Sanders Therapy

Marriage is a multitude of things: bumpy, scary, difficult, fun, long, boring, and another bunch of adjectives that a person can give. Marriage and life together can be very stressful too, with kids, jobs, friends, economy and other life events that there is no control over.

Keeping a marriage together through difficult times can be challenging but when a couple knows how to play with each other, that can help reduce stress, keep love alive and continue to demonstrate to their kids and family that they (the couple) can still be friends and lovers through tough times.

1. Write love notes to each other. This can help the love feel alive when things aren’t always going so smoothly with the family. Love notes can remind one another about how special they are, what they like most about each other and can strengthen the bond between the couple.

2. Flirt! Flirting can also be very helpful to keep the fires burning in a marriage. Flirting does not stop after dating but sometimes it dies down because of the kids, jobs, tiredness and other stressors. Flirting reminds the other again of how special they are and can help increase the intimacy between you and your spouse if sex is not happening.

3. Have a pillow fight! This is fun, exciting, and even the kids can get involved. Rules may first need to be established so it can still be playful and when a person says STOP, then that needs to be respected. Pillow fights can release a lot of tension in a fun and light hearted way as well as enhance some “get it on” desires so that more intimacy can happen.

Life is about balance and within the marriage, sometimes that fun and playfulness is lost or hidden from the pressures that the couple feels. Play keeps the couple alive because life is not all about work. Playfulness helps the kids to know that life can still be fun even if there are stressful times.

Enjoy your spouse and have fun!

Divorce is a very difficult situation in everyone’s lives. It is very emotional, hurtful, takes a lot of time and effort and creates many changes in the lives of parents and children. There are many reasons why a couple divorces: finances, out of love, affairs, abuse, does not want to be married anymore.

Divorce does not have to be an overwhelming situation for the family, if healthy steps are taken place.

1. Before a couple divorces, it is important to have some marital counseling or even divorce counseling. Why? Since divorce can bring out the worst in a person because of the hurtful emotions, the counseling can help the couple reduce their emotional reactivity and learn how to express themselves without emotionally hurting themselves and everyone else in their family. The counseling can go on for 6 months or as long as a year. The goal for this type of counseling is to help the couple come up with a plan on how to handle thier family issues as two individuals but also how to be parents while they are living in separate places.

2. Not blaming the other spouse for what happened. “It takes 2 to tango” is a great saying, not for something that is awesome but also for divorce. If a divorce happens because of an affair, there were many steps before the actual affair took place. Counseling can help resolve those hurtful feelings so that each spouse is not going to blame the other person. Blaming does nothing to help the children become strong individuals themselves and blaming adds more stress to everyone than is necessary.

3. Accept responsibility for the changes in marriage and leading to the divorce. As parents, we want our kids to accept responsibility for what they have done in situations like homework or school so it’s important for parents to accept responsibility for how the marriage has changed, for good or for bad. When responsibility is taken, the adults are showing the children that they are mature enough to look at what has happened and can begin to see how positives can come from a divorce.

4. Communicating with your ex is very important, especially with children. When a divorce happens, a person divorces the spouse, not the children. You are still parents to your children and children need both of you, not just one. If communication is difficult, then going to counseling together, post divorce, can be effective to know how to communicate with your ex. It is also important to show the children that you and your ex can get along with each other because the children still need their parents.

5. Do not use your children against the ex. Whatever bad feelings you have toward your ex, DO NOT use your children as go-betweens. This causes more stress on your child(s) and does not help the relationship for you or your ex. When the child/children grow up, they may see that you (if you are the one who is using your child against your ex) are the opposite of what you claim to be. If you tell your child that your ex is a no good person, mean and angry and the child sees your ex as not that person at all, the child can see YOU as a no good person, mean and angry. This also causes a lot of unnecessary stress in the child.

6. Create a family plan. This is a plan that outlines: schedules, time frames for pick up/drop off, rules for each household, what and how you and your ex will agree on, how the children will be involved and how discipline will be followed through. This is very healthy to do because everything is done in writing and everyone can participate in this plan which can also help ease some stress. Even this plan can be amended when you or your ex has a new boyfriend/girlfriend.

