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Marriage Counseling Benefits

Does your mind crawl back to the day when you said “yes” to your spouse?

The words “I do” are stuck in your head like a song on repeat.. You think about all you have come across, all that you left for your partner, and all that you have accomplished together. You never would have thought about marriage counseling benefits when things were going so well.

Marriage was never meant to be a piece of cake. The day you tied the knot with your spouse wasn’t just a beginning of a fairy tale. It wasn’t just romance and honeymoon trips. Your marriage day was beyond all of this – it was the day where you were supposed to share everything in your life – from a bed, to financials, and above all, share what’s inside your hearts.

Your heart may change or disagree with something, but it wasn’t supposed to lose hope or feelings towards your partner. However, sometimes life does take U-turns and go crazy because of bumps that come along or milestones that crush you down, and it’s okay. It’s okay if you don’t feel the same anymore about him/her. The first step to overcome this hard ride is to accept the reality of your heart and mind.

Are marriage counseling services really worth it?

Next, you have to buckle up and get ready to talk. But consulting with a friend or family member isn’t the right place. Marriage counselors do have a major role in making life easier with marriage conflicts and perhaps one last try wouldn’t hurt.

Marriage Counseling Benefits: with therapy, you can start:

●       Resolving conflicts from a neutral perspective.

●       Analyzing the reasons that made you and your spouse disconnect.

●       Processing the emotions and ill feelings that led to consequences.

●       Receiving guidance to divert away from the turmoil.

●       Creating a sense of clarity with what your mind & heart want.

The entire process of realization and building communication must be addressed professionally.

Marriage Counseling Long Island When a couple is stressed, a lot of negativity takes control and makes getting back together the last resort. It makes it blurry for both individuals to understand and think for a second. Due to back-to-back fights and arguments, ill feelings towards each other mess up the foundation of what could be a great relationship.

By talking about your feelings and problems in a guided manner, a counselor tends to draw parallels between both people and address conflicts accordingly. It helps both reconcile and value the power of love and relationship.

For additional information about counseling, please call (516) 592-1107 or email Chana Pfeifer at TheHappierMe.LCSW@gmail.com

Make time for a date night.

It is all too easy to become complacent in a relationship and fall into a routine where you neglect to make the relationship exciting.

Keep The Spark Alive:

date nightNo matter how busy your schedules are, it’s important to always make room for a date night.

Dating should be a part of every relationship no matter how long you’ve been together.

Try setting aside at least one day a week where you rediscover the fun of dating your partner.

A date night is an opportunity to communicate, and this communication may help couples deepen their understanding of one another and the relationship. Communication is important because individuals continue to change and over time, as they and their relationship develop, they experience new challenges and problems.

Most importantly, never forget to have fun with each other. Goof around, playfully tease one another, go out with your friends, and just enjoy each other’s company. In a solid relationship, your partner will always be your best friend, so it’s important not to neglect that.

Date nights are a way to relieve stress. They allow a couple to enjoy time with one another apart from the pressing concerns of their ordinary life. Date nights also may serve couples as an opportunity to extend emotional support to one another in times of trial.

It doesn’t have to be glamorous or expensive, but it should actually be enhancing and enriching to your relationship.

For additional information about counseling, please call (516) 592-1107 or email Chana Pfeifer at TheHappierMe.LCSW@gmail.com

Couples Coping with Infidelity

Given the emotional toll infidelity takes, can anyone truly get past an affair?

Can trust ever be restored? Should it be?

Social Worker West Hempstead NY / Infidelity Counseling

Finding out that your partner has been unfaithful can hit you like a ton of bricks. Your marriage may be thrown into a state of crisis that may destroy it.

It’s not just the pain of any specific sexual betrayal that you must try to process and eventually overcome, it’s the loss of trust in your spouse and your relationship.

If you have recently learned about infidelity in your relationship and are experiencing any degree of the pain and uncertainty described above, the following tips below may be helpful.

