marriage

Planning a romantic vacation for couples does not have to be a battle royale.

If you’re like most couples, there just isn’t enough time in the day to do everything that needs to get done. Between work and kids, you’re lucky to squeeze in time to brush your teeth – let alone take a vacation together. You have to balance your professional and home life without dropping the ball on anything important.  Learning to manage the day-to-day can be a huge challenge for most people, making vacation seem impossible.

Our guests today are the brains behind a leading couple’s travel blog, 1000 Places to Fight before You Die. Mike Willits and his wife Luci encourage busy couples to get out and see the world together. It’s time to leave the kids behind and let the relatives do all the heavy lifting. Reconnect and strengthen your relationship by planning and making an annual escape. Whether this means an exotic trip to the other side of the planet, or discovering a neighboring state, the limitless possibilities mean great things for your marriage.  From taking those bucket list dreams and turning them into a reality, Mike & Luci Willits break down the fine art of vacation for couples.

To find out more about Mike & Luci Willits, as well as the 1000 Places to Fight Before You Die, visit their blog.

Do you have the tools to build a successful marriage?

We’ve all heard the old saying “marriage takes work.” But exactly how much work does it take? Do we all possess the skills that it takes to harbor a successful marriage or are we setting ourselves up for failure?

If you look around at the couples you know, some seem to have a better emotional connection than others. You can tell by their interactions, their body language and even by how they behave apart from their spouses.Do the differences that we see between ourselves and other couples mean that some partners are just luckier than others, or are they on to something that the rest of us don’t know about?

Dr. Bob Dick has been helping couples tap into the skills they need to make a marriage work for more than four decades. In addition to working with couples, individuals and kids at CenterPoint Psychotherapy Associates in Raleigh, NC and Haven Medical Center in Chapel Hill, NC, he trains other psychotherapists. He’s also a 2-term former president of the North Carolina Society of Clinical Hypnosis and an Approved Consultant with The American Society of Clinical Hypnosis.

To find out more about Dr. Bob Dick and his practice, CenterPoint Psychotherapy Associates, you can visit his website or call 919-215-4703 for an appointment.

Does your marriage partner think that the world revolves around them?

There’s a lot of good information out there to help a troubled marriage survive, but when it comes to a marriage in which one spouse suffers from narcissism, there are very few resources available on how to make it work. Some statistics suggest that many troubled marriages contain one partner who has some degree of narcissism – and the outcome is fairly predictable.

When one spouse thinks that the marriage revolves around him or her, it causes extreme stress on the entire marriage. Usually the other spouse recognizes the problem, repeatedly tries to fix the issues and, unfortunately, is unable to change things.

Often, a marriage with this kind of stress will easily collapse but John O’Donoghue believes there are solutions. In many cases, he suggests the most important factor for change is the ability to understand how the narcissistic partner thinks and the willingness to accept it.

John O’Donoghue is a marriage and family therapist with John O’Donoghue Therapy Services in Raleigh, NC. John specializes in providing psychotherapy to individuals, couples and families. He helps people understand what life is like with a narcissistic partner and works to try to make marriages successful when one spouse is narcissistic.

To learn more about John and his practice, visit his website or call 919-341-2477 to make an appointment.