Divorce is tough on everyone. You and your ex or soon to be can make it easier or harder on the children when it does not have to be. Keep your negative comments about your ex to yourself. Do your best to be a mature person and if that is difficult for you, then get help for it, so your children do not have to suffer.

This was pointed out to me by my supervisor when I was doing my internship for my licensure as a Marriage and Family Therapist.

When you are saying, “Okay” after telling someone to do something, you are really asking if they want to do it or even permission.

For example, when you tell your child that he/she needs to clean up his/her room and then say, “Okay”, you are wanting their permission that it’s okay for them to clean their room. The answer is generally, “No, I don’t want to” and then an argument starts and the child is hoping that you’ll get tired and then he won’t have to clean his room or that you will do it.

So, it is a difficult thing to do, but if you can change this ONE particular area, that will help you with your relationships.

Practice NOT saying “Okay” after you tell your child to do something and you can use this in other areas in your life. You will be amazed at the changes that omitting this one word has.

So, make sure you do NOT say this word, Okay?

Breathing is the most natural thing a person can do. For whatever reason, when a person is anxious, scared or very angry, they “forget” to breathe which does not help the brain get the oxygen it needs to be able to think clearly.

Here are four simple steps:

1. Place one hand on your abdomen right beneath your rib cage.

2. Inhale slowly and deeply through your nose into the bottom of your lungs to the lowest point you can reach for 4 slow counts. Your chest should move only slightly, while your stomach area rises and pushes your hand upward like an expanding balloon.

3. When you’ve inhaled fully, pause comfortably (1-3 seconds) and then exhale fully through your mouth (or nose, if you prefer) for 8 regular counts. As you exhale, let yourself go and imagine your entire body going loose and limp. Pause again (1-3 seconds) before continuing.

4. In order to fully relax, take and release ten or so of these breaths. Try to keep your breathing smooth and regular throughout, without gulping in a big breath or exhaling suddenly. You might count each breath as follows:

Slowly inhale for 4 counts- Pause- Exhale for 8 counts-Pause (count 1)
Slowly inhale for 4 counts-Pause-Exhale for 8 counts- Pause (count 2) and so on until you reach 10 series of breaths.

You’ll find that abdominal breathing will help to slow down or eliminate feelings of anxiety or panic. In fact, two or more minutes of abdominal breathing can abort a panic attack if you initiate it before the panic has gained momentum. Abdominal breathing also counteracts hyperventilation symptoms, which can be mistaken for symptoms of panic. In general, abdominal breathing exercises will help change your breathing from a stressful, anxious process into a more relaxed, soothing rhythm. This will help calm you body and provide more oxygen into your system.

This information was adapted from Bourne, 1992. This information is just as good today as it was in 1992.

You can handle your anxieties by paying attention to your breathing!

Every parent wants their teenager to listen to them. Some of the ways that a parent goes about it produces the opposite affect. The three main ways are: nagging, insight and nagging.

Nagging, for a teen, is the ultimate turn off. Parents do not see it as nagging because parents have a great way to reframe and rationalize that their nagging is really reminding the teen of what to do. Well, to a teen, the more reminding is nagging. Teens’ faces may go blank, they may appear to be listening but are really not. They are hearing Charlie Brown’s mom’s voice: WAH, WAH, WAH.

Make what you say to your teen short and sweet. Allow them to do what is being asked. Balance.

Insight is helpful but to a teenager it appears as nagging. Not all teens are in tune for insight and for those that do not want anymore insight will be heard as nagging. So, save the insight for the time where you and your teen are just hanging out, where nothing really serious is going on and you guys can just talk. LISTEN to what they are saying. It’s okay to not always give your teen advice. They are able to do things without being told several times.

Nagging, yes, it was briefly addressed but just like a teen, a parent may need to be told to NOT NAG again.