Accept Your Feelings

Shock, agitation, fear, pain, depression, and confusion are normal. You will likely feel like you’re on an emotional roller coaster for a while. It takes time to get beyond the pain of having an unfaithful mate. Don’t expect the mixture of feelings and the mistrust to go away even if you’re trying to forgive your partner and repair your marriage. Your marriage has changed and it is natural to grieve the relationship you once had.

Don’t Seek Revenge

Being betrayed by your partner can induce rage. In your furious state, your first instinct may be to punish your mate by trash-talking him to friends (or worse, on social media), or think about having an affair yourself to get even. You may get a temporary sense of satisfaction from these sorts of actions, but ultimately they can work against you, keeping you in a state of anger instead of focusing on healing and moving on, alone or together.

Think before you tell your family, as well. They will likely have strong opinions about what you should do—leave or stay. But nobody else really understands what goes on in another person’s marriage. While you are pondering how you’re going to proceed, it’s best to keep the details private.

Take Care of Yourself

You may have some physical reactions due to stress such as nausea, diarrhea, sleep problems, shakiness, difficulty concentrating, not wanting to eat or overeating. Once the initial shock has passed, try your best to eat healthy foods, to stay on a schedule, to sleep regular hours, to get some exercise each day, to drink plenty of water, and, yes, to have some fun.

Avoid the Blame Game

Blaming yourself, your partner, or the third party won’t change anything and it’s just wasted energy. Try not to play the victim, either, if you can help it, or wallow in self-pity. It will only make you feel more helpless and bad about yourself.

Keep Your Kids Out of It

This situation is between you and your partner and should not involve your children at all. Unless you and your spouse have decided to end your marriage, sharing details about an affair will only cause them anxiety, make them feel stuck in the middle, and forced to take sides.

Seek Counseling

Don’t try to get through coping with unfaithfulness alone. Before you make any decisions about whether or not to end your marriage, it’s wise to talk to a couples’ counselor, who will be neutral and can help you gain insight into what exactly happened. You can ask your partner questions and share your feelings without losing your cool.

An experienced therapist can help you communicate better and process feelings of guilt, shame, and whatever else you might be feeling. If you decide to end the marriage, you ‘ll know that you tried your best to make it work.

Get Practical

If you suspect that the affair will most likely lead to the end of your marriage, give some thought to practical matters, such as where you will live, if you have enough money to pay for your essentials, and, if you have kids, the type of custody arrangement you want. You may also want to consider asking your partner to be tested for STDs, and to get yourself tested as well if you have had sex during or after the affair.

Take it One Day at a Time

Infidelity is one of the more difficult challenges a marriage can face, but it doesn’t always mean it’s the end. As you work through the aftermath over time, it will become clear how to go forward so that the next phase of your life, together or apart, can begin.

For more info. about infidelity counseling, please call (516) 592-1107 or email Chana Pfeifer at TheHappierMe.LCSW@gmail.com

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Workplace Anxiety

Many people experience anxiety associated with their jobs or careers.

Job instability, office politics, deadlines, career advancement, and many other factors can cause workplace anxiety, and this can spill over into our interpersonal relationships, especially within the family unit. This can cause family strife, as the working individual injects or transfers the anxiety from their job into their family relationships.

There’s tactics you can use to mitigate & manage workplace anxiety.

Organization, good time management, and taking the time for self-care are all important tools for mitigating workplace anxiety.

It is also important to be realistic about your abilities and avoid overextending yourself. To the extent possible, avoid toxic co-workers and office gossip. It can also be useful to get a head start on projects whenever possible, and ask for help when necessary.

Most importantly for your personal relationships, you need to set boundaries. To the extent that your job permits, keep your work in the office and avoid taking work calls and emails from home.

Take advantage of your vacation time: try to use it to go somewhere that allows you to diminish your level of stress and return to work refreshed and rejuvenated.

Social Worker West Hempstead NY / Workplace Anxiety CounselorTalking about your feelings, whether with a co-worker, family member, or therapist, can help you to understand and manage your anxiety.

Even the act of sharing your feelings can be cathartic and help to diminish your levels of stress.

Sharing your feelings with family members can also be important, as this allows them to understand the pressures you are under and may even help them overlook some venting behaviors.

