What is my attachment style?
Attachment styles have gotten some buzz in pop culture but what does it really mean? You may have looked up and tried to figure out what your attachment style is in your effort to understand or improve your intimate relationship.
So let’s first look at what an attachment is. Attachment is the bond you have with a close intimate other. If you are bonded to this person in a way that you rely on them for physical or emotional comfort and connection, you have an attachment to this person. Attachments can be healthy and move us toward greater mental health, or they can be unhealthy and move us toward mental distress. From when we are born, our caretakers, whether they are biological parents, adoptive parents, extended family members or the like, those are your earliest attachment figures. The people closest to you whom you rely on for comfort and care. As we evolve into adulthood, your adult intimate partner becomes your attachment figure, and you theirs, once your bond develops.
Before we get into attachment styles, let’s look at what healthy, functional, attachment looks like. In an ideal world, when we are vulnerable and in need, we can reach to an important other for comfort and support. And in that ideal world, the partner responds in a loving and caring way. So as a child, this might look like scraping your knee when you fall off your bicycle. Not only is there a physical wound, but you might have also gotten frightened by the fall. If your mother or father came and tended to your wound, held you and said, it’s okay, you’re okay. I know it hurts. Let’s get it cleaned up and you will be good as new! That is an example of a person in distress and vulnerable, being responded to with comfort and care. That interaction builds trust that you can count on this person to be there in times of need. That is what we call secure attachment. In adult relationships, this might look something like partner A getting their feelings hurt by partner B. So A turns to B and says, when you were late and didn’t call, I didn’t know if something happened to you and I started to worry. And when you got home and were fine I felt mad that you didn’t think to contact me. It left me feeling unimportant. And B responds to A with something like, oh gosh, I didn’t mean to worry you and I’m so sorry I left you feeling unimportant. My mind was distracted by a tough day at work and it slipped my mind to call. I’m sorry I hurt you, I am here now. And gives a soothing hug. This would be an adult example of one person reaching for support and care and the other person responding with love and comfort. That is an adult example of secure attachment.
But what happens when our interactions don’t go this way? What happens when the people closest to us don’t respond to us in the ways we hope for or need? What if we don’t trust the world enough to be that vulnerable?
This is where we learn to adopt strategies to protect ourselves from hurt and harm in the relationships closest to us that have the greatest potential to cause us emotional hurt and devastation.
Insecure attachment styles, also called strategies, are really just ways we behave in our intimate relationships to protect ourselves if it feels too dangerous to take emotional risks.
Let’s go back to that moment in childhood when you fell off your bike, scraped your knee and got scared. Imagine that caregiver responded with a harsh tone and said, “Get up! Don’t be a cry baby! You are ridiculous!” You would quickly learn to stuff your pain, that sharing resulted in shaming and humiliation, so keep your feelings to yourself. That can be a very painful, lonely place, but for most people, that is less painful then the fear and pain of feeling shamed and rejected by an intimate other. So stuffing feelings, withdrawing, going quiet, is a way to protect oneself from feeling shamed and humiliated.
Let’s go back to our adult example. If partner A shares that the missed call when the partner was late and partner B angrily responded with, “you are not my parent! I do not have to call you because I am running late, my goodness you are so controlling!” Partner A, just like in the child scenario, learns that sharing an experience is not going to result in loving comfort, but rather shaming, accusation and attack. So it no longer feels safe to turn to the partner from a vulnerable place.
Let me be clear, no parent or partner is going to be perfect and we all have our moments where we don’t respond the best way to our loved ones. It happens to everyone. These attachment strategies are employed when these interactions become a pattern, or the norm.
So the more clear question, rather than asking what is my attachment style, would be to ask yourself, how do I protect myself in times of distress if I do not see my partner as accessible or reliable in my times of need.
There are two primary ways people protect themselves in these moments of disconnection. We know them best as fight, flight or freeze. So if you see your partner as inaccessible, do you protest and get bigger and louder in your effort to be heard, understood and responded to? Or do you go quiet, turn away, and bottle it up to avoid the potential threat of further shame and blame?
Connection requires vulnerability. Vulnerability requires safety. We cannot connect when we are protecting ourselves. If you find yourself caught in this struggle, there is a way out and we can help. Please reach out to us anytime for help in healing your relationship.