Take time to listen to your teen and demonstrate to them how you would like them to listen. Remember that your teen is capable of getting things done and even though it is not on your schedule, they will get the things done. Balance and negotiate which also helps the communication lines and let your teen express his ideas.

In the Bucket List with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, they both have cancer and have about a year to live. They write a list, the Bucket List, of what they want to do/accomplish or really live before they die.

I don’t think you have to wait til you are almost dying to actually live. Life is full of surprises, hurts, pain, love, emotions, trajedy, hilarious moments with friends and family and is better lived to the fullest.

In what areas are you waiting to live life to the fullest? Do you experience joy in your life right now? If not, why not? How can you experience joy? Have you helped someone else experience joy? If not, why not?

Don’t wait til impending death, something worth it comes along, or when you are out of debt, kids grow up, or whatever is holding you back, Live your life to the fullest.

You may not be a billionnaire like Jack’s character in the movie, but Morgan’s character had the love of a family. Jack needed to see that.

I don’t want to give the rest of the movie away, and you don’t have to wait for something to happen to experience life, you can right now.

You can hug your spouse, even if you are irritated at him for not doing his “honey do” list, hug him anyways; you can hug your teen/child or do something nice for them, just because. That will help bring joy in your own life.

Look at the things you can do in your life, in your situation right now. You can make things better, you don’t have to wait to start. It may seem wierd at first, but you will feel a change in your life.

Go ahead, create a list of the things that you’d like to do over the period of your life even helping another person feel good, do it, it will change your life.

Words of Wisdom can be from someone else’s experiences or just our own experiences. What things come to your mind that you have learned in your life? From other peoples’ lives? What experiences have you gone through that you can help others? What can you learn from your own past experiences that can help you in your current situation?

Every day we can choose to learn something and use it for a current situation that we may be in. We can also choose to use the wisdom that we learn from others or not.

In The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch, he talks about his life, his childhood dreams, what he’s learned and what he wants to pass onto his children after he dies. It is a great book and there are some things that I would like to share:

1. Dream BIG! When we are young, we dreamt many great things, believed so many things that we could actually become! Some of us did become who we dreamed to be. It seems as we become adults, we dream less, more full of fear and anticipation of the worst, that it does not help us at all. Never stop dreaming!

2. Don’t Complain, Just Work Harder. Randy says: If you took one tenth the energy you put into complaining and applied it to solving the problem, you’d be surprised by how well things can work out. So, starting now, Complain LESS!

3. Treat the Disease, Not the Symptom. This can be self-explanatory, but if it isn’t, then, don’t cover up the real problem with food, extra income or meditating on things and believing that it will work out, do something about it. If you are hurt or angry, deal with the hurt or anger, which is treating the disease. You will feel better!

4. Don’t Obsess over What People Think. It’s not always important about what another person thinks about us, and we don’t need to live how other people think we should live. Be who you are. If there are things that you need to change about yourself, do it. Surround yourself with the help that you may need for that change. You can do it!

5. Look for the Best in Everybody. I really like this one. There is ALWAYS something good that you can find in another person, you may just have to look harder to find it! For example, your teenager may not be the greatest communicator, keeping his room clean, keeping himself clean, but if he is polite, helps others, then look at that! We all want to be seen in a good light, teens especially. When see the best in someone, that can help them rise to a new level. People can surprise us!

6. Be the First Penguin (read the book, this will be more explained). In a sense though, you will fail at things. We can learn in failure on what needs to be done differently next time. If we fail a test, then we will know what we need to study the next time or how to study differently. Don’t get stuck in the failure, Learn from it!

7. Loyalty is a Two-Way Street.

8. Show Gratitude. It’s that simple. Be thankful, show appreciation. It may not always be easy, but when gratitude is shown, it can melt anyone.

9. Tell the Truth. It can be hard to tell the truth, but when the truth is told, you can grow. It does help when the truth is told in a loving way. That can take practice!