One of the most important things is not to let workplace anxiety affect your personal and family relationships.

This requires a certain level of self-management. If you have a long commute, spending the time it takes to get home to cool off before interacting with your family members can be a useful tool. Calling a friend or other confidante to discuss your work situation before interacting with your family can also help you arrive home in a less agitated state. You can even discuss with family members that you need a certain, reasonable cooling off period after arriving home before being asked to address family and relationship issues.

All these tactics can help prevent workplace anxiety from harming your personal relationships.

If you find that workplace anxiety is persistent, irrational, or consistently overwhelming, you may suffer from an anxiety disorder. Speaking to a therapist can help you to diagnose such an issue and develop tools to manage your condition.

Even if your workplace anxiety does not rise to the level of a disorder, speaking with a therapist can help you to understand the sources of your anxiety and learn how to effectively manage it.

For additional information about counseling, please call (516) 592-1107 or email Chana Pfeifer at TheHappierMe.LCSW@gmail.com

Jealousy: Smothered by Love

First, a quick note – Jealousy and envy are different concepts, despite the terms often being used interchangeably in daily speech.

Envy is the state of desiring something that another has. Jealousy is desiring to keep something or someone all to yourself, and involves a third party.

For example, if you wish you could sleep 16 hours a day and sit in the window, you are envious of your cat. However, if you don’t want other people to pet your cat because you feel he belongs to you or it will undermine your bond with your cat, you are jealous of your cat. The following piece deals with the role of jealousy in relationships.

A certain level of jealousy can be normal in a relationship, especially for individuals who have had issues with past partners failing to be faithful. Indeed, many people believe that it is a sign of love, and evolutionary psychologists consider it to be a valuable emotion that can signal danger to an important relationship.

However, jealousy can undermine a trusting relationship and leave your partner feeling overwhelmed and trapped, limiting your ability to have a healthy relationship.

Many relationship therapists report that romantic jealousy is a leading cause of their clients’ relationship problems.

couples therapy Long Island / jealousy issuesStudies have shown that feelings of being jealous can be linked to low self-esteem, dependence on one’s partner, feelings of inadequacy, an anxious attachment style, or even neuroticism.

Absent a history of behaviors that warrant a partner’s jealousy, you should know that a partner’s jealousy reflects their insecurities, not any adequacy of yours. When confronted with unwarranted jealousy, a healthy, relationship-building strategy is to assure your partner that you remain interested in and attracted to them.

If you find yourself feeling jealousy toward your partner, stop and re-evaluate your behaviors. Work on building your self-confidence in order to feel more secure in your relationship. Avoid going through your partner’s social media or electronic devices—your mind can begin to draw patterns and extrapolate details creating things to be jealous of that aren’t really there.

Communicating calmly with your partner, in a manner directed at developing a solution to your jealousy, can also be an effective strategy.  

The great irony of unwarranted jealousy is that it can drive an otherwise-satisfied partner away. Jealous behaviors, left unchecked, can undermine the trust in a relationship and hinder the ability to express love. Taken to extremes, it can lead to angry, even violent outbursts.

Jealousy is not limited to romantic relationships. It can also arise between friends or siblings, and can endanger harmony within the family unit.

If you believe that jealousy—whether yours, your partner’s, or otherwise—is negatively affecting your relationship, professional therapy can help guide a productive conversation to address these potentially problematic feelings within your relationship.

For additional information about counseling, please call (516) 592-1107 or email Chana at TheHappierMe.LCSW@gmail.com

Why Surrendering To Love Makes Relationships Work

Maya Kollman – Surrendering to Love

Is the answer to a successful relationship found in your ability to surrender to love? If it is, wow, that requires a lot of trust. Obviously we’re willing to try because we are driven to couple up, yet connecting is extremely difficult.

According to relationship guru Maya Kollman, “loving somebody, really loving somebody and surrendering to love forces us to face our deepest fears which are ‘they’ll leave me or they’ll die.’”

love adviceKollman says that love – that connection – is the key to our very survival as individuals.

She says we are really good at finding “the” partner who can fulfill us and help us actualize who we are.