Wishing you love and happiness always,
Dana Vince, Healing Hearts Counseling
It’s a healing pain
There’s a scene in an old episode of Grey’s Anatomy. I was unsuccessful in locating it so I could post it here, so I’ll have to just tell you about it. It was years ago that I saw it, but I never forgot it because it was quite impactful to me.
A mother was talking to the doctor shortly after her son had major surgery. She was suffering because her son was in such intense pain. The doctor said to her something along the lines of, “just remember, it’s a healing pain, not a dying pain.” Ooof! I found that to be a pretty profound statement.
Therapy is like this. Sometimes people avoid coming to therapy because they don’t want to drudge up painful stuff. If you are in a long term intimate relationship, odds are you have caused each other pain. If you are a human being that was a part of a family during your growing years, odds are that they also caused you some pain. These pains vary in degrees from person to person, but we all have them. If we suppress or avoid this pain, it becomes a dying pain. It cuts us off from parts of ourself. It puts walls between us and our loved ones leaving us isolated and alone. We act it out in ways we may not even be aware of.
When we decide to face that pain, turn toward it, allow ourselves to feel it, process it, understand it, and share it, we create space for it to heal. This hurts. It’s not easy to do. We have to feel it to heal it. But the pain you feel during that process, it’s a healing pain, not a dying pain. It is not meant for us to suffer alone. When we can share with a safe other, we can heal. If you would like to know more about us, go to www.marriagecounselingknoxville.com/team
It takes courage to reach for help and support. You are strong enough.
Wishing you love and happiness always,
Dana
Love relationships in a technological world
Social media and technology come up again and again in therapy sessions with couples as a source of distress, disconnection and concern. It comes up in a variety of ways. Here is a list of the most common complaints we hear from partners:
My partner’s face is always in his/her phone.
I don’t know if my partner is just playing a game or doing something important, so I don’t know if I can/should interrupt or not. I might start talking, and find my partner isn’t even paying attention to me.
I was doing something important on my phone, and my partner just starts talking without realizing I am in the middle of something, and that’s frustrating.
Friends or contact with people on social media that feel threatening to the bond of the relationship.
Answering texts or phone calls during time that is otherwise expected to be sacred to the couple.
Addictive habits around scrolling on social media during time together.
You can probably add your own complaints to this list.
In a world where we are all starving for more connection, we are looking for it in the wrong places. Social media and technology connect us in ways that we have never been connected before. We have friends on Facebook and instagram that we’ve never even met in person because we may have similar interests or ideas. But yet, it disconnects us more than ever because it takes us away from being present in the world around us and engaging with our important others who are right in front of us.
So what can we do about this? Here are some suggestions from unplugging from the digital world, and plugging in to your loved ones and being more present and accessible.
Put time limits on your phone around certain activities. For example; your phone can alert you when you’ve been on Facebook for more than an hour. Or when you’ve been playing candy crush for 2 hours.
Set some boundaries around when it’s time to put phones and internet away. Maybe it’s during dinner time, or maybe after 6pm. Or even just for an hour to engage with your family talking about your day and being with each other.
Check in with each other when you see your partner on their phone. Ask what they are doing and is it okay to interrupt so that you may share or have a conversation.
If you see your partner spending a lot of time in the digital world, rather than accuse or attack, let them know you miss them and would like to be more engaged and request to make a plan for that.
Be intentional about spending quality time with each other, and make that a time that phones are on silent and put away. If you don’t want to silence a possible important call from your child, or that doctor’s office you are waiting to hear from, put it on do not disturb and then set the exception to the numbers you will allow to ring through.
Be open and transparent about who you are interacting with digitally. Have conversations around expected boundaries to protect your relationship and each other. This is going to be different for everyone. Some couples are okay with their partner communicating with an ex on Facebook, some are not. Know and talk about how you and your partner feel about these things to avoid hurts down the road. You matter to and impact one another. Be thoughtful about how your communications with others might impact your partner. Also be reflective about why you might be engaging in certain communications. What need isn’t being met. Address it rather than avoid and seek it elsewhere.
These are just a few issues and suggestions about protecting your connection with one another by being thoughtful and intentional about digital and social media use. I invite you to come up with your own ways of being present with and connecting with those around you in your real life. Your partner and your family need that from you.
If you need help repairing your intimate connection with your partner, contact us today. We are here to help.
