​Remember what you liked about your spouse when you first began to date? How you respected one another and went out of your way to understand his perspective; the excitement that percolated every time you learned something new and fresh about this person?
 
Have you ever witnessed a teen and her mom laughing and sharing together and wished that you had that connection with your child? How did they get there? What do they know that you don’t know?
 

​Friendship connotes safety, respect and support. When we love our friends, we want what is best for them and we yearn to be close and connected. Sadly enough, marriages and families often forget this very important component to a healthy and satisfying relationship. 

​All relationships have complaints, but not all complaints turn into criticisms.
 
“I feel underappreciated and am tired of picking up all your stuff.” (I statement) “Please be more mindful.” (voicing a wish…how to make it right)
 
…is a very different message than
 
“You’re so messy and disorganized”(can you feel the finger being pointed at your loved one?) “I can’t take your chaos… this room is disgusting!“(who your spouse or child is as a person, at their core was just attacked and made to feel like a serious detriment. I can almost feel the shame that was just fertilized and watered) 
 
Complaint #1 voices a complaint with an “I statement” and a wish attached, While message #2 attacks the person and makes them feel unworthy of you.
 

​When we have enough negative interactions with a loved one, we tend to pull away, distance and protect. That doesn’t sound at all like the opening paragraph of this article. What happened to the excitement? The love? Learning how to voice complaints and communicate from a place of love and respect is absolutely vital if the relationship is going to grow.
 
 
Relationships that feel safe tend to yield themselves to curiosity and exploration.
Remember that scenario of a teen and her mom? It is impossible to have a close-knit safe bond if interactions erode the person and relationship. When we communicate love and support and these are felt in the relationship, trust breeds.
 
“I can let her in…tell her about my friends who are drinking because I know she won’t judge and I trust that she will give me guidance and direction”
 
I want my teen to be thinking this! To be brought into his/her level; to help them navigate life because there is trust and respect.
 
“I’m struggling with my boss. I know I’m getting defensive and reactive, but sometimes….”
 
I want my spouse to be able to talk to me this openly. To be able to share weaknesses and flaws and vulnerability means s/he feels safe and trusts that opening up and sharing will improve the situation and NOT harm it.

Are you going for water and a well-balanced fertilizer or acid and a dark shading blanket? Find the balance in your relationship; mindfully choose how you want love and respect to look like. Relationships that work and flourish are not by accident, they take purposeful choice, commitment and a curiosity to learn more and extend it further.

Who is the Author?
Gabrielle Anderson, lmft is the owner of the Family Therapy Center in Ashburn as well as a Marriage and Family therapist. She is a married mother of 2 and lives in Loudoun county. Contact Gabrielle here if you would like to schedule an appointment for couples counseling or individual therapy to help get you or your relationship back on the path to wellness.
​

What is Forgiveness…Real Forgiveness?
 As a therapist who treats trauma and helps people at the darkest times of their lives, I experience the evils of the world through its victims. I see children raw and broken at the hands of selfish, greedy men and feel the anguish of a college student as she picks up the pieces of a shattered innocence and future lost. Helping the wounded find healing and renewed strength means I too walk through the darkness and experience the consequences of those who prey upon and hurt others.
 
I have to be honest. Forgiveness has been a concept that I have personally struggled with over the years. Why should he forgive? It was devastating and wrong and no one would judge him... that person doesn’t even deserve his forgiveness.  
 
Then I took training from Janis Abrahms, Ph.D. She organized levels of forgiveness that I have adopted and further adapted to help my clients understand and realize just what type of forgiveness they are seeking. THIS I can do and this I feel comfortable sharing with my clients, because forgiveness is for the one who is hurting. Below is my interpretation and adaptation of her work and ideas.

​We all have choices. Each of us can choose to be the absolute best version of ourselves and can constantly strive to improve and heal or we can give up and let life occurrences choose for us. We can allow bad things and stressful events to define who we are and help us become a sponge for negativity or we can take the dark, hurtful stimuli and use it as fertilizer to help us become a better stronger version of ourselves.
 
Notice the choices we have in each of the forgiveness layers presented. Allow this organization of ideas to help you make mindful decisions the next time you experience pain and discomfort. 

