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.
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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.
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If there was an instruction book for a happy marriage, would you use it?
No one makes such a great commitment, like marriage, with the assumption that they will one day end up as anything other than happy. So what is the key to a happy marriage when small squabbles and large debates muddy the waters of your love? We often don’t consider these issues unless they’re directly affecting our own marriages. Is it possible to turn a bad situation around when we’re being reactive to a situation rather than being proactive?
In a lot of cases, many little issues add up to become one big issue. If you can identify what some of those “little things” are, you can make any necessary adjustments in your marriage that can help you stay happy as a couple. But how exactly do you work to discover what these problem triggers could be?
Dr. Tina Lepage shares 10 of the humorous secrets to staying happily married from a marriage counselor’s perspective. Tina is founder of Lepage Associates in Durham, North Carolina, where she specializes in couples and marriage therapy. To find out more about Tina Lepage and her practice in Durham, NC, Lepage Associates, you can visit their website or call (919)572-0000 for an appointment.
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