The aliveness that you felt at the beginning of your marriage has faded into the background. Something is just different. The pressures and expectations you had of being the perfect spouse and parent while marrying the perfect partner is feeling unbearable. You want relief from this pressure. You want your spouse to change. S/he wants you to change. You no longer know how you really feel. You are stuck in a gridlock of unmet expectations.

This therapy helps overcome the gridlock by:

• Seeing through your personal blind spot so you can face what is causing the pressure

• Resolving the solvable problems

• Learning news ways to approach and live with the unresolvable problems to decrease negativity and increase friendship--the core of marriage

Read onward to see how . . .

When angry, your spouse accuses you of the same things over and over and, of course, you defend yourself, giving your own list about him/her. Or you never argue at all nor share how you 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, hard for you to face and very challenging to change. This is "your personal blind spot," where  you are unware that what you are think and say are not congruent with what you are actually doing. Here is where you fail to exercise good judgement in your decision making.

When two people marry or form a long-term committed emotional relationship of any kind, a "relationship blind spot" forms. Here, your partner sees contradictions of what you say and do that you can't.

Even with the best of intentions, an eventual "gridlock" forms in your relationship and you begin to try to discredit and annihilate your partner's feedback and complaints about you. And, they do the same to you.

Instead of being open and investigating what is actually happening and learning new things about yourself, there is often criticism, eventually contempt, defensiveness, and then stonewalling (tuning out) and these poison behaviors shut the emotional connection down.

This is the place where you (and your partner) substitute how you really feel with what you think should be happening. Your real voice (how you really feel) is covered over by this mental blind spot, and it creates the painful, dead-end arguments that occur over and over again. Over time, this blind spot dynamic creates that dead feeling that you feel inside yourself. You have stopped being yourself.

To overcome gridlock, you need to identify and face your blind spot dynamic as you learn and apply the healthy principles of what makes long-term committed relationships work. Step by step, 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. You and your relationship can feel new life.

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

• You can learn to feed your self and relationship with healthy behavior:

~Know And Be Known: what holds meaning for your now as well as your partner?

~Nurture Your Fondness And Admiration With Each Other: take time for sincere gratitude.

~Turn Toward Each Other Instead Of Away: respond to bids for attention.

~Let Your Partner Influence You In A Positive Way (Not doing this is one of the main causes of divorce)

~Solve Your Solvable Problems: Learn the art of a good complaint and stop poisonous criticism.

~Overcome the Gridlock Of Unsolvable Problems. (%69 of all marriage problems)

~Create New Vision Of Shared Meaning: be open about important things.

• Your can learn to identify and stop unhealthy "relationship poisons":

~Stop Poisonous Criticism (learn to complain without accusation and blame)

~Stop Poisonous Contempt (treating partner or self with attitude of disgust that comes from constant criticism)

~Stop Poisonous Defensiveness (hate filled attacks to discredit feedback from spouse)

~Stop Poisonous Stonewalling (Tuning out your partner and numbing your own feeling heart)

With heartfelt directness and kindness, Don Elium gives you straightforward guidance to identify your blind spots, understand how they create your marriage and parenting frustrations, and most importantly, learn how to walk down a new street of possibilities of what can make your personal life and relationships work much, much better than ever before.

For those out of town who can't attend weekly and want a counseling intensive approach, click here for TheMarriageSchool.com, a full weekend of counseling with Don Elium, MA MFT.

Therapy with Don Elium, MA MFT 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