​Sometimes things happen to us that really aren’t that big of a deal. Someone cuts us off in traffic, takes our place in line, or grabs the last gallon of milk. Instances like these are irritants; annoying situations that if we let them, can help shape our reactions and make us grumpier or negatively focused.
 
With practice, we can learn to become reactive to these events and can allow anger and edginess to settle deep inside of our bodies OR with practice, we can do the opposite. We can let it roll. Like water on a duck’s back, we can let it roll away…far away from us. Imagine yourself taking a deep breath and exhaling the energy of that person or event far far away from you.  Let it all roll off of you and watch it roll completely out of sight. This is layer number 1: Letting it roll.

​Abrahms refers to this as cheap forgiveness, faux forgiveness is when an instance is larger than the ones listed above, but we treat them as though they are insignificant. We try to let it roll, but it really is too big and too painful to roll away on it’s own, so instead of looking at it, understanding and working through it, we use all of our might to push and shove it away.
 
Faux forgiveness is forgiving too quickly…before we really have the opportunity to heal our relationship or ourselves. Explaining what faux forgiveness is so much easier if we talk about true real forgiveness. 

True real forgiveness is when we experience a hurt and we use it to help us grow stronger. We take that hurt to the one who hurt us and we carefully talk about it in a way that organizes and makes sense of the hurt, and then consequently soothes it.
 
True Forgiveness: The Role of the One Who is Hurting
“I felt really alone when you did “x” (I statement). I’m scared of losing you (getting to the deeper emotion). I know it comes out sideways…I know I just get angry (taking responsibility) but I need for you to understand what my true feelings are – to really understand where I am coming from (here is the wish…giving the offender a path)”
 
In true forgiveness, the hurt party has a responsibility to communicate the hurt in a way that can be heard; delivery here is important. If the receiver becomes defensive or really doesn’t understand, it becomes challenging to journey to a place of forgiveness. Thinking; how does my partner or friend need me to say this so s/he can stay engaged? Can I practice my I statements beforehand so that s/he doesn’t feel blamed?
 
True Forgiveness: The Role of the One Who Offended
In true forgiveness, the offender has responsibility as well. The offender’s job is to become curious about the other’s emotional experience and to strive to really understand the pain that was caused.
 
“I had no idea that you were feeling so lonely. I’m so sorry. I hate that you were feeling all of that and I was too busy to notice (accepting influence and taking responsibility). You mean so much to me and I want us to be ok…”
 
The Back and Forth of True Forgiveness
Now what if the offender really has reasons for the hurt? What if the relationship has flaws and the dynamic isn’t all that healthy? What if the offender needs forgiveness too?
 
In true forgiveness, the energy of forgiveness and communication flows both directions. Becoming defensive and self-righteous is NOT the same thing as seeking forgiveness in the other party and explaining how both parties arrived at pain and distance. Again, delivery and knowing why an issue is getting flushed is important. True forgiveness gets to the root or roots of an issue and can happen in one sitting or over a course of time. 

​You can see how it was easier to describe what faux forgiveness is by explaining true forgiveness. When we forgive too quickly “No worries, it wasn’t that big of a deal” when it really was, we rob the relationship of a deeper healing; a connection within pain. When we can re-wire a relationship to be able to tolerate pain and discord and to then have it experience connection within the conflict, the darkness then and only then can be used as fertilizer for new beautiful growth. 

What if the offender cannot walk through the stages of forgiveness and is unable to do the back and forth of true forgiveness? What then? Is the one left behind optioned with faux forgiveness only?
 
Acceptance is the realization that significant hurt has been experienced and that forgiveness is well deserved, but not possible. Maybe the offender is dead, a substance abuser with no desire to change, or maybe s/he is a relative or significant other who lacks the ability to be safe. What then?
 
Acceptance looks at the pain openly and honestly. It forces the one who is hurt to be honest about how deep the wounds go and how the scars have been shaping their emotions, way of thinking and consequential behavior. Taking an honest look means now the hurt party has choice. Heal or stew? Become stronger or paralyzed? Grow into a strong tall tree or wither into a bitter, infected dying plant?
 