Living with those same people, however, isn’t easy.

Kollman points out, “This is where a respectful and appropriate communication strategy is required” – a strategy she insists exists.

Surrendering to love is faith that the power of love can accomplish anything – even when you cannot foresee the outcome.

Instead of running from fear, instead of pushing it away or shoving it down, embrace it, and become intimate with it. Know it inside and outside.

Contact Chana Pfeifer LCSW

Counseling for Conscious Couples
Chana Pfeifer, LCSW
(516) 592-1107
TheHappierMe.LCSW@gmail.com

3 Steps To Save Your Relationship When You’ve Drifted Too Far Apart

Don’t give up yet!

Most of us entered marriage with some sort of picture in our minds of how married life would be. For some individuals, the picture is very clear and easy to describe. For others, their ideal image of marriage won’t become clear until they begin to think about things that aren’t happening.

Things can slowly deteriorate, and learning how to save your marriage seems impossible. That’s when they realize they really did have expectations for what married life would be like.

Life happens! Within a few short years of getting married (and the time seems to pass very rapidly), our time and energy are taken up by many things.

Once children are born, they have many needs; and as they develop, they get involved in lots of activities that take up parental time — shopping for them, helping with homework, arranging doctor appointments, attending concerts, school events, recitals, and so on. Even with the best intentions and with determined intentionality, it can still be difficult for couples to maintain closeness, intimacy and enough time together to grow the relationship.

If this is descriptive of your life, you may find yourself wondering if this will ever change, and if your marriage has a chance to make it long-term.

The answer is, “yes, your marriage can last!” if you take some of the following steps:

1. Take time to think.

Take some time with the following questions, and write down your main conclusions so they are not forgotten and evaluate your relationship.

Depending on your personality and thought patterns, you may be able to do this while driving or involved in an activity, or you may need to have time alone with no distractions. You know what works best for you.

Ask yourself this: Just how bad does it feel to be in your relationship right now Does it feel simply like you are drifting apart, but it could easily be fixed? Does it seem like you are living as roommates? Do you find that you are arguing way more than ever before? Do you or does your spouse seem to have tons of anger and resentment which make it difficult to ever engage in meaningful conversation?

Come up with a number on a 1-5 scale regarding your relationship. You are a 1 if it feels like it could easily be fixed, and you are a 5 if there is a ton of resentment and someone has dropped the “D” bomb (divorce).

Think about the approachability of your spouse. As stated earlier, “Life happens!” Think about what is happening in life right now. If either one of you is under undue stress or facing gargantuan deadlines, it may be better to postpone an intervention or to carefully plan it out. However, don’t put it off for long, or it may never get done until it is too late.

2. Take time to plan.

Based on your evaluation of things, it is now time to plan your next steps. This step may take some time, depending on how damaged you feel, and how damaged you believe your marriage is at this point. If you are a 4 or 5 on the relationship scale, you may have difficulty believing that things can be any different than the current status.

Here are some things to think through and jot down:

  • What do I want? You don’t like things the way they are, so what DO you want? Even if it does not seem possible, at least think through and answer this question: “What do I want in our marriage?”
  • What do I need? This could be another version of the previous question, or it could have a different answer. However, think it through and write it down. What does my spouse want? You have been married for a while, so put on your thinking cap. Write out what you believe your spouse wants in your marriage that is not there right now. The answer to this one may be as simple as making a list of the common complaints you hear from your spouse.
  • What does my spouse need? This can be a very different answer from what they want. You know this person; you know their life, their personality and the way they approach life and the stresses of life.

What are the top 2 or 3 things that you KNOW would be helpful to your spouse RIGHT NOW with the things being faced in life?

Strategize how to discuss these things with your spouse. If things are going to change either way, for the better or for worse, someone needs to try to get things out on the table where they can be discussed. If the two of you have not had much success in attempting discussions of this type, then you need to do it in a different way than you have in the past.

You could discuss this with a friend to get some input, but be careful in doing this. Your spouse may not like the fact that someone else knows the struggles you are facing, and you don’t want to discuss it with a person who has trouble keeping confidences.

