Category Archives: Dating

Valentine’s Day Intimacy Fears?

Valentine’s Day is almost here. For some people this day brings about fears around intimacy. How soon is too soon to celebrate Valentines Day as a “couple”? Maybe just celebrate as friends? lovers? or celebrate love in general?

Do you ever think, “I want to be close, but just how close is it comfortable for me? ”

Are you comfortable with the idea of being close and staying close? Are you comfortable with the idea with giving as well as receiving over a Longterm relationship? Will you be testing your love often? How comfortable are you with commitment? If you move forward into a relationship, will you feel obligated, trapped or controlled? Will you feel like you will be losing your freedom or a part of you?

Exploring these questions is important for you to know where you are as far as desiring and maintaining long term intimacy.

Finally, knowing where your lover is as far as their intimacy abilities? Are they open and available to being intimate? Are they willing, capable and as vested as you? Are you well matched as far as your expectations and abilities? It’s good to think about these things on your own, as well as talking together.

There can be so many ways to celebrate and to create a meaningful intimate relationship on Valentine’s Day, as well as other types of friendships. Taking the opportunity and time to celebrate love in its many forms, is a day well spent.

So…..Happy Valentines Day!

Please call NWA Marriage & Family Therapy at 479-225-0055 to schedule an online appointment, if you would like to talk further.

Thank you.

Happy Valentine’s Day

Celebrate your relationship on this Valentines Day and make it meaningful. It might take some effort sometimes to work out the glitches and endure the ups and downs. If you are needing any type of relationship support, be it dating, in a live in situation, premarital or marriage support.

Please call Northwest Arkansas Marriage and Family Therapy Office at 479-225-0055, leave a voice message and I will return your call. Flexible appointment times to fit all schedules. Look forward to speaking soon about your situation. Serving NWA specifically and all of Arkansas both virtually and in person Thank you.

Pre Marital Counseling Benefits

Don’t wait till weeks before your marriage to plan your premarital counseling. Knowing your partner well before marriage gives you assurances that the commitment and expectations are right for both of you. Couples spend so much time preparing the ceremony and all that surrounds it, that sometimes this important aspect may be lost.

Pre-Marital Counseling benefits are many:

Learning to talk more effectively to each other, fighting in a  more fair manner, discussing your expectations and wishes, exploring financial issues, and anything that the couple might be avoiding that is a “hot topic” subject.  When one marries another person often times the families have a bigger influence than the couple had previously thought.  Also there can be other issues as well.

I offer premarital session for couples that  are tailor fit with focus on your needs.  I think that it’s good to have a positive experience with a Marriage and Family Therapists, so you
can know that you have the resources to support you in the long run.  I see so many couples use coming to couples therapy as a threat to their partner in the middle of a fight.  Marriage and Family Therapy can be proactive, healthy and an over all smart move for your couple from the start.

I’m a licensed Marriage and Family Therapists (LMFT) offering premarital counseling in the
NWA area as well as in Ft. Smith.  Call me direct at 479-225-0055 and leave a voice message if you would like to discuss your own situation.

Infidelity, Stay or go? How to Know?

Infidelity, Stay Go How to Know?

Infidelity can come in many forms and happens more often than couples are willing to admit.  Studies on infidelity are therefore hard to conduct due to lack of honest data.  Any one who has ever experienced infidelity can  share how difficult it was  go through the experience.

Stay, Go?

The question immediately asked that ruminates painfully in one’s head after an infidelity is, should I stay or go after the infidelity is discovered?  The answer often is, it depends on many factors.

The question on staying or going can be more complicated than a one size fits all answer. Your friends & family might tell you to leave  as soon as possible, when you would do better to stay.  Others may tell you to stay at any and all costs, when it might be safer and better for you to leave.  How to know?  My goal is to  educate people to make long term educated healing choices.

No matter what any book with sure fire “marriage savior” promises you, not all relationships after infidelity can be saved, nor should they be.