True acceptance means the one who is hurt does the work to heal, make sense and organize the pain. Like true forgiveness, acceptance usually takes a long time and often requires professional help. Those who experience this layer of acceptance must walk through the pain without the offender’s help, committing all the way to not let it create bitterness or resentment.
 
To Not Forgive is to Give the Offender What They Do NOT Deserve & Robs You of Peace
Why talk about the layers of forgiveness? Because with forgiveness and acceptance comes peace and healing. When we honestly look inward and are constantly improving ourselves, we can allow painful experiences to improve us. Without this focus, hurtful occurrences will begin to harden our hearts and will strive to dissolve the goodness inside. No experience or human deserves to rob us of our joy and life fulfillment.
 
Life is hard. Bad things happen. It is our job and our responsibility to decide if these occurrences are an opportunity to heal and become stronger or are an excuse to wither away and become a bitter, run down version of ourselves.
 
Who is the Author?
Gabrielle Anderson, lmft is the owner of the Family Therapy Center in Ashburn as well as a Marriage and Family therapist. She is a married mother of 2 and lives in Loudoun county. Contact Gabrielle here if you would like to schedule an appointment for couples counseling or individual therapy to help get you or your relationship back on the path to wellness.

Read an interesting blog by Gabrielle about forgiveness and the negative cycle in a relationship.
Read an interesting blog by Gabrielle about the balancing energy flow of relationships
To read more about the path of forgiveness from the original source, Dr. Abrahms, click here.
 

​Last month, my husband took our kids to a Sia concert. One of the songs seemed to have an emotional impact on him so he shared a video of it later with me. What a powerful, emotionally provocative performance. The video described a relationship that had a debilitating destructive negative cycle to it. The beautiful manner in which the dancers captured relational dysfunction made me experience the dancer’s fighting deeply, at a significant emotional level.
 
Before you skip down to the concert video to satisfy your own curiosity, I’d like you to first view the song from an intellectual level. This first video shares the lyrics of the song. Please take a few moments to view the video and take the time to actually absorb the words.

Every relationship has a negative cycle when things are not going so well. A negative cycle is that black hole that many couples feel themselves getting sucked into during a fight. This is the space where the arguments become rote and the couple begins to realize that although the content of the argument may be different, one could almost write a script for how the argument will proceed and how the couple will make up.
 
When I do this, he often responds with this…then I do “x” and he does or says “y”.
​The negative cycle works hard to get couples to feel either deeply adversarial or cold and numb.

True forgiveness has the ability to strengthen a damaged relationship. The act of forgiveness requires the offender to truly care that s/he has hurt the other and both do what it takes to make the situation better AND to heal the wound.
 
“I don’t want you to feel that way. I understand now how much I scared you and how much I hurt you”
 
Sometimes we forgive too quickly, before we ever even verbalize all of the pain. Before we even give our partner or loved one a chance to understand and empathize. True forgiveness may require the party to go back time and time again until the wound has successfully healed.
 
Forgive and forget or give it to God have the potential of robbing the relationship of a deep joining and connecting healing and could also keep the one who is hurt from healing at the level that validates emotionally. Forgiving too quickly often breeds disappointment, resentment and potential bitterness. It not only harms the relationship, but the one who was originally hurt.
 
Watch the song again, this time at an emotional level with the above listed information in mind. Notice how one or the other will obliterate safety, even during vulnerable, emotionally porous times.
 
Have the idea of true forgiveness in mind as you watch the dancers begin to sway a foot and then sway their feet together. Forgiving too quickly, without healing, without stopping the negative cycle in this scenario is damaging. ​

Wow, right? When do you hold the hammer in your relationship? At these times, do your words sting? Are you aggressive? Or do you take the other extreme and freeze out your partner?
 
What does the negative cycle in your relationship look like and what can you do to stop it? Altering a destructive cycle can be tricky and some need professional help to truly forgive, heal and change the relational dynamic. Get help for your relationship today!

Interested in Learning More?...
Read more about the Negative Cycle Here
Read more about True Forgiveness Here

About The Author...
Gabrielle Anderson, lmft is the owner of the counseling center in Ashburn as well as a Marriage and Family therapist. She is a married mother of 2 and lives in Loudoun county. Contact Gabrielle here if you would like to schedule an appointment for couples counseling or another therapeutic modality. 