10. No Job is Beneath You. I liked this one, not just because of the economic standpoint the U.S. is in, but we can learn from any job. If you have to, take a job that you may not particularly like, you can learn something about yourself when you do. Get good at it.

11. Never Give Up! Things can be very hard to do, and we want things to come very easy for us, but it doesn’t. Keep being persistent, keep working hard. Sometimes, we give up way too soon and we can miss out on so much. Sometimes, when we give up too soon, we may have to start the process over which can be more frustrating because we could be where we want to be in less time. Start something now, keep persisting, and don’t give up. When things get tough, that is when we give up, but don’t. Keep pushing ahead. You will be amazed at your results!

12. Be a Communitarian.

13. All u have to do is Ask! If you aren’t sure of an answer, there is nothing wrong with asking. Who knows what the answer will be!

14.Make a choice: Tigger or Eeyore. Who are you going to be? I would rather be Tigger, “bouncy, flouncy, trouncy, FUN, FUN, FUN!” than Eeyore, “Poor me, nobody loves me”. Each day we get a choice on how we are going to respond to the circumstances around us, to our loved ones and we can make the situation better or worse, just by our attitude. You make the choice!

The book, The Last Lecture is a great book to read. These are some of the points that I really got out of the book. Take the time and read, you never know what you are going to learn.

You fell in love with the person that makes you very happy and want to be there for you forever. You get married. Marriage is a wonderful thing but it does take work. The “work” part is keeping the marriage strong when circumstances come and shake the marriage.

Protecting a marriage may be difficult if only one person is doing something. Protecting a marriage is much easier when two people are working on the marriage.

Marriage can be related to a garden. In your marriage garden, there are many beautiful things such as fruit trees, flowers, and bushes but those things do not always start out like that, or stay that way.

A strong marriage begins with a solid foundation. The soil for growth must be moist, have nutrients and to be firm. Dating helps lay the foundation for a healthy marriage. Learning to work things out, communicating your thoughts and feelings and having fun with each other helps deepen the soil.

When marriages are built on a rocky soil, more arguements than love, the foundation can crumble at any little thing. With good soil, marriages can grow, even when storms come, marriage will continue to grow.

Marriage needs to be watered daily. To “water” a marriage, both spouses need to add affection, spending time together, support for one another and laughter. These things can also be known as “seeds”.
Planting seeds of tenderness, compassion, good communication and affection will help the marriage grow strong. Learning new things together, appreciate each other’s differences can also help the marriage grow strong. Watering the seeds daily with acts of kindness, love, attention and time will also help the marriage grow.

Gardens have bushes. Bushes provide a barrier around the garden so the garden can be protected from outside circumstances that may harm the garden.

Marriages also need bushes to protect the marriage from outside circumstances.

Bushes can be used to: protect your time with your spouse. When you have a date night with your spouse, making sure that nothing gets in the way of that date night (unless an absolute emergency) is a bush. Another bush is protecting your love for your spouse. Not allowing other people to come between you and your spouse to cause doubt or concern is a bush. Reminding your spouse that he/she is #1 in your life will help strengthen your marriage.

Having a bush around family time will help strengthen your marriage. It will also show your children that family time is important which helps your children feel safe and secure when storms come.

Both spouses must also make sure that no “weeds” come into the marriage. “Weeds” can be: other priorities or commitments that seem more important than the marriage, doubt, fear, resentment, bitterness, lack of time together, other peoples’ problems and laziness.

When “weeds” begin to arise, pluck them out!! Pluck the weed out from the root. If a spouse has caused hurt by forgetting a special day or appointment, it must be communicated and resolved before the “weed” gets bigger and becomes its own flower. You may want to add more water or forgiveness, time together, love and see where or why this “weed” came in, so it does not happen again.

A big “weed” that has blossomed into its own flower could be an affair. An affair is the result of many “weeds” that overcame your marriage garden.

A marriage can overcome an affair but it will take time to get the “weed” out. Allow healing and restoring the garden to where it was before the “weed” will help the marriage grow stronger. Having solutions to clear out all “weeds” and a plan will help future “weeds” from coming in and overtaking the marriage garden. This may take many “gardeners”: counselors, healthy family and friend support and better communication. The marriage can regrow!