Not all relationships after an infidelity however should be terminated or abandoned. Instead, some are very worth fighting for and will grow into a better more mature relationship that is still to come..

The critical question is therefore: How do you know when to stay and when to go after infidelity? What do you need to know to make the best informed choice as to your particular infidelity situation?

Your Informed Choice.

The choice to stay or go is always yours to make. Having an experienced therapists, who is not scared do explore and educate you about your own particular infidelity situation and all the emotions, may help you make a better informed choice.

Call 479-225-0055 to set an appointment for therapy in NWA.

NWA Marriage & Family Therapy to explore and understand your unique infidelity situation.

Thanks Carmen

Valentine’s Day

 

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Here is wishing every one a Happy Valentine’s Day.   A wonderful day to remember to celebrate love in all its many forms, be it passionate, romantic, friendship, or all of the above. Sometimes it can be the mix that we create. After all they say, love is blind.

Want to explore your new romance?   Confused as to a dating or an engagement situation?  Maybe a bad past relationship experience is keeping you more closed off than you wish to be, or keeping you from beginning in a new relationship?

Sometimes getting prepared for a new relationship takes some work before it even begins.  A counseling session is a great Valentine’s Day gift for your self or your sweetie.

Give me a call at your convenience 479-225-0055 and please leave a voice message.

 

 

 

 

Every Day is Valentine’s Day

Isn’t it interesting how so many new relationships are made around Valentines Day?  When  this day of love and romance  comes up, that pending questions will we be celebrating it together with this new person in our life comes up? Does this relationship mean the same to each of us?  That thrill or surprise to know that some one is interested in you and you in them can feel great?  Valentines Day can often be a day of thrill and surprises, and for  other’s it can also be a day of closings and endings.

It is interesting to see how love can be in the air when we as a society and as an individual make  set our focus on paying attention and doting on another person by sharing our feelings of love in so many special ways.   Alternately if you have been in a long term relationship or marriage, could your relationship benefit with a little more intimacy or fun?

This month of Valentine’s  I am offering enrichment sessions for couples that feel they are doing well and are stable who might want to share and explore greater intimacy together as a part of their ongoing commitment.   Give the gift of an enrichment session a great unique Valentine’s  Day Gift. Please call and ask for an appointment at your convenience, Saturdays are available for sessions as well.

Make every day Valentine’s Day by focusing on the love that you have in your life, that many come in many forms and that we so often take for granted. Remind yourself every day to be thankful.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all.

If you wish to contact me, please call my office telephone 479-225-0055, & leave a message. Thanks

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10 Reasons Why Not to Get Married

10  REASONS WHY NOT TO GET MARRIED

  1. If you need to marry just to take the wedding ceremony and party off your “Bucket List”.
  2. If you need to marry as a right of passage to become or to prove you are an “adult”.
  3. If I need to escape current controlling or unhappy family situation.
  4. If you feel no one else will ever ask you to marry again.
  5. If all your friends are getting married and you do not want to be left out and slide into it.
  6. If your child custody will be affected and you feel obligated to marry to keep your custody rights.
  7. If you are escaping a troubled relationship or a prior marriage that you are still emotionally tied to and you believe it is unbearable to live alone.
  8. If you or your partner is drug or other addiction dependent and you are getting married in hopes of resolving that issue.
  9.  If you hope that marrying  will eliminate other major disagreements or value conflicts in your couple.
  10. If you hardly know each other and one of you is being deployed soon and feel the need to marry before deployment.

 

Valentine’s Day is Every Day

Not all counseling visits are to work on problems, sometimes they are just to make a good relationship better?  What a great way to celebrate Valentines Day than with a counseling for your couple to celebrate  and  reconnect in your commitment.  Why is it that we shower our loved one with unconditional love, sweet words, acts of affection and gifts only once a year?   Make every day Valentines Day!!