During the meditative process of my yoga class today, the instructor talked about fear. "What if instead of using the word fear you instead choose to be cautiously optimistic? What would this change? How would you view the world and your own life differently"?

To be cautiously optimistic. What would this cost? What could be gained? My thoughts immediately go to the balancing act in which many couples find themselves engaged, in order to create equilibrium and peace in their relationship.

As a family therapist, I see many couples throughout the week. Quite often I find myself talking about the negative cycle and faux balance that couples attempt to create within their relationships. This concept is based on a pursue/withdraw theory.

Think about your significant other. Contemplate his/her temperament, likes, dislikes, conflict style, etc. Chances are you are similar in some ways yet very different in others. We tend to marry our compliment. Someone who fits us enough to be able to puzzle piece with us, yet different enough to be able to fill in some of the gaps that our own style and personalities leave. 

In the beginning of a relationship, this difference creates wonder and excitement and can feel safe and well rounding. As couples develop negativity and begin to grow distant and cold or passionately conflictual, these differences cease to feel complimentary and begin to breed disappointment, anger and often resentment. 

The Negative Cycle
In an attempt to bridge the gap of distance, couples often develop a negative cycle. The most classic of them all is a pursue/withdraw cycle; wherein both roles have a duty to perform in the marriage. The pursuer's job is to draw out problems in an attempt to purge, resolve and heal. The withdrawer's job is to protect and keep the couple from creating any more damage and distance. 

So one pushes and the other backs away. One may be called a "nag" while the other may "have no feeling". Both are designed to help, yet neither extreme method does.

Here is where the mediation of today meets the couples therapy of tomorrow. What might it cost a "pursuer" to give up fear? To stop fearing the worst, to stop shining a light on the dark corners of the relationship? To let go and hope that the relationship will find it's way back to closeness?

If you are a pursuer and are yourself in a negative cycle, you know the answer. IT"S TOO DANGEROUS TO GIVE UP FEAR. What a quandary. It seems logical to try to find that path of optimism. Even cautious optimism. Letting go of fear, not to wander blindly but to be cautiously optimistic. 

Still. It feels dangerous... Because it is.

One of the beginning goals of couple's therapy is to close the gap in the negative cycle and attempt to get the energy to flow BOTH WAYS. In order for the pursuer to back off and allow peace to creep into the relationship, there must first be trust. Trust that the protector will engage, no longer withdraw and begin to pursue. 

If both parties back off, stop fighting and pursuing, the marriage can die. One of the most dangerous marital dynamics is the relationship where NO ONE is pursuing or fighting for closeness. 

The Rising Withdrawer and Shrinking Pursuer
How can one be cautisoluy optimistic in a dynamic as such? The first person to understand in a withdraw/pursue dynamic is the one who withdraws to protect. What would need to happen in order for the protector to come out and not withdraw? Sometimes the pursuer needs to learn to communicate safer, other times it is due to past pain and hurt, maybe the withdrawer is depressed. 

Whatever the needs, it is important that the pursuer hears them so that s/he knows how to help the protecting partner get what is needed to allow energy to flow from him/her into the relationship.

Next it is the pursers job to then learn to ALLOW the withdrawer to complain or create tension. To allow this equal flow of energy enables the couple to live more within the boundaries of equilibrium and less in the dark lonely corners of extreme. This means the pursuer must create self discipline to then begin to complain less and tread on negative topics more carefully and mindfully as to keep the protector engaged.

Now it feels safe enough to let go of fear and embrace cautious optimism. Fear is often present for a reason. Learn to listen to it's voice, hear it and grow through it. When we embrace fear too long, it can be crippling to our emotional and physical health and can create many chronic problems that can take years to resolve and heal. Fear can be a helper if we respect it's power and then yield to cautious optimism as soon the opportunity arises. 

Fear and Optimism in a Marriage
Listen to the voice of fear in your marriage. What is it trying to tell you? Do you trust enough in your partner and the dynamic or relationship to complain from a cautiously optimistic stance? Can you use what is not working to help you move to a closer place all the while remaining a team of equilibrium? 

All good relationships have troubling times. If your relationship feels as if it is struggling too much and it is becoming too difficult to find your way back to each other, get an appointment for couples therapy today. Don't wait until tomorrow, reach out today. 