Wishing you love and happiness always,
Dana
How Parents Can Help Kids with the Stress of COVID-19
As we settle into 2021, we have a great opportunity to pause and reflect on what we have experienced in the final months of last year. We started 2020 with certain hopes, plans, and expectations, many of which were altered or wiped out due to COVID-19. This has caused immense amounts of stress, especially for families.
Putting together a memory book is a great option to slow down and reflect on the past year. The good, the bad, the stressful, the funny can all be remembered. Options for a memory book can include a scrapbook, a storybook, or if you’re really ambitious, you could get creative with something like a comic book to tell the story of the year. Whatever form you choose, this activity facilitates reflection where all the voices and perspectives of your family can be heard and valued. Being heard and feeling connected to loved ones relieves stress and promotes resilience for future stressors. During an activity like this, it’s important to intentionally listen to and reflect what your child shares, being careful to catch any reactions or responses that might dismiss or deny your child’s experience.
Below are questions you can ask your kids to help generate ideas and conversation about what you’d like to include in a memory book:
- What do you want to remember about the past year?
- How would you describe the past year? You can use a color, an animal, a kind of weather or a feeling to describe it. Consider having everyone (adults included!) try to draw a picture that portrays what this year has felt like
- What was disappointing about the past year? Were there times you felt sad? Scared?
- What are you thankful for in the past year? What were things that were fun and brought you joy?
- How would you explain this past year to other kids if they hadn’t lived through it, and they were asking you what it was like?
Whether you use paper, markers, and tape on hand to throw a book together, or want to go all out with crafting supplies, use reflection time to compile pictures, drawings, and memories from everyone in your family. If each voice has a lot to be heard, consider compiling a memory book per person that all comes together as a series.
Other Resources:
This book is a great read for any age, combining evidenced based research with helpful applications for how to engage children across developmental stages.
This book was written by a woman who specializes in helping children process distressing experiences. It’s specifically related to COVID-19 and is available online as a free PDF.
Anna Seiple
The surprising benefits of not knowing your partner
There’s been a lot written about how this pandemic is affecting marriages and relationships. Through all of that, one thing has stood out to me more than anything else. I have to be honest. “I think one of the things that I’ve realized is that I don’t know Will at all.” Actor Jada Pinkett Smith said of her relationship with fellow actor Will Smith on her show ‘Red Table Talk.’ They were married in 1997, and here she is saying she doesn’t know her husband. That sounded incredibly painful to me. I know how much myself, the people I work with, and just people in general, want to be known deeply by an important other.
I thought I knew where the story was going, but what she said next was not what I expected.
“I feel like there’s a layer that you get to, life gets busy and you create these stories in your head, and
then you hold onto these stories and that is your idea of your partner; that’s not who your partner is,”
she said.
I don’t think she’s saying she doesn’t know anything about her partner. They have actually been open
about some of their marriage problems and the deep, difficult conversations they’ve had in order to
work through them. If she didn’t know him before then, surely she got to know him some during that
process. What I think she is saying, is that there is a way in which our learning about our partner is never
really “over.”
The “knowing” about your partner can create a sense of intimacy, but in many ways the “not knowing”
can be just as important for intimacy. The “not knowing” is about the attention, openness, and curiosity
that we can maintain toward our partner. Often when people reflect on early days with their partner,
they remember that sense of sharing and learning about each other that fueled their sense of
connection with their new love.
Then, as Jada said, we get busy and caught up in our lives. We stop paying attention in the same way.
We think we “know.” In fact, the “knowing” part can get in the way because so much of what we think
we know about our partner is really a rigid story we’re telling ourselves, not the dynamic, fluid, and
sometimes messy truth. So, we engage with the story of our partner we tell ourselves, not our partner.
That’s not to say you have to try to recreate the dynamic of getting to know your partner that you went
through when you first met. Of course, you probably really do know quite a lot about your partner if
you’ve been with them a long time. But the truth is, we can never really know someone else completely.
Heck, just knowing ourselves can be pretty difficult. It also doesn’t mean you will always like what you discover. But hopefully, it’ll be real. And it’s so much easier and more intimate to deal with real.
What we can do is embrace the spirit of not knowing. We can lean into the possibility that we’ll discover
something new and unexpected with our partner. That possibility is the very doorway to intimacy, a
chance to know and be known, again and again.
