News Articles

Love is not all you need, nor all your spouse or child needs; consider respect. By Peter Gray Ph.D. Courtesy of Psychology Today If you were to ask me if my parents loved me, I would, like Tevye and Golda in Fiddler on the Roof, have to pause and think. In the family I grew up in, love was a term used rather exclusively as the valediction in friendly letters.  It was rarely said aloud. We also weren’t big on hugging or kissing.  It was awkward for me when I left home and entered a different culture, where people regularly [...]

By Annabel Gutterman Courtesy of Time.com Hollywood, romance novels, picture-perfect depictions of relationships on social media: It’s all-too-easy to believe in soulmates. But while nearly two-thirds of American adults believe in them, according to a 2017 Monmouth University poll, psychology professor Gary W. Lewandowski Jr. says the term ‘soulmate’ can be dangerous. It can connote perfectionism — and perfection in relationships is essentially unattainable. “If you believe in soulmates, then you are less likely to work through [problems] because this person was supposed to be perfect and everything was supposed to be easy,” he says. But being able to confront [...]

By Gregory L. Jantz Ph.D. Courtesy of Psychology Today The love of your life. Your soul mate. Your life partner. That special someone. Whether we admit it or not, many of us are seeking to find our perfect complement. We crave having someone by our side who will love us through our moments of imperfection, and share the memories of our lives with us. We’ve seen enough movies about it, so it must be possible, right? Love is no fairy tale, so you can stop looking for a perfect "10" who fulfills all the qualifications on your wish list. It [...]

New research shows the unexpected predictors of your relationship's stability. By Susan Krauss Whitbourne Ph.D. Courtesy of Psychology Today Everyone would undoubtedly love to be able to peer into the relationship crystal ball to know whether they will remain with their partners, and for how long. Researchers who study the course of long-term relationships are often faced with the limitations of the one-shot or cross-sectional method, in which marital or other committed partners rate their satisfaction along with other key measures of interest, such as degree of conflict. Long-term, or longitudinal, studies have the advantage of being able to follow [...]

The difference between unconditional love and unconditional relationships. By Jeremy Nicholson M.S.W., Ph.D. Courtesy of Psychology Today Do you believe in unconditional love? I am asked this question frequently in discussions... When I respond with a "yes", my questioners are usually puzzled. They wonder how I can believe in unconditional love, yet discuss very "conditional" dating and relating techniques such as reciprocal gift-giving, withholding forgiveness, rewarding a partner, etc. After all, they assume, if you love someone unconditionally and truly bond with them, then you don't ever try to influence, limit, persuade, or set boundaries with them...right? Their confusion over [...]

Try these five tips when you are choosing friends and mates. By Elinor Greenberg, Ph.D. Courtesy of Psychology Today Many of us have had the experience of letting someone get close to us and then later regretting it. Toxic relationships can take many forms. We may have thought that someone was our best friend until she started making fun of us behind our back. Or, we may have idealized our handsome new love interest without really noticing that he gets drunk every night, flirts with other women, and gets irritated when we complain. Some of us spend years in unhealthy [...]

I Always Cra at Weddings by Sara Goff Published in 2015, Sara Goff's novel, I Always Cry at Weddings, is about Ava Larson, a young woman who is willing to lose everything in order to find true love. When it seems that everything is going wrong, Ava feels a loss of identity and the world seems different and dark. She starts to fear men and worries whether or not she would be ready for the right man when he presented himself. But she decides to live in faith, not fear. Goff's novel is a story that demonstrates the power of [...]

By Teddi Dineley Johnson Courtesy of The Nation's Health Unless you’re shipwrecked on a deserted island, you probably enjoy a handful of close relationships. From spouses to children to friends, parents, siblings and significant others, healthy relationships build self-esteem, improve mental and emotional health and help you live a fuller life. “Relationships are — not surprisingly — enormously important for health, and there are lots of studies on the biological processes that account for the link between relationships and health,” says psychology professor Arthur Aron, PhD, director of the Interpersonal Relationships Laboratory at New York’s Stony Brook University. The quality [...]

Push back against "silent agreements," the unspoken rules of your relationship. Linda D. Anderson, Ph.D., Sonia R. Banks, Ph.D., and Michele L. Owens, Ph.D. of Silent Agreements Couresty of Psychology Today Your earliest relationships have a great influence on many of your behaviors, decisions, and conscious and unconscious motives. Silent agreements are the unspoken “rules” of your relationships. They grow from the assumptions, expectations, and beliefs that you don’t talk about but still hold others accountable for. They show up in every kind of relationship, and as you read on, you’ll probably discover that you’re participating in several silent agreements. [...]

Use these 5 strategies for more productive disagreements. By Seth J. Gillihan Ph.D. Courtesy of Psychology Today No matter how strong your romantic relationship is, at some point you’re going to have disagreements. And while never arguing is an unrealistic goal, arguing better is an essential one. Thankfully all of us can improve the quality of our communication, including the way we argue. In my recent discussion with communication specialist Oren Jay Sofer on the Think Act Be podcast, I asked for his guidance on how we can communicate more effectively. He noted the following five principles for transforming our [...]