The pressures and expectations you had of being the perfect spouse and parent while marrying the perfect partner may have forced you to put aside your true feelings about things. You no longer know how you really feel. The aliveness that you felt at the beginning of your marriage and before the children has faded into the background. Something is just different. You want your spouse to change. S/he wants you to change. You are stuck in a gridlock.

When angry, your spouse accuses you of the same things over and over and, of course, you defend yourself, giving your own list about her. Or you never argue at all nor share how your really feel. You both have imaginary conversations with each other in your heads. You make adjustments to keep the peace, only to find things go back right where they were. 

The surprise in all of this is that marriage, not your partner, is working its magic on you. Marriage is a different relationship than any other. It is marriage that forces you to take a deep look at things about yourself that are hard for you to see, hard for you to believe, and hard for you to face.  What you have been unaware of and defending about yourself is called the "relationship blindspot."  It is what your partner sees that you can't. It is the place where you have substituted how you really feel for what you thought you should feel.  It is where what you say differs from what you actually do.Your real voice (how you really feel) is covered over by this blindspot, and it creates the painful, dead-end arguments that constantly happen between you and your spouse. It also creates that dead feeling that you have inside yourself.

Identify the blindspot in yourself, face that, and you will begin to feel more alive, more realistic, less reactive, more assertive, and stop shutting down important conversations that need to be completed for the good of your family. 

Instead of going down the same impossible street and falling in the same impossible hole, you can begin to walk down a new street--a fundamentally new way of seeing things where you commit to investigate and accept what is actually happening. Then you can take advantage of what is actually possible in the situation you are in right here and now.

You can learn to:

~soothe your anxiety, instead of waiting for someone else to do it for you.

~face what is actually occurring and investigate possiblities

~stop self-contempt & find compassion for yourself, then your spouse.

~discover what you really want to say from your heart.

~calm yourself enough to hear and become insterested in what your spouse is really saying.

~realize how you really feel, rather than how you should feel.

~earn to tolerate your discomfort so you can grow instead of run, attack, or appease.

~calmly and respectfully give your spouse honest feedback that gets to the core of their blindspot.

~see what is actually possible in your situation.

~be direct and honest with your spouse and family.

~stop trying to control others.

~gain power over your own words and actions.

~determine what is really most important.

~make new decisions about old problems that reflect what you really feel is most important.

With heartfelt directness and kindness, Don Elium gives you straightforward guidance to identify your blindspots, understand how they create your marriage and parenting frustrations, and most importantly, learn how to walk down a new street where how you really feel guides your choices with those you love.

Therapy with Don Elium Follows The Steps of This Poem

There’s A Hole In My Sidewalk (Book) By Portia Nelson

Autobiography In Five Short Chapters (Poem)

Chapter One

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I fall in.

I am lost . . . I am helpless.

It isn’t my fault.

It takes forever to find a way out.

 

Chapter Two

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend I don’t see it.

I fall in again.

I can’t believe I am in this same place.

But it isn’t my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

 

Chapter Three

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I see it is there.

I still fall in . . . it’s a habit . . . but,

My eyes are open.

I know where I am.

It is my fault.

I get out immediately.

 

Chapter Four

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it.

 

Chapter Five

I walk down another street.

************

Something significantly new awaits you.

I hope I have the privilege to work with you soon.

Sincerely,

Don

Don Elium, MA MFT practices individual and couple counseling in his office in Walnut Creek, CA, San Francisco Bay Area

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PARTNERSHIP

"But let there be spaces in your togetherness, 
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.


Love one another but make not a bond of love: 
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. 
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. 
 

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. 
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, 
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. 
 

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. 
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. 
 

And stand together, yet not too near together: 
For the pillars of the temple stand apart, 
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow." ~Kahlil Gibran

 

He also works by PHONE as well as through VIDEOCAM Online with those in the United States and Internationally.

Don is author, with his wife Jeanne,of four best selling books, including Raising a Family

Don is completing a fifth book on The Relationship Blind Spot.

 

Member California Association of Marriage & Family Therapist

Accredited as a provider of Continuing Education by the

Board of Behavioral Sciences, State of California, Approval No. PCE 3717

Marriage & Family Therapist License # # MFC28381

I Can't Change You, You Can't Change Me: Your Relationship Blind Spot!

 

How Can I Stop My Emotional Over-Reaction?!