Just like cultivating a garden in your backyard to make sure it is beautiful, takes work. So does your marriage.

So remember:
1. Good soil is needed for a healthy marriage
2. Seeds of love, acceptance, time, tenderness, etc is needed.
3. Water daily
4. Plant bushes to protect your marriage garden
5. Attack the weeds as soon as they come
6. Get another “gardener” (counselor) if you need to.

Cultivate your marriage garden daily and it will blossom.

Anxiety is normal. When you think of speaking in front of people, there’s some anxiety. When you need to take a test, there is anxiety. When we are not sure if a person will like us, there is anxiety. Anxiety can become overwhelming, when the anxiety is more in control of you than you in control of your anxieties, that is overwhelming.

When a person is anxious, this is what he/she can do to calm down:
1. Stop all anxious thoughts. You can control the thoughts that come into your mind. This may need to be practiced until you are more in control of your thoughs. Stop the anxious thoughts when they come into your mind.

2. Breathe. Take deep breaths. Don’t hold your breath in!

3. Ask yourself what the anxiety is about. When you know why you are anxious you will be able to know what you can do about it.

4. Come up with solutions that will help you be in control. Anxiety can be a helpful tool for us and show where we may need to do something. For example, when a test is coming up and anxiety is there, the anxiety can tell us that we may need to study more. When we study and prepare, the anxiety will lessen. Write down also what you have done to help ease your anxiety.

5. Fear can be related to anxiety. What are you afraid of? If you aren’t sure of what you are afraid of, find out. Write it out.

6. Is the fear rational or irrational? Can the fear be resolved? If so, come up with solutions to resolve the fear. Most, if not all, fears can be resolved.

7. Look at the thoughts you are thinking. Are the thoughts positive ones or negative? If they are negative thoughts, write them down then write a positive thought next to it. Use the Stop technique when you have a negative thought. Replace with a positive one.

8. Meditate on words of affirmation. Meditation is thinking constantly on one or multiple issues. For example, if you are constantly worrying, then you are meditating on being worried. Change your focus on words of affirmation. Affirm what you can do. If you are a fun-loving person to be around, then meditate, “I am a fun-loving person”. Believe it!

9. Write down what you gain by being anxious. If you do not gain anything, then write down what you lose when you are anxious, such as time, peace or happiness.

10. Remember times when you were happier, more confident, more peaceful. How did it feel? What were you doing? Visualize being that person again! This also takes practice but you can BE that person again!

Anxieties can also wreck havoc on our sleeping and eating patterns as well as our physical state.

1. Getting proper sleep each night can help restore balance to your body.

2. Eating nutritional meals also help. Having 5-6 small meals throughout the day helps the blood sugar remain stable. Balanced meals with protein, healthy carbohydrates and a fruit or veggies will help. Look at what you are eating. If you are eating excessive amounts of salt, sugar, caffeine, then you can try to slowly cut them out to see if that helps your anxieties to calm down. Cutting those things out can also help your digestive track to be more healthy.

3. Drinking plenty of water can help restore balance to the body. If you aren’t used to drinking a lot of water, you may go to the bathroom more!

4. Exercise daily. A thirty minute walk can do a wonderful thing to restoring balance to the body. It does wonders for mental fitness!

5. Writing out thoughts and feelings in a journal can help. Finding a person that you can trust is also helpful.

Medication can help reduce symptoms of anxiety. Some medication can also help depression which may be connected with the anxiety. Consult a psychiatrist or your primary care doctor if this route is needed.

Holistic remedies can also help anxiety. Some suggestions can be: Valerian root, Bach flower remedies, Kava Kava, Chamomile and Passion Flower (www.holistichelp.net). These are best combined with exercise and meditation.

A person can also learn to embrace the anxiety. There will be times when you will feel anxious and embracing that anxiety and still getting things done like a test, speaking in a group, will calm the anxiety and build your confidence– that you CAN DO inspite of the anxiety.