If you are involved in a religious community, try turning to someone who has been a mentor or adviser in the past. The goal is to come up with a way of entering into a discussion regarding your evaluation of the relationship and determine how to change it for the better.

3. Take time to act.

At some point in time you will need to suck in some air, say a prayer, and initiate the discussion. When you do this, do not be surprised if things take off in directions that you never expected. In fact, you should be prepared for this and fight the tendency to defend yourself.

If you want to understand how to save your relationship, you have to take time to think this through. Your preparation should mean that the emotional edge has been taken off of your presentation, and it is now a little more factual than it was at first. Your spouse has not had the time to do that, so strap yourself in and hang on and allow for some emotion to be blown off at first.

Let your spouse know you have been thinking about things they may want in the relationship. When you give them the list of things you thought would be important to them, ask what you missed and allow time for the discussion.

Tell your spouse that in addition to wants they may have, you believe there are also things they need. Make it clear how you will be able to help with those needs.

These are some initial steps in addressing a relationship that is drifting apart. Don’t expect to solve everything in one discussion, and don’t be too hurt or let down if there is little to no change in your first attempt at this.

Save Your Relationship * Chana Pfeifer, LCSW * The Happier Me

Both of you are caught up in life as it has been for a while. You both have patterns to your day, week and month. Even if you both want to make small or even major changes, it may not be possible for a period of time. Appointments, meetings and activities tend to get scheduled far ahead, so try to bear in mind that it can take weeks and even months to free up time and energy to do something as important as investing in each other again.

Save Your Relationship

Don’t give up. If you’d like more info. on couples or individual counseling, contact me today.

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Marriage problems need fixing, not ignoring.

marriage problemsLearn the skills to sustain a strong, emotionally healthy, and loving marriage.

Marriage rescue for couples facing marriage problems…

When couples first contact me for marriage help, they typically feel distressed and even hopeless about their relationship. If they can look back and remember earlier good times however, that usually signals a marriage that can be saved. In fact, this kind of marriage has potential to become the kind of partnership the couple had hoped for when they said, “I do.”

What transitions couples from desperation about their difficulties to delight in sharing their lives together?

Here’s the 8-step pathway along which I guide my therapy clients, and which you are welcome to take as well:

1. Make a list of all the issues about which you have disagreements, including the issues that you refrain from talking about out of fear that talking might lead to arguing.

Your self-help treatment will be complete when you have found mutually agreeable solutions to all of these issues, and also have learned the skills to resolve new issues as they arise with similarly win-win solutions.

If the list seems interminable because you fight about everything from time of day, to where to live, odds are the problem is less that you are facing some challenging differences, and more that your manner of talking with each other needs a major upgrade.

2. Fix your focus solidly on yourself. Attempts to get your partner to change invite defensiveness. No one likes being told they’re doing things wrong or, far worse, that they are a bad person. Better by far for both of you each to use your energies and intelligence to figure out what YOU could do differently.

Here’s a question that can get you started. What would enable you to stay loving and good-humored even if the frustrating pieces in your spouse’s repertoire never get an upgrade? That’s how to become “self-centered” in the best sense. If both of you are seeking to do your own upgrades, the marriage will blossom.

3. Cut the crap (pardon my language). The point is that negative muck that you give each other is totally unhelpful. It only taints a positive relationship. That means no more criticism, complaints, blame, accusations, anger, sarcasm, mean digs, snide remarks.

No more anger escalations either. Stay in the calm zone. Exit early and often if either of you is beginning to get heated. Learn to calm yourself, and then re-engage cooperatively.

Research psychologist John Gottman has found that marriages generally survive if the ratio of good to bad interactions is 5 to 1. Do you want to barely survive? Or do you want to save the marriage in a way that will make it thrive? If thriving is your goal, aim for 100,000,000:1. That means, don’t sling mud at all. Cut the crap.

4. Learn how to express concerns constructively. A simple way to do that in sensitive conversations is to stick with the following sentence-starter options. In my clinical work I give couples a handout that includes these starter phrases. I encourage them to use the handout frequently, checking how to start each comment that might be sensitive or on topics that they know could be prickly.