 

 

Marriage Therapy in Fayetteville, Bella Vista & Ft.Smith

As we start the new years many people have resolutions made to start the year new and they want to improve or change their relationships and marriage.  You don’t have to struggle with the same old marriage or partnership you can create something new with the important person in your life.  Going to  licensed Marriage and Family Therapists can be a good start to the new year or to a new marriage.

I have flexible hours including marital therapy on week ends in offices  in Fayetteville,  Bella Vista, and Ft, Smith.  Don’t give up those new years resolutions just yet.  My  sliding scale fee makes it more affordable. Look forward to serving your unique needs

Attachment styles and your relationship?

Attachment styles and your relationships?  What is your attachment style in your relationship?

John Bowlby (British) and later Mary Ainsworth (Canadian ) pioneering research in developmental psychology, known for their work in early work in attachment.  Ainsworth research in attachment styles explored how a mother’s (ie. caretakers) and infants bond to each other.   She described  3 types of attachment styles in infants. Secure, Ambivalent and Avoidant attachment style.  Suggesting that these early attachment styles are learned from our primary care giver)s) in our early years.  We internalize them as road maps  to then later repeat as adults in our adult relationships.

Secure attachment style is of course the most stable style, yet only about 50% of population is able to create a secure attachment style.   This can create less than stable relationships and over all difficulty in long term relationships or marriage, if we do not fall into a secure attachment style. Secure attachment It is  stable, honest, intimate and manifests as a willing commitment to the other and to the relationship in the long run, even in hard times.

New research shows that attachment styles are both environmental meaning they can be learned by modeling and some speculate, some part might be inherent to us when we are born, as well. Also attachment styles  are now considered more fluid than before, where they were considered unable to change.  The new research shows that  if  some one can model a secure attachment style in a relationship or marriage to an ambivalent or avoidant  that is anxiously attached,  this person might in four or more years have a chance at being  able to change their style to a more secure attachment style.  How ever this is not a given and there are many other factors.

Ambivalent or Anxious attachments manifest with an inherent need to get a lot of affection and attentions, sometimes it never seems to be sufficient.  They are often insecure about  themselves and need a lot of affirmation form others.  They have a fear that their partner will some how  or abandon them, because they are not worthy  or they have a fear that their partner will cheat on them.  Worry seems to over ride trust, and they seem to pursue the other more.  They are usually uncomfortable alone and seek to be in a relationship at all costs even if it is not a healthy relationship.  Sometimes anxious attachment can manifest as a high need for control, or neediness vacillating with anger if unable to get needs met..  Having said that, all manifestations of control attempts of one partner over the other are not always just anxious attachment issues.

An Avoidantly attached person will feel suffocated with real intimacy or too much closeness and have the need for alot of alone time, a high need for privacy and possibly even stray to have other relationships.  They might find a securely attached person too regular and too boring.  Avoidantly attached individuals, like change and excitement they are not very emotionally vested in a relationship, and will be quick to end and restart another relationship without too much time in between.  Their focus is more on themselves and their work. They will be less interested in sharing intimate feelings/ Avoidant often will often leave their relationships when times get  difficult and they feel stressed.  Avoidant  have difficulty establishing a sense of “we” identity.

Newer research from Mary Main now points to fourth attachment style, the Disorganized Attachment style. This is created when the parent has unresolved abuse, trauma or loss, and disorientates the child growing up.  Parents are frightening or frightened and struggle with emotional regulation, the world is an unsafe place.  Disorganized attachment style is full of mixed messages, creating a very unstable environment for the child and later in adult their relationships. Often manifesting as a difficulty in managing stress and self regulation, poor social skills and trust issues.  The adult them will have difficulty with later parenting or in relationships over all.  People with disorganized attachment styles are less likely to feel they need help or to seek help. These styles can be explored in therapy as to how they impact the couple or the individual.

Once you are able to better make sense of what attachment style you developed as a child and how this map is still guiding your life today,  you will be able to gain insight and learn new skills.  Most people can learn to develop  a secure attachment style with time  and therapy or  a securely attached partner.   This information might be useful to know about yourself and your loved one when dating or when looking for a life partner.