Post Valentine’s Day Blues are real… There is even a thing as “Anti Valentine’s Day Week”… This week is not just for those that don’t believe on the mushy holiday, but also for those who are disappointed by it. Regardless of what camp you are in on the holiday and your Valentine’s Day experience, you can use this week to enrich your relationship. I say you – do it again, do it over, or do it after all…
This idea has to do with not wasting any opportunities to be loving, nurturing, and generous. So, whether you don’t care about Valentine’s Day, had a phenomenal experience, or had a terrible experience here is another opportunity to celebrate and enjoy each other…
~ Now, I get that you really might not give a hoot about Valentine’s Day – to that I say forget the Valentine’s Day concept behind this suggestion. Instead focus on the message.
The message is to do something amazing for and with your partner. Yes, you can do that anytime you don’t need this holiday for that. True. So, again, ignore the holiday and take the prompt to do something special and enjoy each other. Partners are neglecting each other more than ever right about now. So, whatever it takes, feel the nudge. Why not take a nudge to be loving any time, even this time?
~ You might have had an amazing Valentine’s Day. You get a Gold Star! It is not easy to plan, make the time, nurture and give, and enjoy good things… Specially with our partner…
So, why not do it again? And again? And again…? The point in this scenario is not to keep doing Valentine’s Day, but to keep nurturing your relationship just as much and as well. If we only gave our relationship as much attention and nurturing as we give other things in our life… Can you see the possibilities for your relationship?!
~ Right now, I actually want to support those who didn’t have a great experience for Valentine’s Day. They wanted to. They tried. But it was still a flop and didn’t get what they desired.
If this is you, you are not alone.
Why You Didn’t Have a Great Valentine’s Day
You might have set out to have a great Valentine’s Day or you got the flowers and the sweets, yet it all felt mechanical, empty and flat.
Valentine’s Day, or Anniversaries, or Mother’s and Father’s Days, or Birthdays for that matter, don’t have to do with the doing and the buying… This is partly where partner’s go wrong. Partners get hang up on the hoopla, or lack thereof, and miss the point of these celebrations…
The point to any celebration is to celebrate the people involved.
These celebrations have to do with acknowledging a partner’s brilliance, uniqueness, commitment, devotion, loyalty, contributions, accomplishments and how they make a positive difference in our life.
When we have celebrations, we might not do a great job of acknowledging and celebrating the people, and the relationship.
Celebrations become about the stuff and not the experience of spotlighting the awesomeness… Therein lies the rub…
People usually have a strong negativity bias, unless they are from Mars. Just kidding. Unless they are in the minority who don’t, for varied reasons. Or, if they’ve worked on reprogramming themselves and continue to be very intentional about focusing on the positives vs. the negatives…
When a person has a strong negativity bias, they filter every experience with a fear-based lens as a survival mechanism. They live in a blind-like state missing out on the awesomeness and the possibilities…
They notice and focus on everything that’s out of place, everything that’s wrong, everything that can be improved, everything that can be different or better, and such… This is not coming from a desire to continually evolve. This is coming from lack and deprivation and as a survival tactic… Very different.
So, I’m sure you can see how this plays out in our relationship… If one or both partners are constantly negatively focused, they’ll have a tendency to complain, nitpick, criticize, control, nag, micromanage, and the like.
And do you know what happens when partner’s do this? The other dismisses, minimizes, shuts down, withdraws, or chooses not to contribute (intentionally or not…).
You might take turns showing up with these defenses. Or, more likely you have polarized into one or the other style.
What happens when partners polarize? Their dynamics get stuck. They keep having the same recurring arguments, the same way. They can’t seem to resolve concerns or issues. They have a hard time getting on the same page and collaborating.
And, most importantly, when partners polarize, they feel disconnected, unloved, taken for granted and the like… They don’t know how to connect, have fun together and enjoy each other…
Well then, doesn’t it make sense that if a partner, or both, have been in a funk of any kind pre-pandemic, and even more so now with our global situation, that they’d have their negativity bias running rampant? And, if that’s the case, that they’d create funky dynamics and feel stuck in their relationship?