Laugh at yourself. That helps you to take your focus off your anxieties, learn to enjoy what you are doing and relax!

One final way which may sound off the wall but can help restore YOU being in control of your anxiety.

Schedule your anxiety. You have a busy day ahead of you and need to get things done, you have done all the things on the list but still may have some anxiety. You decide when you are going to be anxious. You tell yourself that when you get home, you have thirty minutes before you need to make dinner, you will have your “anxious time”. You are only going to be anxious in those 30 minutes. Set a timer. When the timer goes off, you will not be anxious. You are telling yourself that your anxiety is not in control of you, but you are iin control of your anxiety. You can also schedule a calming time which helps bring peace and relaxation.

Anxiety is normal. When it is more overwhelming than it needs to be, follow these steps. You can control your anxieties.

Marriage is a partnership. Two people came together, bringing all different sorts of wonderful and unique aspects into the marriage.

Each individual has their traits, personalities, frustration and limitations that are brought to the marriage. Combining the differences from the wife and husband can create a great marriage or a really difficult one.

Marriage is a partnership. Takes both the husband and wife to create a good marriage.

While dating, each person puts the other before themselves. Communication is open, expressive, a lot of listening happens because each wants to know about the other person.

The man and woman are both held in high regard for each other and the little faults that the person may have is overlooked.

Then comes the wedding and the honeymoon. All is still going strong, Love is in the air!

Things change! What happened??

Well, this is where it seems that all the wonderful things that you saw about your spouse has been put on the backside and the little things that were overlooked while dating are more “important” then the love you may share. The love is still there, but not as focused on as the negatives.

In this stage, couples will either push each other away through hurt, anger, resentment; have an affair to get the “feelings” back; not do anything about the marriage or work through it.

This post will be about what wives do out of their hurt, anger or frustration that may push their husbands away, not closer to them.

1. When complacency in marriage happens, with routines: the wife may end up doing more than her husband. Her reason may be “My husband doesn’t do anything, so I have to!” The wife may do everything, complain about it, but still do everything. The husband may feel hurt and less of a man because he is not part of the partnership; he is not needing to do his share od duties, not being a leader. A man needs to feel respected in himself and in his marriage. When you were dating, he could do no wrong and he did have your respect. Something happened. When men do not have respect or being the leader in the home, he may feel that he is worthless and not wanting to put his heart into the marriage.

2. Nagging. He married you, not your mother or even his own mother!
The more a man is nagged, the less respect he feels, the further away he moves from involviing himself in the marriage. Women may nag because the husband is not doing something that is asked, needs to be done or fear that things will not be done. Nagging will not help your husband feel really attracted to you. You did not nag him when you were dating, so why now?

3. Lack of sex. Men are visual individuals and are stimulated by a woman’s body. I know there are times when you do not want sex and intimacy is what women need, but we are talking about the men here!
I am not saying that when a man does not have sex, he will immediately turn to porn or other women but the lack of sexual connection can push a husband away, create resentment, rejection or also less of a man.

Okay, I have said some difficult things for a woman to accept. I am not saying that it is a woman’s fault for a failed marriage. What I said in the beginning, marriage is a PARTNERSHIP. It takes TWO! This was to point out minimum of 3 aspects that can push a husband away from their spouse and not closer.

If you, the wife, does these things, then do the following:

1. Acknowledge that you do not allow or help your husband do his part in the marriage. Acknowledge that you nag him on doing chores, spend time at home or him not complimenting you. Acknowledge that you may withhold sex when you are angry, hurt or frustrated with your husband or your marriage.

2. Ask your husband for forgiveness. Be sincere. Forgive yourself too!

3. Remember what you loved about your husband while you were dating and remember how you still love him.

4. Accept your differences: in your personalities, desires and needs and how you relate to each other.

5. Plan together how you both are going to help put your marriage back on track. Make a choice to daily work on your marriage.

Marriage is a partnership and takes 2 people!