Contributed by Dr. Clay Culp, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist at Healing Hearts Counseling
Dating ideas for you and your partner while you are sheltered in
These are hard times for all of us! Many of us are sheltered in and feeling the strain. It is likely that you are spending a lot of time with your spouse right now, but just because 2 people are in the same house, or even the same room, does not necessarily mean they are feeling connected. So how can you stay connected to one another during this difficult time?
Here are some in home “date” ideas to keep your relationship thriving during this time of being sheltered in
After the kids are asleep, if the weather is nice, have it on the front or back porch for added romance (and for even more added romance, take time to dress up).
Start a new show together.
Soak in a hot bath together (candles are good here too!).
Take time to check out of electronics. Turn the phones, TVs and computers off.
Do a home workout together.
Do yoga for couples.
Go for a walk. Or a run.
Play a card game, board game or maybe some heads up using the app on your phone.
Share what you are grateful for.
Have an afternoon picnic in the yard.
Paint together using art instructional videos online (a sort of painting with a twist, with an extra twist!)
Do your own book club for 2. Pick a book to read and then share your thoughts and reactions with one another.
This can be a time to explore sexuality. There are online resources for tantric sex or Kama sutra. Explore with one another.
Finish an at home project together that you just haven’t had time to complete.
Turn some music on and dance together, slow or fast, whatever you’re in the mood for. You can even make some videos for the rest of us on facebook!
Write random love notes to each other.
Cook a nice meal or try a new recipe together.
Hold each other and share what you are feeling in all of this. Let your partner know you are there, they are not alone. Find ways to comfort and reassure each other as you go through this.
This can be a time of deep intimate connection with your partner, keep turning toward one another and finding ways to stay engaged and connected. We all need more of that right now.
And if you are struggling, we are here. We are offering therapy online to couples. So please don’t hesitate to reach out if you need support. You can reach us at 865-283-1777.
Wishing you love and happiness always,
Dana
Can you do couples counseling online?
Absolutely! Not only can couples counseling be done online, it can be very effective and has many benefits if you follow a few simple suggestions.
This is a time of uncertainty for all of us. A time like this can be very stressful for couples and families, especially with everyone staying close to home for long periods of time. It can put undue stress and strain on relationships. Given that it is safer for all of us to be at home, many private practice therapists are moving their counseling practice to teletherapy, or what I like to call virtual couples counseling.
Having a therapist to work with and support you during this time can help you manage relationship stress, and even draw closer and more connected at a time that can cause couples to be distant, conflict ridden, and disconnected.
Here are some tips for successful online marriage therapy.
Be sure to have a secluded, private space to have your session. For some couples with kids, that might mean a bedroom closet or the car! Hey that’s okay, whatever works! You may also ask your therapist if they can offer you an appointment time that is early in the morning, or later in the evening when your kids are more likely to be asleep.
Be sure that you are sitting at least 2 feet from the computer screen so that your therapist can see both of you clearly. Ensure that you have a good internet connection, a good camera and microphone. Good working cameras and microphones can be purchased through Amazon for as little as $30.
Your therapist will have a secure HIPAA compliant platform to conduct the couples online therapy session. Most are very simple and easy to set up and use. It can be helpful to ask your couples therapist to do a quick 2 minute test virtual video call with you prior to your session time so you can feel comfortable and confident with how it works.
We are all figuring out how to get through this strange time together. Don’t let being safe at home keep you from seeking therapy for your relationship if you are struggling or in need.
Survival of any difficulty, pandemic or otherwise, is greater when we are connected to one another. We are stronger together.
Please feel free to reach out to us at Healing Hearts Counseling if you are in need of online couples counseling. You can reach us at 865-283-1777, our counselors are waiting by their computers to serve you!
Wishing you health and happiness always,
Dana
Relationships and learning to ski
Most couples come into therapy or relationship education expecting it to be like grade school, but a better metaphor might be ski school. No amount of talking about or studying skiing can make us appreciably better at skiing. We need to practice a different way of relating to a slippery, steep, downhill slope than any of our primal instincts would suggest that we should. I remember the first time I went skiing, and when I started to stumble, I immediately leaned back and of course ended up toppling over. What I slowly learned through practice was that when I felt that fear of losing stability and the panic response caused me to lean back, I instead needed to lean forward. I needed to lean towards the downhill that I was afraid of tumbling down and I needed to keep my skis in contact with the ground. I needed to be more assertive and turn into the snow not less assertive and turn away. The only way to move forward was to practice a new way of relating to my fears. They told me something like this in the training, but I needed to have practice and help to get better.
