Coupleworks Blogs
Couples and immigrants – looking at the similarities.
How often do couples choose each other, in part, for their differences? In our therapy rooms we notice this choice is often a slice of the whole seduction. Couples who work through these differences on their own or by choosing couple counselling find their bond and...
Benefits for Couples who Exercise Together
More and more people are making time to exercise on a regular basis and spend hours committing themselves to going to yoga, spinning, Pilates, the gym or a run in the park. It makes us fitter, healthier and look better. We do it for ourselves and for our partners....
Can your relationship survive a new baby?
Recently I have been talking to a number of parents of young babies asking them for some ‘top tips’ about what has helped in their relationships under the pressures that a new baby brings. These are their ten top tips and I would be interested for others to add their...
Keeping Close
Couples, when first in a romantic bubble, have no trouble protecting themselves. It's instinctive. But as time goes on and life gets busier with work and children - that's when priorities can change. Every relationship needs some effort to stay healthy and close....
Taking the next step..preparing to move in together
In her novel, ‘You Should Have Known’, Jean Hanff Korelitz explores the idea that we deny problems in a relationship in order to maintain the belief of a great partnership. We ignore niggling anxieties because we feel so in love. Not allowing the doubts to surface we...
A New Year – A New Relationship
Many of us start the New Year with various resolutions ranging from the need to eat healthier, stop drinking, commit to more exercise etc. Let’s spare a thought to starting 2015 by thinking about making resolutions in our relationships that will help make them more...
Happiness
It is interesting to look up the word happiness in Google. It appears in countries which in our privileged part of the world we might assume it doesn’t exist. Happiness could be felt momentarily by a child on a rubbish heap finding some piece of cast out scrap which...
How the Festival of Chanukah can bring light and hope to relationships
Jewish families around the world are preparing for the festival of Chanukah, also known as the Festival of Lights and Feast of Dedication. It is very happy and enjoyable time for families, an eight day holiday commemorating the dedication of the Holy Temple in...
Are Couples using Social Media to avoid Intimacy?
A young couple in their early 30’s sits in front of me trying to understand why they’ve been struggling with intimacy. He describes coming home from work and how his girlfriend spends their evening with the phone, IPad and computer surrounding her, not speaking....
What’s irritating about your partner?
In the Times newspaper last Friday there was a report of a recent survey on the top ten irritations that people named in relation to their partners. These were: • Leaving clothes on the floor • Leaving wet towels around the house • Bad bathroom habits • Always using...
Making Sense of Love
In her Ted Talk ‘Why we love’ (September 2006) Helen Fisher describes the Darwinian purpose of love. Love ensures the survival of the species! It ‘pulls two people together strongly enough to begin to rear babies as a team’. She suggests the ‘pull’ of love combines...
Online Relationships Vs The Couple
Losing closeness The act of connecting on social media of all kinds is really quite narcissistic. It's about 'ME' - my popularity, my selfies, my adeptness at games, my rating on twitter. In a close couple we have to learn to give, to listen and sometimes allow...
Body Language
The social psychologist Amy Cuddy has given a TED talk (June 2012) entitled ‘Your body language shapes who you are’. She discusses how our body language influences how we are perceived by others - but that it can also change our perception of ourselves. More than...
Moving house can be a positive step for a relationship
Statistics tell us that moving house can be one of the most stressful experiences alongside divorce and bereavement. Certainly at Coupleworks we often see clients who are facing a move into a different area or who may be considering relocating to a different country....
Skype and Face to Face Therapy
Coupleworks therapists use both forms of counselling to help couples and individuals to talk with an objective third person present. The therapist can interpret what they hear into less confrontational dialogue enabling each person to hear what is really being said....
Under the Covers, Intimacy and Sex
A client of mine mentioned a new app called Under the Covers, which allows couples to let their partners know what their sexual fantasies are. The app works by the couple separately typing their fantasies into the app and only if the partners type the same fantasy it...
Trends from the Sex Survey by the Observer
“The British are losing their sex drive” headlines the Observer newspaper following their recent sex survey. Perhaps a surprising result is that the average British adult has sex only four times a month compared to the figure of seven times a month in the 2008 survey....
Why only lust can save a Marriage
In his latest book ‘Kosher Lust’, the sometimes controversial America’s Rabbi Boteach proposes the reason why the institution of marriage is on the decline is just that – marriage is seen as an ‘institution’. Who wants to be a member of an institution? It’s a time and...
Counselling could have helped
It's a couple thing. What happens when a partner decides they no longer want to be in the relationship. Were the signs not clear enough? Scotland, it's been a long and historic union - when did you decide that you no longer felt that your needs we're being met? And...
Drama versus Denial. Opposites attract.
Depending on childhood experiences, adults often seek difference as part of the attraction within the love of their choice of partner. This conscious or unconscious choice can be part of the glue for a long term relationship. It can be a positive collusion but it can...