advice

Does your spouse have what it takes to fulfill your every wish and desire?

While some things in life are considered essential, like food, water and shelter. Are you able to separate relationship wants v needs? As human beings, our unwavering desire for ‘more’ transforms what we need to survive into all the things we want to have instead. Is your partner able to identify and provide those items you consider essential to your relationship survival?  What about the extra benefits you crave? Can an ambitious appetite for all the luxuries that come with love overwhelm the basics deemed essential to the success of a relationship?

Rachel Payne Blair is a licensed clinical social worker with Greenlee Psychological and Support Services in Durham, North Carolina where she provides therapy for families, couples, and individuals and also provides clinical supervision for Master Level students. Earning both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Social Work, Rachel has applied her skills in the field of foster care, school counseling, as well as volunteering her time to assist in local homeless youth programs. Rachel has extensive training and experience in a wide range of areas, including coping with separation and attachment loss, repairing and reconnecting relationships, as well as couples counseling.

To find out more about Rachel Payne Blair and her practice, Greenlee Psychological and Support Services, you can visit their website  or call (919) 764-6402 for an appointment.

How can your commitment to health affect your commitment to the one you love?

Summertime is meant for lounging by the beach, enjoying the sun, and trying to avoid showing the entire world your every physical insecurity. Come autumn, the temperature drops, the leaves change, and everyone’s best friend, the over-sized sweater, makes its triumphant return from the depths of the closet. Just because the temperature is dropping, that doesn’t mean that your waistline will too. With the colder temperatures come the hectic, sleepless schedule filled with holiday parties and filling holiday meals with their seemingly limitless supply of every artery clogging treat your struggling heart can handle.

While many resolve to make up for their holiday splurging with a promise to do better “next year”, it may not only be your body that’s paying the price for your poor physical health. While your gym membership and a full 8 hours of sleep may have been a top priority when you were unattached – a committed relationship, work, or even kids, can have a way of taking time from things that were once considered essential. The black coffee in your hand and soaring 3-digits on the scale don’t lie! As those numbers get higher, so do your chances of marital dissatisfaction. How can a commitment to get physical lead to better marital health?

Dr. Kristen Wynns is a child and adolescent psychologist who owns a specialty private practice in Cary, North Carolina called Wynns Family Psychology.  She earned her Ph.D. and Master’s in Clinical Psychology from UNC-Greensboro. Dr. Wynns has been frequently sought out as local expert on child psychology and parenting issues for radio shows, magazines like Carolina Parent, as well as TV shows like My Carolina Today and Daytime. Dr. Wynns has also founded the parenting website, No Wimpy Parenting, providing services for parents struggling with behavior and discipline problems. Married for 15 years with two young children of her own, Dr. Wynns likes to say she is “doubly qualified” to offer parenting and marriage advice.

To find out more about Dr. Kristen Wynns and her practice, Wynns Family Psychology, you can visit their website Wynns Family Psychology or call (919) 467-7777 for an appointment. For information regarding the services available to help parents struggling with behavior or discipline problems at home, you can visit Dr. Wynns other site, No Wimpy Parenting.

How can you tell when your partner drinks too much? When does drinking become a problem?

Imagine meeting someone new. You start going out on romantic dates- dates that maybe include a bottle of wine, candles, roses, the whole nine yards. Initially, the alcohol acts as an intimacy and romance enhancer. It helps you both loosen up, relax, and enjoy yourselves. But what happens when down the road the alcohol becomes toxic? Sometimes stress and tension build up and eventually it’s one partner who drinks too much, too frequently.

When one partner begins to develop a drinking problem, the other might start to feel like the alcohol has taken top priority in the relationship. Any little bit of consumption could start to be a bid deal, and the partners could begin to withdraw from each other, creating an even bigger issue. With communication mishaps and increased fighting, oftentimes married partners don’t know how to go back and fix the issue.

Today, Dr. Julia Messer is talking with us about how to handle this issue if and when it arises. As a licensed psychologist with Orenstein Solutions in Cary, NC, she helps couples and individuals develop practical coping solutions for many different challenging situations.

To find out more about Julia and her practice, visit their website or call (919) 428-2766 to make an appointment.