Relationships are much more like a craft than an academic discipline and require guided practice to excel at it. Much like skiing, we need to work against our natural emotional tendencies and we need to feel our way through it. Reading books on relationships can be helpful, but most of us need practice to be able to ski down the slope of our relationship. We need to practice a new way of relating to our fears that causes us to lean towards, not away from them. Couples need to practice sharing vulnerably instead of reacting according to our normal tendencies of anger or pulling away. If you and your partner find yourself slip-sliding all over the slope or you are an advanced skier looking to take your game to the next level, come join us, class is in session!
Violence in Relationships
Violence in relationships, this is a tricky topic to discuss on a blog. I want to be sure to first and foremost say, violence is never okay. But if we are going to stop relationship violence, we have to understand it.
There are 2 different types of relationship violence. The first is domestic terrorism. That is when one partner aims to control and manipulate the other more vulnerable partner. If you are in this situation, it is of utmost importance to get a safety plan in place. You can contact 800-356-6767 (TN) which is the Tennessee Domestic Violence helpline. This is not the type of violence I am addressing in this blog.
The second type of violence is the violence that occurs between intimate partners when they have a volatile cycle with each other where conflict erupts into verbal and/or physical lash outs. It can leave both partners feeling bewildered, confused, hurt, angry, helpless and afraid. It’s not uncommon, and there is something you can do about it. It doesn’t mean the relationship has to end, but you do need intervention.
So how do things get to this point? A very common cycle in couples is what is called pursue/withdraw. Both partners feel disconnected from the other, and their reactions to feelings of disconnect pull the other into the negative pattern. Think of an infinity loop. There is no beginning and no end and it can be triggered at anytime.
In this cycle, the pursuer is looking to get a reaction from their withdrawn partner. They often feel alone, unloved, indivisible, that they don’t matter, or are unimportant. When they are feeling this way, they often engage in behaviors in an attempt to resolve these hurts. They can become provoking (any response is better than no response), critical (why don’t you help me more?! You are always on your phone! You care more about work than you do about your family!), blaming (I get so angry because you don’t listen to me!), demanding (Why can’t you be more affectionate with me?! I need you to listen to me!). This often comes across as attacking to their partner’s character and behaviors. But underneath the attacks is the despairing pain of isolation and loneliness calling to be heard and soothed.
The withdrawing partner is typically trying to calm the waters by avoiding conflict. They can also feel paralyzed because they feel anything they say or do will be the wrong thing, so they do nothing. They appear stoic and uncaring to their partner, cold and distant, but behind the wall they are feeling inadequate (no matter what I do or how hard I try, it’s never good enough), feelings of failure (I can’t seem to get it right, I can’t make my partner happy). When everything they do seems to make it worse, they withdraw farther and farther. They withhold thoughts and emotions and have a lot of inner turmoil even though on the outside it may appear they don’t care.
So the more the pursuer criticizes and attacks, the more the withdrawer feels unsafe and withdraws. The more the withdrawer withdraws, the more unsafe the pursuer feels and keeps going seeking a response. For the pursuer, if they didn’t pursue, the fear is they will end up more isolated and alone. The withdrawer fears if they don’t withdraw, things will escalate and get worse. Both in their own way are trying to protect the connection in the relationship while also trying to protect themselves from further hurt and despair. It’s a vicious painful cycle and both partners are caught.
When this pattern gets very rigid and continues to worsen, it can lead to violence. The pursuer feels so ignored and invisible their protest gets more out of control and they may say and do things desperate for a reaction. The withdrawer may feel so backed into a corner, they lash out to get their pursuing partner to give them space and distance.
In this pattern there is no perpetrator. Both partners are victims to this painful cycle of disconnection. But both are impacting each other with their reactions and inviting the other (unintentionally) into this dance.
There is a way out. It takes slowing it down, making it safe for each other to risk and be vulnerable to be able to share the deeply hidden emotions that drive this cycle to find the comfort and support that is needed from each other. This is not easy, it takes time, and often needs the help of a professional to help you see where you are stuck and how you can exit this painful pattern.