Then how are they supposed to see and acknowledge the beauty in their partner? How are they to celebrate their partner when they barely see them?
And, how are they to celebrate their relationship when they might not feel there is anything great to celebrate?
Doesn’t it make sense then that Valentine’s Day was rough??
How to Get Back to Loving…
The key here is not to go at Valentine’s Day or any celebration with a traditional approach. The solution is to address the state of your relationship…
And this is not by talking about the relationship… This is by focusing on Enriching Your Relationship. It’s about turning up the dial on how you show up, what you put in, and how grace-full and gracious you are… It’s about:
Minding your minds
Working at communication
Addressing triggers and meeting needs
Creating and nurturing connection
Cracking collaboration
Then you see your partner. Then you see their beauty. Then you love the relationship.
When you mind your relationship, you can celebrate your partner and your relationship…
This is a work in progress, so in the meantime the simplest thing to do is not to run the other way and to ignore the disappointing Valentine’s Day.
The thing to do is to try a celebration again… You don’t have to do the pink and red, but rather set up time to spotlight any awesomeness you are able to see and share the love you know you have… You might not be feeling the love right about now, but you know it’s there…
Set up the opportunity to connect and enjoy.
Here is another chance at Love. Take a risk, take advantage. There is nothing to lose.
ASSIGNMENT: Invite your partner to a Date. Include all the elements you know they enjoy. And, show up with your Best Self and best of intentions to please and be pleased. Look for and bask in what’s great. Enjoy!
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
Copyright (c) 2021 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com
Most relationships have to endure a history of trauma experienced by one or both partners and a current trauma(s).
Traumas include abandonment, neglect, abuse, rejection, control, accidents, assaults/attacks, catastrophes, infidelity, infertility, loss, relocation, birthing and becoming parents, substance abuse, chronic illness, eating disorders, depression, extreme emotionality, obsessions, PTSD, unemployment, disability. Some of these are symptoms of a past trauma, but when experienced in the present they create a current trauma to the relationship.
As partners experience their relationship and each other, they are affected by what is going on with each other. Partner’s personality, coping, expectations, visions, perceptions, needs who they are as people is largely composed and influenced by their history, and current context. Therefore, what each brings to the table has an impact on the nature of the relationship and therefore on the satisfaction quotient of the relationship.
When partners have unresolved past traumas, not only do these influence who they are as people and what they bring to the relationship, but they are bound to be symptomatic. These two factors are major sources of stress, tension, friction, and conflict in relationships.
Partners with unresolved traumas are easily triggered and not fully present in their life and relationship. They also have a host of symptoms and additional stressors that manifest as a result. The current relationship keeps getting hit.
These are the couples that appear to walk around with a black cloud over their head when anything happens to them. They go from one problem to the next, from one crisis to another. The reason for this is that their inherent make-up, coping and relating are crooked attracting negativity and creating situations that are more of the same. They are in a negative cycle that is difficult to break away from.
When one of the partners is the one that is the most symptomatic, it doesn’t mean that the other partner is any less traumatized. It takes two individuals to have a relationship however that relationship turns out. Here the saying, It takes one to know one, fits well. Partners collude with each other to create their reality and their current context.
When one partner is having a real difficult time and appears to be carrying the brunt of symptoms (is less well functioning), this is a sign of unresolved past traumas and a sign for the need to have things change in the current relationship so that it is healing. Remember, our current relationship is a venue to our healing past wounds and becoming whole.
If one or both partners are not doing well, they are not utilizing the relationship well to serve its purpose.
Here is the opportunity to do something different. The signs are there it is time for a change!!
Happy Changing!!!
~ Your MetroRelationship ™ Assignment
Plan a Talking Date where you each get to share how you are doing and how you’ve been. Together determine what your traumas were and how they are traumatizing your relationship today. Employ acceptance and caring in your discussion. Please don’t use blame or criticism.
