their drugs: First go out and find a new mental illness, then push the pills to cure it.
Mother Jones, July-August, 2002, by Brendan I. Koerner
Word of the hidden epidemic began spreading in the spring of 2001. Local newscasts around the country reported that as many as 10 million Americans suffered from an unrecognized disease. Viewers were urged to watch for the symptoms: restlessness, fatigue, irritability, muscle tension, nausea, diarrhea, and sweating, among others. Many of the segments featured sound bites from Sonja Burkett, a patient who'd finally received treatment after two years trapped at home by the illness, and from Dr. Jack Gorman, an esteemed psychiatrist at Columbia University. Their testimonials were intercut with peaceful images of a woman playing with a bird, and another woman taking pills.
The disease was generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), a condition that, according to the reports, left sufferers paralyzed with irrational fears. Mental-health advocates called it "the forgotten illness." Print periodicals were awash in stories of young women plagued by worries over money and men. "Everything took 10 times more effort for me than it did for anyone else," one woman told the Chicago Tribune. "The thing about GAD is that worry can be a full-time job. So if you add that up with what I was doing, which was being a full-time achiever, I was exhausted, constantly exhausted."
The timing of the media frenzy was no accident. On April 16, 2001, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved the antidepressant Paxil, made by British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, for the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder. But GAD was a little-known ailment; according to a 1989 study, as few as 1.2 percent of the population merited the diagnosis in any given year. If GlaxoSmithKline hoped to capitalize on Paxil's new indication, it would have to raise GAD's profile.
depression
-In the treatment of depression, placebos are stars.Psychotherapy actually creates enormous transformation.
Robert Heard,MA, BCETS
Antidepressants
-University of Connecticut psychology professor Irving Kirsch found that eighty percent of the effect of antidepressants, as measured in clinical trials, could be attributed to the placebo effect. (Kirsch, et al, 2002) Kirsch had to invoke the Freedom of Information Act in 2001 to get information on the clinical trials of the top antidepressants: these data were not forthcoming from the Food and Drug Administration.
The Marvels of Placebo
-If the power of your mind can heal your sick body, why should you go to the doctor and more importantly, why would you need to buy drugs? In fact, I was recently chagrined to learn that drug companies are studying patients who respond to sugar pills with the goal of eliminating them from early clinical trials. It inevitably disturbs pharmaceutical manufacturers that in most of their clinical trials the placebos, the “fake” drugs, prove to be as effective as their engineered chemical cocktails. (Greenberg 2003) Though the drug companies insist they’re not trying to make it easier for ineffective drugs to get approved, it is clear that effectiveness of placebo pills are a threat to the pharmaceutical industry. the message from the drug companies is clear to me: if you can’t beat placebo pills fairly, simply remove the competition!
The Attributes Of Psychotherapy For Depression
by Susan E. Erbaugh, PhD, LP
The efficacy of psychotherapeutic treatments specific to depressive mood disorder has been shown to be comparable to that of pharmacologic treatments in alleviating symptoms. In addition, these therapies reduce residual psychosocial impairments, improve psychosocial function, and prevent depression relapse. Depression-specific psychotherapeutic approaches include cognitive-behavioral, interpersonal, behavioral, and short-term dynamic therapies, which are often integrated in clinical practice. The effectiveness of depression-specific psychotherapy can be enhanced by medical-psychotherapeutic collaboration and use of guided self-directed change efforts, marital or family therapy, and participation in therapy groups. A coordinated program of care combining the benefits of pharmacologic and psychosocial interventions and drawing on the expertise of physicians and psychotherapists is recommended for the treatment of depression.
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Who should treat depression?
The high incidence of clinical depression has led to some encouragement for treatment to be delivered by primary care physicians, who are likely to offer medications and some form of limited supportive counseling. Findings indicating substantial and lasting benefits of a range of psychotherapeutic strategies suggest that quality of care may be better achieved when timely referral to qualified mental health therapists is incorporated into treatment plans.
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Crisis Intervention
Thirty-one percent of rape victims develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).(1)
15.2 percent of males and 8.5 percent of females who served in the Vietnam War developed PTSD, according to the National Vietnam Veterans Re-Adjustment Study.(2)
Overview
Random House defines crisis as "a dramatic emotional or circumstantial upheaval in a person's life" and "a stage in a sequence of events at which the trend of all future events, especially for better or worse, is determined; a turning point."(3)
A wide range of human emotions and behaviors can accompany crisis, particularly when the crisis relates to victimization. People react differently to stress and crisis, particularly when the crisis relates to victimization. People react differently to stress and crisis situations based on their own skills or behaviors, abilities to cope, maturation levels, and personalities. For some, a crisis situation may be coupled with changes in behavior such as sleeplessness or over-eating. For others, a crisis may include denial, disbelief, and the inability to cope. Still others may experience physiological changes such as an increase in their heart rate, sweating, or fainting.
The importance of crisis intervention for victim of crime is paramount. The goal of crisis intervention is to help victims confront the reality of what happened, begin to deal with the crisis, and to go beyond the pain and emotional trauma toward new strength and opportunities for growth and change. Victims may include those who were the target of the victimization, as well as others affected by the crime such as parents, spouses, friends, or witnesses. The challenge for crisis intervention programs is to provide effective crisis support and assistance as soon as possible following victimization, and to make available resources and services to meet the needs of victims by providing direct assistance or referrals to other agencies.
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The Truth About Finding Genuine Happiness in Marriage
Real Love in ParentingIt’s obvious that we need a greater understanding of marriage: Fifty-six percent of the people in this country are married, but more than half of those marriages will end in divorce. In light of this widespread failure in marriage, we must ask:
* Why do marriages fail?
* How is marriage different from other relationships?
* Why do couples fall in love, get married, and then fall out of love?
* Why do we keep having the same destructive arguments with our spouses, over and over?
* How do we make a fair division of the many jobs that must be done in the family?
* What can we do to settle our differences about sex, the children, and other issues?
* Is it really possible to eliminate conflict in marriage and find the consistent love and happiness we’ve always wanted, regardless of the injuries we’ve already experienced?
Free Trial Membership—Sign-up for a Trial Membership that will give you access to ALL Full Member benefits. That's hours of free audio and video clips that will help you become a more loving and effective parent. Learn Mo"
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