Building new foundations for the couple: Take a look at the Different Relationship Images document attached to this Podcast. I try to bypass language as much as possible. Feelings do not always tell the truth. We can be very English. Very British!

Question: "How are you today". Answer: "I'm fine thank you".

Observation after the automatic response: "I notice you are on strong pain-killers and on crutches"!

Emotions are very powerful and drive so much of our decisions, including major bridge-burning decisions - in the moment. Emotions live in the Limbic brain.

I use the Relationship Images document with the couple right at the beginning of our work, in order to get at the truth and not what feelings and emotions are telling me if I ask the couple some questions about their relationship.

I want to know how deeply entrenched is the damage done to the relationship. The exercise by-passes the emotional brain (of feelings) and also the intellectual logical reasoning part of the brain. Instead, I connect with their heart. The heart tends to tell the truth. So I use the exercise to listen to the heart.

Each identify an image which represents a time in their Past when the relationship was working at its absolute best; super-doper. Then an image which represents where the relationship is Now (such that they have come for therapy). Finally, which image best represents the Future. Think big. Think miracle. A future where the issues are resolved and they are living the 'bestest' quality couples relationship, beyond what they could ever image.

I am looking for any split agenda as to why each of them have come for therapy; any ulterior motive. Has one of them long left the relationship - (emotional disengagement). Their spoken word may be contradicted by their choice of images.

The discussion which ensues, will be eye-opening for the couple. Mostly, pleasantly surprising!

Bringing colour back to life - without Shame.

Video-on-Demand Online Course (for Singles, Couples/Marrieds/Partners) Access: https://www.kairos-centre.com/singles-couples-partners-marriage-programme/

Gary McFarlane (BA, LLM, Dip, Certs), Accredited EMDR Practitioner.

Episode keywords: Couples Therapy,Relationship Advice,Building Healthy Relationships,Communication in Relationships,Conflict Resolution,Intimacy and Connection,Relationship Coaching,Navigating Relationship Challenges,Love and Commitment,Couples Counseling,Conflict Resolution in Relationships,Relationship Conflict Management,Couples Conflict,Navigating Relationship Disagreements,Healthy Communication in Relationships,Partnership Dynamics,Resolving Relationship Issues,Emotional Intelligence in Conflict,Building Trust During Conflict,Effective Communication Strategies,Sex help,Sex not working,Sex Therapy,Psychosexual,Psychosexual help,Healthy Relationships,Empowerment Self-Discovery,Healing Journeys,Personal Growth,Intimacy Building,Addiction in Relationship,Infidelity Online Therapy,The Kairos Centre Peer Pressure,Performance Pressure,Separation,Divorce,Fear,Anxiety,Stress,Mental Health and Addiction, Dissociation,Anger,Husband has porn,EMDR,wife cheating,wife has porn,wife has another man,wife with a woman,husband with a man,Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing,Compulsive Behavior,Trauma Healing,Neuroplasticity,Online Therapy,Self-Soothing Behaviors,Childhood Trauma,Inner Child work,Childhood Development and Addiction bullying,Porn Addiction Recovery,Abuse,Sexual Abuse,Spiritual abuse,Church abuse,Minister abuse, Pastor abuse,Sex Addiction Recovery,Domestic Violence,Family Conflict,

Couples counselling is not necessarily about keeping a couple together at all. All about exploring options. Also to help you both gain insight and understanding about self and how you do life, as an individual.

Whether a Partnership or a marriage, these things are true: “Marriage is not the coming together of two people. It’s a clash of two cultures, two experiences, two memories, two habits, two morals, two values. And that is a formula for destruction” - Dr Myles Munro

“[It] is [also] the place of our healing. So don’t leave it too quickly” - Dr Creflo Dollar.

(You are destined to eventually repeat the issues again with the new person, because you take you with you into the new relationship - where second and third time around each have an even worse percentage likelihood of separation and divorce).

Pinches hurt. Try using your fingernails to pinch your thigh. A pinch in a relationship, jolts the relationship and disrupts harmony.

A crunch not only jolts the relationship, it assaults the very foundations of the relationship. Having pinched your thigh with your finger nail, now open the palm of your hand and hold it as if holding a tennis ball.

Those fingers represents the jaws of a rottweiller dog that has its teeth locked into your bum cheeks. That is much more than just a jolt!

An accumulation of unresolved pinches in a relationship which were never resolved, but put inside self, pressed down on top of years of other compressed pinches, will eventually become a crunch.

Take a look at the accompanying Pinches & Crunches diagram to see the different options presented to the couple during each of those events.

Unresolved and unprocessed pinches & crunches creates ambiguity, Resentment, Anger, Uncertainty, where options include - do nothing, separate, divorce or emotionally disengage. Many, many couples live in 'Emotional Disengagement' for years and years.