Create a safe environment to bring forth areas that might need some looking into. Then, make a commitment to make specific and concrete changes to address and heal your traumas.
Copyright (c) 2016 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
Being parented by imperfect parents/caregivers is considered a traumatic experience of childhood in some of the trauma and attachment literature and information I have come across. This includes being abused, abandoned and/or neglected to various degrees.
When trauma is defined in this fashion, it follows that most of us experienced traumatizing childhoods to some extent, and therefore were wounded rowing up. This has all kinds of implications for intimate relationships. Please note that I’m not a trauma or attachment expert, I’m simply integrating some additional concepts into my relationships working knowledge.
In very basic and crude terms, when we grow up in an environment where caregivers are not appropriately and consistently available to us, we learn to fend for ourselves for our emotional and sometimes physical survival and wellbeing. This does not give us a chance to develop the secure base necessary for our healthy development.
Instead, we develop coping, defense, mechanisms that allow us to do the best we can. The result is that our developmental tasks are barely accomplished and so continue our development with limited emotional resources.
To make up for this deficiency and manage our life as we become adults and involved in significant relationships, we continue using our defense mechanisms making them more sophisticated overtime. These can pick up any form: super-achieving, perfectionism, obsessions, compulsions, addictions, depression, anxiety, panic-attacks, and other forms of being over or under involved in our relationship.
This is great news in that we can have a better understanding of why we have some afflictions and how we can get stuck in dissatisfying relating in our relationship. According to relational and other theories, we would pick a partner with whom we can recreate the hurts from childhood.
Some of the reasons we do this are because 1) it is familiar territory so it feels more comfortable than the unknown, 2) to get now from the interactions what we couldn’t get then, and 3) to complete developmental tasks becoming healthier adults.
How do we use this information on our daily interactions? One way to start the healing process is to hold our own from a non-reactive place. When we react to something, become angry or upset, it is a sign that we have been triggered, that our boundaries have been compromised, that we are being hurt in some (old) way.
Therefore, it is our job to identify how we are hurt or how our needs are not being met, and to figure out how to meet them without trampling on someone else.
When we do this, we start to find ourselves, heal ourselves, complete our developmental tasks, develop healthy coping mechanisms, meet our needs, be present for our partner, and accept our partner’s love and nurturing!
Wow! Figure out those hurts and start feeling the love!
Happy Un-Wounding!!!
~ Your MetroRelationship ™ Assignment
Going back to growing up, identify how you were hurt or disappointed by your caregivers. Remember, we were all hurt to some extent. Identify and capture the flavor of the wound that was caused and name the feelings associated with it. Now find similar feelings in the present, in your current relationship. What is your partner’s behavior that engenders these feelings his is how you are triggered.
Translate these feelings into needs.
Create a list of very concrete and specific behaviors that you and/or your partner can do to meet these needs.
Finally, create a plan on how to have these needs met: schedule things in your calendar, hire services, ask your partner for concrete behavior changes or nurturing gifts.
Do this from a non-reactive stance. Keep your cool. Be respectful of your partner’s needs. You don’t have to agree but learn to accept and love each other for who you are.
NOTE: this might be intense work or create ripple effects in your relationship/life that might feel frightening. You don’t have to do this alone, get professional assistance if you feel you are on shaky grounds.
Copyright (c) 2016 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
What is an affair? What constitutes cheating? Infidelity? These are very personal definitions. Most people have their own version of what constitutes what. Here is a definition I have adapted from experts in the field that works well: An affair involves one of the partner’s passion being directed at someone or something other than their partner that often includes secrecy.
Affairs/cheating can include making-out with or kissing someone at a club, one-night-stands or flings, cyber sex, or behaviors for getting sexual gratification. They can also include devotion to cars, work, projects, children, etc. If the activity keeps one partner from fully engaging and being available to the other, then the activity can be considered an affair.
For the purpose of this article, the focus is on affairs that involve one of the partners going outside their relationship for sexual and/or emotional intimate gratification with another person(s).
