If you’re like most people with kids, you come home from work feeling exhausted and stressed. You try to cook a quick dinner and, some days, you’re so tired you stop at the drive through on the way home. Life is too busy; there is no time to get away with your partner or friends. Emotional stress and fatigue are enhanced when we don’t have time for ourselves or the people who give us strength. During times of high stress, it’s important to remember that there are small, inexp

Relationships are difficult for everyone, but for millennials, it’s even more complicated. This is the first generation who has grown up with social media being the primary source of meeting potential dates. Now that there are dating apps for almost every interest or personality type imaginable, commitment is especially challenging for millennials; they were exposed to excessive choice. How can you ever be sure this person is the right one when there are dozens more potential

Why falling out of love may be the best thing that happens to your marriage. Divorce happens in approximately one out of two marriages. That number has fluctuated and, although we are currently seeing fewer divorces, many people still choose divorce over working on their marriage. Roughly half of divorced couples say they split up because they “fell out of love” with their partner. Is falling out of love the end of your relationship? Is it possible to fall back in love? Not o

Fear of commitment is a common theme in movies, songs and love stories. It exists in both men and women, but is supported and actually excused with men. In fact, when I asked a group of friends which sex is more likely to have a fear of commitment they all said unanimously "men." More popular terms among men, but women suffer in silence with it as well. No one suffers fear of commitment as much as the person who is in love with a commitment-phobe. When you are in love with so

As a seasoned licensed therapist, I can tell you that relationships change over time and with society. For millennials it means wanting a Facebook relationship status that everyone will recognize, like, and comment on. They want couple photos on Instagram, along with both people looking happy and “in-vogue.” They want someone to come home to and who is there for them, but they don’t necessarily understand the work behind creating a relationship. This is a generation that grew

Marriage is tough and commitment is not biologically natural, which is one reason when you get married you must commit to monogamy. This is my theory, and although there are many theories in marital therapy, the one that works the best is the one that works for the couple. I find it interesting that humans never change although technology is changing at a rate so fast few of us can keep up. One of the changes is a slew of apps and websites to cheat. Couples using these apps a

Emotional affairs (EAs) are sneaky and it is common to find out you are in one without really understanding when and how it happened. Facebook, instant messaging, texting, and tweeting have opened doors for emotional affairs to storm in and have also built the walls necessary to keep it secret. These are two of the absolutes for an emotional affair to exist. EAs begin innocently enough. They take place at work, school, happy hours, and coffee hours, almost anywhere whenever t

I didn't marry you because you were perfect. I didn't even marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn't a house that protected them; and it wasn't our love that protected them - it was that promise.-Thornton Wilder My oldest daugh

You may have lived together for years hoping to be successful with marriage. In a recent best seller titled, Helen Chen’s Love Seminar, the author reveals that 85 percent of couples that date for a long time hoping to avoid making the wrong choice end up breaking up. The problem these couples face is their inability to fully commit to one another. You may think the longer you date, the more secure your choice of partners, but this isn’t reality. People change, and it’s not th

Long before physical cheating happens within a marriage there are episodes of mindless, careless actions couples begin doing. These are not thought of as cheating, but they are a betrayal and when you’re the partner of someone who is engaged with one of the “casual forms of cheating” you feel worthless, unloved and disrespected. Many couples don’t talk about their feelings and they dismiss them as not being important, or related to a bad mood or a bad day at work. But being t