If this pattern sounds like your relationship, or maybe it’s not quite to that point yet, please don’t hesitate to contact us. There is a way to pull out of this pattern and work toward co-creating a loving, caring, safe place with one another. It takes courage and a willingness to risk and be vulnerable.
Wishing you love and happiness and Happy New Year!
Dana
Helping your relationship survive football season
Clay on the news talking football and relationships
Nothing brings people together quite like a football Saturday in Knoxville. But, if you
and your partner have significantly different levels of interest in football, the season can
instead lead to feelings of distance and tension. The tension can be ratcheted up even
higher when if it’s a particularly frustrating season. So, if the Vols slow start has you
down, make sure it doesn’t bring your relationship down too.
Football fans:
Pay attention: Attention is one of the most basic forms of love. It makes sense then,
your partner might feel neglected when you shift a significant portion of your attention
to football. The way you tune in physically and emotionally to a game, is often the very
attention your partner craves. If your partner starts thinking “Gosh, I wish I was as
interesting as a football game,” that can go beyond annoying to actually being hurtful.
Football and your relationship might seem like separate issues from your perspective,
but if attention is not being paid to your partner at other times, game time can become a
Big Orange representation of that disconnect. There’s nothing wrong with watching the
game and rooting for your team. Just remember not to let your love of the game get in
the way of the love for your partner.
Watch out for spillover: A football game may only last a few hours, but its impact
can go far beyond that. Emotional spillover can be a major problem, especially after a
tough loss. If football is taking up a lot of your time, the importance of protecting
your other time becomes even more important. This means finding ways to calm
yourself down and hit the reset button so you can be present with your partner.
Remember, over-doing it with tailgating and alcohol will only make this harder. Add
excess alcohol to the emotions of a football game, and you can quickly have a
relationship disaster on your hands. Alcohol lowers reduces our capacity for self-control,
making hurtful statements and even physical violence more likely. Make it your
responsibility not to let your negative emotions contaminate otherwise quality time.
Non-football fans:
Accept your partner: The struggle to change someone is often even more exhausting
than the issue itself. Trying to convince your partner that football doesn’t or shouldn’t
matter will not work. The result of your efforts will likely be increased anger and
resentment. Instead, try accepting their fandom as one of many things that make your
partner who they are, not a problem that needs to be fixed. You may believe that if you
offer any acceptance, you won’t get what you want. It may seem counter-intuitive, but
adding a dose of acceptance can loosen the grip of frustrating emotions that keep you
and your partner stuck, allowing new solutions to arise.
Communicate the real issue:
Your partners focus on football could be upsetting for
a variety of reasons, like lack of quality time or even increased spending.Regardless, the key is communicating in a direct and constructive manner. Instead of blaming football
itself or attacking your partner, explain specifically how you are feeling and being
affected by what’s happening. The challenge is to move past your initial reactive emotion
and tune into the deeper meaning behind it, which if often about your sense of
connection to your partner. One thing that can help is to remember to complain rather
than criticize. There is a huge difference between saying; “Will you quit staring at the
TV? All you care about is football!”; (criticism) and “I’m feeling disappointed that you’ve
spent most of the day watching football and we didn’t get a chance to connect. Can we
spend some time together?” (complaint). Criticisms paint your partner with a broad
brush and feel more like an attack on who they are as a person, whereas complaints
focus narrowly and explain how you feel, rather than a negative assumption about your
partners intention or character. At their core, both approaches are bids for attention and
care, but criticisms are likely to be seen as an attack and cause your partner to pull
become defensive. Complaints aren’t always easy to hear either, but they are much more
likely to bring your partner closer. And that’s exactly what you really want.
For both:
Celebrate your differences: If you and your partner were exactly the same, things
would get boring really quickly. Your difference around this issue can be an exciting
opportunity to get to know each other better. Discover what excites the other and makes
them tick. If you don’t like football that much, be curious and try to learn what your
partner likes about it so much. If your partner doesn’t like football, find out what
they do like and do it with them. Getting into one another’s world through both activity
and conversation helps strengthen your bond and keep things interesting. Think back to
when you and your partner first met. I would venture to guess that much of what fueled
your sense of connection was an intense desire to know and be known by your partner.
Even if you’ve been together for a long time, I can assure you that if you tap into that
sense of curiosity there’s more to discover.
Written by Dr. Clay Culp, Emotionally Focused Therapist at Healing Hearts Counseling