There’s a reason your long-lost relatives are long-lost. When family members grow apart, it’s a survival mechanism because they overreact to each other. That’s why distancing from family members is a silent killer-you feel relief initially, but the reactivity that drove you apart just festers inside and corrodes your subsequent relationships with others. […]

Our herd instinct is the tremendous drive we feel to fit in, to win approval, and to not make waves. The discomfort we feel when others dislike us, criticize us or gossip about us is evidence of our innate pack mentality.
However, thanks to the unique, thinking part of our brain, we humans aspire […]

It’s remarkable how subjective our view of reality is, even when we’re sure we know the “truth”. Humans may wear nice suits and speak sophisticated words, but when it comes to how we view relationships, we might as well be naked in the jungle again, screaming and swinging from tree to tree. What […]

What do you and your partner argue about? My wife and I tend to blow up over little things. Next, we get upset that were are so upset over such a little thing. Then we blame each other for causing such a big drama in the first place.
And here’s the greatest […]

Imagine a couple where the wife is very dominating, outspoken and critical, while the husband is more passive, distant, and bumbling. She is the blamer of other, and he is the self-blamer. Over the years, this pattern may intensify. She may run the household with an iron fist, while he becomes more […]

(This continues from “Why Your Spouse is Wrong”) The second type of couple has one blamer and one self-blamer. Only a minority of folks are self-blamers. They have an uncanny ability to blame themselves for everything that happens to them or around them.
Self-blamers tend to marry the Other-blamers. That seems counter-intuitive, right? Upon closer observation, […]

Generally speaking, there are two types of couples: 1) The “both blame each other” couple, where there’s open conflict; and 2) The “blamer and self-blamer” couple, where one spouse always blames the other, who submits. Of course, most of us lie somewhere on a continuum: some of us blame our spouse a lot, and some […]

As a minister, when I hear divorcees describe their ex-partners, they’ll say, “We grew apart,” or “We had different interests.” In my experience, regardless of what the spouse may be saying, what he or she is really thinking is, “I outgrew my spouse.” I’ve seen very few people file for divorce because they felt their […]

Even if you don’t think of your current relationship with your mother as sour, it’s a great place to start practicing mindfulness. During the next several visits with your mother, over the next several months (or several decades), try to increase the number of seconds you spend in self-observation mode. Why? Because the more you […]

(This is continued from yesterday’s “How We Pass On Our Family’s Baggage.”)
If you can realize that criticizing your spouse is not about his or her faults, but actually about your heightened irritability, you’ll get a foot in the door, too. Your automatic instincts will no longer shut you out of your brain while they run […]

Picture yourself as Jane Goodall, going on “safari” in your family of origin. You will learn to observe a strange herd of humans in their natural habitat, the household. Who are the “alpha” males and females? Who are the outcasts? Where is the tension, competition, or power struggles?
Ironically, humans […]