Gabrielle is a licensed family therapist in Northern Virginia. She is a married mother of two and is in constant search of peace, balance and new growth.

As therapists, we support many families as they walk through the darkness of divorce. Passions often run high while transitioning through such a difficult change. Divorcing as a couple is different than divorcing as parents with children. While you and your ex are walking through this difficult time, take time to remember what this experience can be like from the perspective of your children. Below are are a few tips and nudges to help you remember to protect your precious little and big ones while you transition from one family unit into two.

Spouses divorce one another, but children do not. When dividing up the household items and furniture, be mindful of what the experience will be like for your child. It is best to move furniture out of the house when children are in school or away from the house and never ask them to help. It is important to remember what this experience will be like for them. Before your children come home, make sure that the furniture in the family house is rearranged to create natural looking rooms, not rooms with giant furniture holes in them. Our eyes take in information and help us determine how to react to situations. Help soothe this sensory experience by making sure the home still has the warmth of a home. 

Do your best to make the second home look warm and inviting too. Often home #2 is an apartment or smaller house.  Smaller spaces can still feel warm and family friendly. Maybe allow older children to help you pick out bedroom themes. Making mindful decisions about creating a second home for your children can help you decide what routines and structures to put in place. Home at mom's and home at dad's is the key. When children feel like visitors, it is hard for them to relax and renew. 

Divorce is difficult, but can be doable if you and your ex decide to navigate through the process mindfully and purposefully. Remember that your children are not divorcing anyone. Helping them walk through this change with love and validation will make all the difference in the world. If the process seems all too overwhelming and stressful or if your children appear to be struggling to adjust to the transition, it may be time to seek out professional help. A counseling therapist can help either parent or the children to adjust. If you or someone you love is struggling through divorce, nudge them to find help and support today.

Gabrielle Anderson is the Director and a Therapist at the Family Therapy Center of Northern Virginia, llc
She and the other team members can be contacted directly from the Center's Meet the Team page.

Remember when the differences between you and the one you love felt good, refreshing and even complimentary? Meeting someone who is different from ourselves can be a gift. A private view into a world not our own. Someone to suggest new foods, venues, activities; to be stretched and grateful for it. Those are the days of a couple in love.

Quite often couples complain of these differences in couples’ sessions.

“She always leaves her shoes and clothes all over the bedroom and expects...”

“If it wasn’t for me, we would be drowning in debt. I’m the saver and apparently the only one who...”

“You are so scheduled. Would it hurt you to be a little more spontaneous?!”

Remember when you liked the fact that she captured your chaos and organized it? The days when you felt grateful that he pushed you and nudged you to spend money on yourself? When he helped you feel like you were worth it? What at one point made you feel complimentary and grateful, now leaves you feeling resentful and angry.

Where did it all go? How do partners lose each other in the process of it all? Couples often need to be reminded-gently nudged to go back and remember the early days. The days when it felt ok and even right to be different.  When there was still enough trust in the relationship to reveal one’s true self and feel like it would be accepted and appreciated. To be loved, truly loved despite it all.

Couples therapy can help take the relationship backwards, to a place of equality and trust where being different felt safe. Where black and white could find their way to a comforting gray, and maybe just maybe to a new place; a place resulting from the evolution of two people refusing to be stagnant and stuck. Two who more than anything want to find a life that feels congruent with the evolution of themselves as well as the relationship. Whether you feel the need to reconnect with your past selves or move to something new, therapy can help freshen up the relationship and create the connection you crave.


Gabrielle Anderson is the Director and a Therapist at the Family Therapy Center of Northern Virginia, llc
She and the other team members can be contacted directly from the Center's Meet the Team page.

Although the structure of many couples counseling sessions may be quite similar, what occurs behind the closed doors of a session is well tailored to the needs of the couple. Every relationship has its own dynamic, one that is unique to the couple. Negative cycles appear in all relationships from one time or another. Learning to recognize how to not get sucked into the tornado funnel of distance can be priceless and will look differently from one couple to the next. One’s communication style, levels of emotional safety, trust, love, friendship, and passion are all components and ingredients of a relationship. Where each of these lie and how balanced and fulfilling of a connective opportunity they yield helps determine where the couple feels they are. Helping clients evolve their relationships and determine what it is they want from love and marriage can be a rewarding process to help navigate and assist. 

