Avoiding Unconscious Loving Pitfalls

This article held my attention; it has really intense and interesting anecdotes to illustrate the points made. Avoid the Traps of Unconscious Loving suggests that if your relationship is going poorly, it would be a good idea to think about the legacy-based reasons that may lie at the heart of what’s going wrong. The stories drawn on by Gay and Katie Hendricks to illustrate how co-dependencies can begin and then continue to manifest throughout one’s life unconsciously, affecting relationships sometimes for the worst, are vivid and can serve as inspiration and hope for getting to the roots of our own patterns. Although a caveat might be that if you are not ready to handle such discoveries with mature and constructive actions, it may in fact just lead to more places to spread blame, which will NOT solve anything and only exacerbate problems. Owning up to your own issues is essential to improving your relationship. See the article at www.life.giam.com.

Tips from Same-Sex Unions

What Straights Can Learn from Gays about Relationships and Parenting is a very interesting read posted by Joe Kort on his blog. What two important findings came out of psychological studies of lesbian and gay couples when compared to straight couples? It was found that two of the strengths same-sex unions possess are flexibility and equal division of household and parental responsibilities. What else was discovered? Their disagreements are handled with more ease and less combativeness compared to heterosexual relationships, thanks to (among other things) a tendency to inject humor into the situation, which helps to defuse potential escalation of a conflict. Also, since the same-sex couple acts with more equality toward each other, this helps to avoid the resentment that often gets planted and festers when one partner gets saddled with an unbalanced amount of domestic or financial responsibility. For more on these fascinating findings, go to Joe Kort’s blog at joekort.blogspot.com.

Focus on Pronouns

B-Sort is a blog by two psychologists specializing in relationships. In the latest post, Dr. Bea Mackay brings attention to the importance of more clearly communicating, since many conflicts can begin with a simple lack of clarification. She goes on to give examples of what tiny things can go wrong quickly…but also lets us know what to look out for and how to correct it. The focus is on pronouns (being more clear with third person pronouns such as him and her…and using people’s names instead) and how we can benefit from assuming less and clarifying more. Check it out at B-Sort Relationship Advice Blog.

Quote Time…

I’d like to leave you with this quote:

“A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.”
– Ingrid Bergman