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Author: MJ Klimenko

WHEN TO STAY AND WHEN TO GO

March 26, 2014
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| Categories: Families, Life Stress, Parenting/Children, Personal Growth, Relationships

It’s easy to say when to leave a relationship. Leave if you’re being abused physically or if you’re being abused verbally or psychologically and your partner won’t stop or agree to counseling. If your partner cheats on you and refuses to go to counseling, leave. If your partner has any kind of addiction, drugs, alcohol, gambling, Internet porn you don’t agree to, spending money he/she doesn’t have until the family can’t pay bills, and refuses to seek treatment, or sometimes refuses to even admit there’s a problem, you should leave because, unless someone wants to change, and then actively seeks some sort of support to create change like individual counseling, group therapy, AA, NA, or any other identified form of treatment, it’s unlikely they’ll change. Will power is seldom, if ever, enough to create lasting change. If your partner lies to you repeatedly, not white lies but big lies, for example, “I went to work today,” when he/she actually got fired the week before or “I’m going to my mother’s house,” and he/she doesn’t, instead going somewhere else, which they may or may not deny when you confront them, you should leave if there’s either an unwillingness to admit there’s...

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GETTING UP OR NOT

March 26, 2014
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| Categories: Aging, Anxiety, Depression, Life Stress, Personal Growth, Relationships

O.K. It's Saturday morning. You wake up the sun is shining or not, it's raining or not, but you're warm, safe, and there isn't anything you have to do in the next two hours so you don't have to jump up and start hustling toward a work day like most of you do during the week. One would think it would be a time of relaxation, contemplation, or to make plans to do something enjoyable, and it is for some of you. For others, it's the time when depression, despair and confusion reign. To those people: If you're in a relationship, you wonder why you stay and if you're not, you're wondering if you ever will find that special person. If you work forty or more hours a week, you wonder if there's an end to this toiling away just to pay the rent, or maybe you don't have a job and haven't been able to find one. Maybe you have a job but your partner doesn't and you're tired of carrying the load, maybe it's reversed and your partner is tired of carrying the load. Maybe you're old and facing the unbearably sad truth that this culture doesn't value...

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LOVE OR APATHY

March 26, 2014
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| Categories: Personal Growth, Relationships, Seniors

If you're in a relationship and have been in one for a while, that would mean longer than a year, you can probably remember how your heart quickened when you saw your loved one. You might even be one of the people who say that they knew as soon as they saw their partner that he/she was the one. And weren't the kisses divine. And the talking, my my it seemed like you'd never run out of things to talk about. You were so happy, you couldn't believe how happy you were and you believed you would be in love with that special person forever. For those of you who didn't eat that bitter pill of disillusionment and walk away, who are still together but feeling like that old spark just isn't there anymore. Where did those kisses on the back of the neck go, those torrid nights, those little things like discovering  a love note on the counter upon awakening? You know, the attention to detail, groomed and perfumed, dressed well and not in fifteen year old sweats and tennis shoes even the Goodwill wouldn't accept. How about those sexy little things that are sexy little things if you're...

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POSITIVE EMOTIONS

March 26, 2014
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| Categories: Aging, Anxiety, Depression, Life Stress, Personal Growth, Seniors

Positive emotions in early life and longevity: findings from the nun study. Danner DD, Snowdon DA, Friesen WV. Source: Department of Preventive Medicine and Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, College of Medicine, University of Kentucky, Lexington 40536-0230, USA. [email protected] Abstract Handwritten autobiographies from 180 Catholic nuns, composed when participants were a mean age of 22 years, were scored for emotional content and related to survival during ages 75 to 95. A strong inverse association was found between positive emotional content in these writings and risk of mortality in late life (p < .001). As the quartile ranking of positive emotion in early life increased, there was a stepwise decrease in risk of mortality resulting in a 2.5-fold difference between the lowest and highest quartiles. Positive emotional content in early-life autobiographies was strongly associated with longevity 6 decades later. Underlying mechanisms of balanced emotional states are discussed. PMID: 11374751 OK, now that you've finished with all the nun jokes and/or Catholic jokes, think about this: It means you could live longer, literally, by having a positive attitude about your life. I've never ascribed to the "airy fairy" approach to living so I don't sweep negative energy out of my office by burning...

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SEX IN A LONG TERM RELATIONSHIP

March 26, 2014
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| Categories: Uncategorized

When I work with couples, sex is seldom brought up as one of the predominant issues. I'm too old and have been doing this work too long to think that it isn't. What I believe is that bringing up sex problems is awkward and by the time it gets to my office, it's a very touchy subject because feelings have been hurt on both sides, more than once. What always stands out when I'm listening to each partner is how hurt each one feels and how rejected each one feels, yet, each one also believes that their partner isn't suffering like they are or that they don't care as much as they do. Imagine facing off against someone whom you believe is deliberately hurting you or, best case scenario, doesn't even care enough about you to try to hurt you. In that situation you want to fight for yourself, be heard, not lose any ground, hold your own, save face, avoid humiliation at all costs! Now imagine facing your partner, the person you love, who loves you, even if you're not in the mood to imagine that at this moment, do it anyway for the sake of this exercise. You...

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ARE YOU LISTENING?

March 26, 2014
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| Categories: Personal Growth, Relationships, Seniors

When in a brand new relationship, isn't it amazing how much you have to say to each other, how you listen carefully so you can hear what your new love has to say, how careful you are not to interrupt, giving thought and consideration to your responses? And don't you feel heard and validated? Doesn't your new love make you feel good because he/she is so "into you." If you accidentally interrupt you are quick to apologize and wait for them to finish what they were saying and sometimes he/she tells you to go on, that they were finished, because they want to show you how polite and respectful they are of your feelings, to show you that they care about you and don't consider you rude for breaking in because that, well, that's just what happens sometimes when enthusiasm abounds. Now, fast forward that very same relationship five, ten years and notice how you are preparing what you're going to say next or remembering what it was you wanted to say that might not have anything to do with what your partner is talking about while your partner is trying to communicate something to you. If the discussion is...

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