John Gottman, a well-respected couples researcher, has conducted many longitudinal studies with a focus on marital satisfaction. He claims to have the ability within 5 minutes to extrapolate and determine whether or not a couple will remain married or divorce just by analyzing the way in which they argue.

Arguments are inevitable. Good marriages have bad years. Terrible events happen to good solid families. What separates the satisfied marriages from those that are unfulfilled? Gottman believes friendship is the key. Being truly interested in building bridges and connections with your partner and liking who your spouse is as a person, makes you fight fairer and work towards resolution instead of defensively planning your next move of attack. He states that developing a curiosity and a desire to really know your partner creates a bond that gets stronger through connectivity and has the ability to weather times of adversity and pain.

Sue Johnson, another contemporary pioneer in the field of couple’s satisfaction argues that couples need to understand each other at an emotional level. She believes that when arguments and disagreements arise, couples sitting in their emotional brain can quickly recognize what they are truly fighting about and not just how it initially appears. Feeling this emotional connection can almost be addicting. Couples begin to seek it out not just to squelch disagreements, but also to feel that much closer to each other.

Johnson believes that teamwork and partnership are vital to a lasting fulfilling relationship. She looks at problems within the relationship as being a fault of the dynamic that the couple has created as opposed to looking to blame the individual spouses for the demise of the relationship. Teaching couples to understand their spouse’s emotional needs and desires and helping them to feel heard by their partner breeds connectivity and a deeper bond. When couples begin to routinely reach for one another, trust begins to build. Protecting this trust and union is often what builds the foundation of a newly evolving relationship and dynamic.

More than friendship, arguments and teamwork, where does passion fit into marital satisfaction? Esther Perel, a world renown couples therapist with a special focus on erotic intelligence, talks about the positive power of tension. Perel believes that couples need to develop separateness in order to spark romance. Helping couples develop individuality helps the couple re-kindle desire. She believes that intimacy and sexual desire are very different entities and attempts to help couples re-create a healthy degree of mystery within the relationship.  

Looking at a marital dyad through the lens of roles can be an important step to understanding and dissecting waning sexual desire. When couples begin to fill too many roles for each other, it leaves little room for sexual mystery. Perel believes that knowing too much of our partner’s inner and outer world can cause us to not need to seek them out passionately and may even create an environment for sexual numbing to occur.

With such differing information, how does one sort it all out? One word: Balance. Some couples come into my office with a well-established friendship and genuine love for one another. They know well how to be a team player and feel that their spouse believes in them and wants the best for them. Maybe they are living through a family trauma or lost the romantic spark. This couples probably does not need to learn connectivity and teamwork. Another couple may include one spouse who has grown accustomed to meeting his/her own needs in a self serving manner and who seems to struggle with focusing this energy on the family and spouse. This spouse probably does not need more understanding in creating differentiation and separateness, but may need to learn to look to the other spouse and understand his/her needs and desires. Even still, another couple may come into therapy after practicing fighting to win at all costs. This couple may benefit from learning to sit inside his/her partner’s shoes and begin to feel what it is like to be the other. To gain empathy and connectivity by experiencing a little of what it is like to be married to oneself can be a powerful motivator to change. Then of course there is the family of young children. Where the role of being a 24/7 parent begins to snuff out the role of passionate pursuer. This couple may need help creating distance from the baggy t-shirt, pony tailed mommy and overwhelmed over tired daddy and may need help initiating mystery and separateness.

Only you can answer whether or not you are ready for couples counseling. Therapy is hard work and you really have to be ready to take an honest look at yourself and your dynamic. I have seen therapy do wonderful things for many people, but you have to be ready. So often couples come into therapy hoping that the therapist will "fix" their partner. It is rarely about that and most often about collaborating together, as a team to create a dynamic and level of connectivity that is worth fighting for...learning to fight for what is best for the relationship and not just fighting to win.

Gabrielle Anderson is the Director and a therapist at the FamilyTherapy Center of Northern Virginia, llc. 
She and the other team members can be reached directly from the Center's Meet the Team page.