Emotional Disengagement is insidious. Vote for the outcomes to your relationship, rather than let default decisions blow it up over time, leaving the two of you scurrying around picking up shrapnel from the explosion fall-out.

Bringing colour back to life - without Shame.

Video-on-Demand Online Course (for Singles, Couples/Marrieds/Partners) Access: https://www.kairos-centre.com/singles-couples-partners-marriage-programme/

Gary McFarlane (BA, LLM, Dip, Certs), Accredited EMDR Practitioner.

Episode keywords: Couples Therapy,Relationship Advice,Building Healthy Relationships,Communication in Relationships,Conflict Resolution,Intimacy and Connection,Relationship Coaching,Navigating Relationship Challenges,Love and Commitment,Couples Counseling,Conflict Resolution in Relationships,Relationship Conflict Management,Couples Conflict,Navigating Relationship Disagreements,Healthy Communication in Relationships,Partnership Dynamics,Resolving Relationship Issues,Emotional Intelligence in Conflict,Building Trust During Conflict,Effective Communication Strategies,Sex help,Sex not working,Sex Therapy,Psychosexual,Psychosexual help,Healthy Relationships,Empowerment Self-Discovery,Healing Journeys,Personal Growth,Intimacy Building,Addiction in Relationship,Infidelity Online Therapy,The Kairos Centre Peer Pressure,Performance Pressure,Separation,Divorce,Fear,Anxiety,Stress,Mental Health and Addiction, Dissociation,Anger,Husband has porn,EMDR,wife cheating,wife has porn,wife has another man,wife with a woman,husband with a man,Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing,Compulsive Behavior,Trauma Healing,Neuroplasticity,Online Therapy,Self-Soothing Behaviors,Childhood Trauma,Inner Child work,Childhood Development and Addiction bullying,Porn Addiction Recovery,Abuse,Sexual Abuse,Spiritual abuse,Church abuse,Minister abuse, Pastor abuse,Sex Addiction Recovery,Domestic Violence,Family Conflict,

Highs and lows of the Couples relationship is a given. What impacts you, may not impact a partner and vice versa. Childhood development personality and characteristic sharping experiences, play a significant part in that process.

Some partners need to take their shoes off and step into the shoes of the other partner in order to see the relationship from that partner's vantage point and perspective. Interestingly, all partners with Sex and/or Porn Addiction have traits which come from Narcissism. (That does not mean they are necessarily to be diagnosed with NPD - Narcissistic Personality Disorder).

Seeing life and the relationship from the vantage point of the impacted partner is going to be very scary for those with NPD. It means that they have to set aside Narcissistic tendencies and embrace Empathy for a short while.

That really is scary indeed. Most of them believe that they are Empathic and 'do' for others. (I suggest that they are Empathic in a conditional way; only so long as something comes back to reward them for good deeds; but they cannot see it and would strongly object to this statement).

I suggest that the antidote to Narcissism is Empathy. They both CANNOT co-exist at a high level of expression in the same person. Just like the same poles of a magnet repel each other, so it is with Narcissism and Empathy. Only one can rule and be (being) used at a higher degree than the other.

Get some help from The Kairos Centre. See what you cannot see. Begin to change that which you begin to better understand.

Now launched: A Video-on-Demand Online Course (for Singles, Couples/Marrieds/Partners) Access here - https://www.kairos-centre.com/singles-couples-partners-marriage-programme/

Gary McFarlane (BA, LLM, Dip, Certs), Accredited EMDR Practitioner.

Episode keywords: Couples Therapy,Relationship Advice,Building Healthy Relationships,Communication in Relationships,Conflict Resolution,Intimacy and Connection,Relationship Coaching,Navigating Relationship Challenges,Love and Commitment,Couples Counseling,Conflict Resolution in Relationships,Relationship Conflict Management,Couples Conflict,Navigating Relationship Disagreements,Healthy Communication in Relationships,Partnership Dynamics,Resolving Relationship Issues,Emotional Intelligence in Conflict,Building Trust During Conflict,Effective Communication Strategies,Sex help,Sex not working,Sex Therapy,Psychosexual,Psychosexual help,Healthy Relationships,Empowerment Self-Discovery,Healing Journeys,Personal Growth,Intimacy Building,Addiction in Relationship,Infidelity Online Therapy,The Kairos Centre Peer Pressure,Performance Pressure,Separation,Divorce,Fear,Anxiety,Stress,Mental Health and Addiction, Dissociation,Anger,Husband has porn,EMDR,wife cheating,wife has porn,wife has another man,wife with a woman,husband with a man,Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing,Compulsive Behavior,Trauma Healing,Neuroplasticity,Online Therapy,Self-Soothing Behaviors,Childhood Trauma,Inner Child work,Childhood Development and Addiction bullying,Porn Addiction Recovery,Abuse,Sexual Abuse,Spiritual abuse,Church abuse,Minister abuse, Pastor abuse,Sex Addiction Recovery,Domestic Violence,Family Conflict,