The affair is not the problem in the relationship, but a symptom in the relationship. Affairs happen for a reason. Even if you thought your relationship was great until the affair was discovered, there was still something in your relationship dynamic that allowed for the affair to take place.
Affairs are discovered in many different ways and can be addressed once they are acknowledged. It is more difficult to do any repair and healing work until this happens. Very often one of the partners has a gut feeling their partner is cheating to have the other stubbornly deny it.
This leaves the suspicious partner very disgruntled, confused, insecure, and with a host of other not so pretty feelings. In my own experience and from literature, it is believed that when a partner has this gut feeling it is usually true.
**A note of caution: sometimes because partners have been wronged this way or have experienced other forms of betrayal, they are unreasonably suspicious. It is therefore unfair to say that if there is a gut feeling their partner is cheating for sure.
The suspicious partner’s reality is tentative and questionable if their instincts are denied. If they believe, and can a lot of times prove something, but their reality continues to be denied, they are left with a world that doesn’t make sense. Things don’t add up and the relating with their partner is off, and yet they can’t put their finger on it.
As a result they go on a quest to prove and make sense of things, becoming detectives, nags, interrogators, etc. This situation is not healthy to any of the parties involved, Both parties can’t get their needs met and are not satisfied in their relationship.
When there is a suspicion and/or the relationship is not working, it is better to come clean so some real work can be done. It is risky business disclosing affairs as the partner who went out of the relationship has to face consequences and related fears. My thoughts are that if one wants a genuine and satisfying relationship, works needs to be done and it can’t happen when there are secrets and exits in the relationship.
What’s the point of continuing a dissatisfying situation? It might get pretty heated and ugly in the face of a disclosure, but in the long run, whether one creates a satisfying relationship with their partner or moves on, they are taking charge of their life and meeting their needs.
Once the affair is admitted or disclosed, the offending partner needs to be prepared for the other partner’s reactions. Once the storm settles the couple can get to working. A lot of patience is required here and the offending partner needs to hang in there until their partner gets a grip. At that point the work entails rehashing the details of the affair so the non-offending partner can finally make sense of their world.
This includes admitting lies, filling in the blanks, and answering questions about events, situations and the other person. Even thought this is painful and uncomfortable for the partners, it is very helpful in co-creating history and their reality and establishing a platform from which to build the new conscious relationship. Remember our imaginations are pretty powerful, it is better to have facts out there than to leave our partner guessing.
Then some real healing and rebuilding can start to happen. The partners need to put the affair in context of their dynamic and see it as a symptom of what they have and how they have related. They need to own what they contributed to this dynamic that eventually led to one of them going outside their relationship. This is very hard work, especially in the face of the tumultuous feelings going on.
The aggrieved partner needs to receive a sincere and complete apology and amends need to happen for forgiveness and healing to be possible. The offending partner needs to initially suck it up and be at the partner’s whim in creating security and proving their sincerity. The hypervigilance and micromanaging eventually subsides, hang in there.
While this work is being done, the partners also need to be working on creating changes in their dynamic and healing their original wounds that set this wheel in motion in the first place. Making these changes empowers both partners and serves as a preventive measure for relapse.
Experiencing this traumatic situation in our relationship is not an easy thing to undergo and heal from. Doing the work is worth all the effort and pain. Couples do not go back to how they were before the affair, but create an amazing new, intimate and strong relationship.
There is nothing good to loose by not addressing these lapses in judgment. Tap into your courage reservoir and get to healing!! You can only make things better in your life in the long run!!!
Happy Healing!!!
~ Your MetroRelationship ™ Assignment
Discuss with your partner how you’ve been absent, emotionally and otherwise distant or unavailable, and your plan of action to correct this lapse. Tell them specific behaviors you will be implementing (i.e., coming home two hours earlier, not accepting out of town projects or meetings unless your partner can join you, not watching T.V. at dinner time, breaking off the relationship with the other person and not having contact with them, etc.).