I feel (followed by a one-word feeling such as anxious, sad, etc) …

My concern is ………..

I would like to … [note, NEVER use “I would like you to ….”]

How would you feel about that? or, What’s your thoughts on that?

5. Learn how to make decisions cooperatively. I call collaborative decision-making the “win-win waltz.”

Win-win decision-making aims for a plan of action that pleases you both. No more insistence designed to “get your way.” Instead, when you have differences, quietly express your underlying concerns, listen calmly to understand your partner’s concerns, and then create a solution responsive to all the concerns of both of you.

Practice this skill-set on all the issues you listed in step 1. You may be amazed to discover that, even on issues that seemed intractable, you will be able to co-create solutions that will work for both of you.

6. Eliminate the three A’s that ruin marriages.

Affairs, Addictions & Anger are deal-breakers.

They are out-of-bounds in a healthy marriage. Fix the habit or game over.

If you or your spouse has these problems, saving this kind of marriage could be a mistaken goal. Better to end a marriage than to continue a marriage with these hurtful habits.

Better yet is for each of you to figure out what you can do differently in the future. The one with the A-habit needs to figure out how to end it. The partner needs to heal, and also to learn alternatives to tolerating the habit.

Most importantly, especially if you have children who need you to learn how to be more emotionally healthy as individuals and as a couple, is for the two of you both to commit to building a new kind of marriage.

That is, end the old marriage. Build a new one with the same partner. Build a marriage where there are zero affairs, addictions or excessive anger and instead, abounding love and trust.

7. Radically increase the positive energies you give your partner.

Smile more. Touch more. Hug more. More “eye kisses.” More sex. More shared time and shared projects. More appreciation. More dwelling on what you like about your partner.

Respond more often with agreement in response to things your partner says that in the past you might have answered with “But…”.

Listening is loving, especially when you are listening to take in information, not to show what’s wrong with what your partner says or to show that you know more.

Help out more. Give more praise and more gratitude. Do more fun activities together. Laugh and joke more, do new things and go new places together.

The best things in life really are free. And the more positives you give, the more you’ll get!

I wrote above about Gottman’s 5:1 ratio. Increasing the positives is every bit as important as decreasing negatives to hit a 100,000,000:1 ratio.

8. Look back at your parents’ marriage strengths and weaknesses. Decide what you want to do differently.

When people marry they bring along a recording in their head of how their parents treated each other, and also how they were treated by their parents.

These relationships are where folks learn patterns of interacting for intimate relationships. Decide consciously what to keep from your folks and what to do differently.

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To learn more about couples therapy with Chana Pfeifer, click here.

Counseling for Blended Families

Are your children or step children causing conflict between you and your spouse / ex-spouse?

Do you feel emotionally drained by the challenges of being in a blended / step family?

Do you sometimes doubt if your relationship will succeed?

Remarriage, especially when children from the previous relationship(s) are involved, can be a land mine for conflict.

Becoming a step family has lots of moving parts and an equal amount of emotions. When two families combine, there is lots of room for disagreement. Not every family is successful at “blending,” especially when it comes to the priorities of the marriage and children.

An intact nuclear family starts with a marriage and then adds children to the mix.. but in a blended family, the children are there at the beginning; they pre-date the marriage. This brings a much different dynamic to the table.

Blended families are a challenge, but I have seen blended-family marriages thrive when the husband and wife keep marriage a priority and respect their children. Building something that extends far beyond the child rearing years gives your children a foundation to build upon for themselves.

The good news is that most remarried couples can beat the odds of divorce and build a successful blended family if they know how to overcome the unique barriers to marital intimacy in a blended family and if they understand step family dynamics.

In other words, learn to beat the odds of divorce by “getting smart.“

Counseling for Blended Families

If you’re in the midst of a blended family, support and guidance from an experienced and compassionate licensed therapist may be critical to the success of your relationship and your family.

Blended family counseling gives you the opportunity to make space and time for your relationship. It also demonstrates to each other that, while in the midst of chaos and conflict, working through your family issues is a priority.

To learn more about Pared Therapy, click here.