Copyright (c) 2016 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
It’s very interesting to me to watch couples struggle and go around and around… I find that this happens with the ones where partners refuse to take ownership of their own contribution to their relationship’s status quo and are fixated with having their partner change… These are the partners that also are waiting for the magic pill and for me to fix their partner. I have a bit of news for these partners – it ain’t gonna happen!
When partners wait for the other to change, they are waiting. When they wait, they are wasting the moment and the opportunity to have something different – right there and then! If this resonates a bit with you, in that you are waiting for something different in the interaction, I implore YOU to do something differently, to mindfully, respectfully, caringly, and compassionately reach out to your partner about it.
When an interaction is going south, take a step back and see how you are provoking the situation. How you are inviting your partner’s reaction. How you are pushing their buttons, triggering them. How you are hurting your partner. Instead of focusing on how your partner is going about this all wrong, stop your approach and try something different – the more loving and compassionate approach.
We all just want to be understood, accepted and loved at the end of the day. Give that to your partner
I implore you to stop blaming, pointing fingers, and waiting. You will be waiting forever as you cannot change the other, nor drag them to change, push them to change, or beat them to change. Change can only happen when you change yourself! When you are frustrated and in pain because of your partner’s actions and attitudes, take a moment to see what you are contributing to the moment and in general.
Stop being the victim and take charge of what is happening! Take charge in a loving, giving, nurturing, forgiving, investing manner. I’m not suggesting aggression, punishment, ultimatums, control, threats and other ploys partners resort to when they want to take charge… These invite more of the same and escalate your situation.
Please STOP your approach NOW and try something different. Stop going at it from a wounded, deprived, violated and entitled perspective and be NICE! YOU invest TLC. YOU invest compassion, understanding, love, and affection. YOU start and continue to use your partner’s love language and stick to it no matter what.
YOU have the power to invite your partner to a different moment. YOU have the power to break the impasse and seduce your partner. YOU CAN DO IT!
Remember, challenging situations are opportunities for healing, growth, and change. Go about this as if this was a course on change you want to ace. Make believe each interaction is a test… Prep for it, research, get your resources, be at your best, and a have a plan of action to ace your test… Give it your all. Give it your genuine, Authentic all, not your egocentric all… Stop waiting and change your relationship right now.
Complete the MetroRelationship (sm) Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing your spectacular relationship. Share your thoughts and progress on our blog page!
Happy Changing!
~ Your MetroRelationship ™ Assignment
Identify your usual “fight”, conflict or disagreement. Think about what is driving the tension. What are you ultimately trying to get out of it? Think about what emotional needs you are trying to meet by holding your ground…
Now think about other ways to get this needs met…
Ask for concrete gestures from your partner that would meet those needs, not necessarily related to the topic of conflict… Share the reason behind your request and that you are stretching your approach to the relationship…
Add this to your tool kit…
Copyright (c) 2016 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
STAY CONNECTED WITH US, SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER
And, Get a FREE Relationship Enrichment Mini Course!
You CAN create the relationship you desire!
You have Successfully Subscribed!
With this Mini Course learn how to immediately Break your Impasse, Improve your Communication, Increase your Intimacy, Connection and Fun, & Create a Strong Partnership...
And with Emma’s weekly Love rich with Personal Development & Relationship Enrichment know-how, announcements, resources and more straight into your inbox.
Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT has been in the mental health profession in varying capacities for the past 20+ years. She is the Founder and Director of metrorelationship.com a psychotherapy and coaching practice specializing in working with busy professional and entrepreneurial couples who are struggling getting on the same page and feeling connected. The work helps couples create a radiant and successful relationship and meaningful life by becoming a strong partnership and increasing their connection, intimacy, and fun. Emma is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Relationship Strategy™.
Pin It on Pinterest
We track visits and User's visit information to analyze our performance and trends in order to create targeted messaging and programs to best serve you. We use cookies to provide a personalized and smoother browsing experience. Refer to our Privacy Policy for additional details.
You consent to our tracking and cookies when using our Websites.OK
