Posts Tagged ‘partner’

PostHeaderIcon Marriage Counselor: Containing Anger

Anger can be extremely destructive in a relationship. It can have equally negative consequences whether it is acted out upon or repressed. A marriage counsellor must seek effective methods to deal with the issue of anger to assist couples in their quest to develop a loving, supportive and long-lasting relationship.

When anger is expressed, it can leave the person on the receiving end feeling traumatized even when there is no physical violence involved. An interesting phenomenon is that the person who demonstrated the rage also feels assaulted. This is due to the workings of the unconscious mind that perceives all actions as directed toward oneself. Therefore, when we inflict pain upon our partners, we also hurt ourselves. It then follows that anger has a definite negative effect on a relationship. Partners simply have a difficult time establishing intimacy because their safety feels threatened.

Repressed anger can have equally devastating effects as expressed anger. Often, repression can lead to an empty marriage, especially when one’s anger is turned inward and manifests itself as depression. An example of this will serve to illustrate this point. Let’s say that an individual has an older sibling that was very rebellious and hostile during their youth and as a result was constantly being severely punished. The individual associated expressing anger with being punished and therefore repressed anger and hid it from their parents and, later in life, from their spouse.

This same individual ended up playing the role of the “good child” during childhood who never raised a fuss about anything. This served a purpose in childhood, but later in life, this adaptation became very damaging in a marriage. The constant hiding of anger extended itself to the person feeling that they must also suppress their sexuality and other forms of excitement because this heightened activity and energy felt threatening.

The turning inward of anger into depression left the individuals’ partner feeling unsatisfied and searching for fulfillment of desires outside of marriage. A marriage counsellor could do well here to help the repressed individual get in touch with their anger and pain and express it in a meaningful way in a supportive environment.

It is often difficult for people to deal with their hidden anger and pain. For most of us, we learned during childhood that anger is a bad thing and we were punished or criticized for it. We were left with the option to express it and face the consequences or to keep it inside where it wouldn’t do us or anyone else any harm. However, when we chose to dampen our anger, we also chose to dampen our capacity to love because love and anger are two sides of the same coin. They are both related to our life energy or life force. When we feel love our life force flourishes; when we feel rage, we experience our life energy as being cut off or stunted.

Anger is therefore an essential expression of our life energy and when we repress this, we become depressed or live a pale, muted existence. However, we are liable to harm ourselves and others if we act on our anger. Containment is a process that allows us to release our anger without hurting our loved ones. A therapist can assist a person to let loose of anger in small, controlled amounts in a safe environment and help to turn it back to its original, positive life-giving form.

Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Marriage Councelor

PostHeaderIcon 6 Ways to Find Affordable Supplies for Your Wedding Centerpieces

If you have a pretty good idea what you want your centerpieces to look like and you know how much you’re willing to spend, the it’s time to start scouting for supplies! Unless money is not an issue for you, you’ll need to be getting the best bargains you can find. Don’t expect to get everything during one shopping trip or even the first time you start looking. You’ve spent this long trying to find the perfect partner, don’t rush into buying your centerpieces!

Here are some ways to find great prices for your centerpiece supplies…

- Consider the resources already available to you. Do you know anyone in the floral business that could provide flowers at a discount? Do you have any friends working at the local craft shop who get an employee discount? Do you know a business owner who can get you into wholesale decor stores? I think you get the idea… if you’re looking for something more rustic those old mason jars sitting in your parents root cellar just might come in handy after all!

- Does the hall provide a caterer? If so, ask the caterer if they have any contacts where they normally shop for their catering supplies or if they know where the best prices are. We ended up getting classic glass bowls for $2 each from a shop recommended by our caterer that normally retail for $15, and our guests had no idea.

- Start checking the sale flyers early and collecting those coupons. Sooner or later almost everything goes on sale. If you start watching for sales well before your wedding date you should be able to get at least some of your supplies for less than retail price. Before purchasing anything on sale, make sure to ask about the store’s return policy for discounted items. If you think you might change your mind about your centerpiece idea later you will want to have the option of returning the already purchased merchandise.

- Ask friends where they purchased their centerpieces. Often just-married couples know the best places to get things on sale! They’ve already been through it and have already done the leg-work you’re just starting to do. Save some effort and benefit from their discoveries.

- You might be able to find some good prices online, just remember to check the seller’s return policy in case you don’t like what you get.

- Consider items that are cheaper during a certain time of the year, such as fresh flowers when they’re in season.

Finding the cheapest supplies doesn’t have to take a lot of time, possibly just a few minutes when the weekly sales flyers are delivered. These ideas may sound like a lot of work, but they aren’t. You’ll be in contact with most of the people we’ve suggested anyway, so why not ask a simple question about centerpieces? One final thing to remember is to have fun. Start early and you will save time and money while ending up with the centerpieces you want.

Looking for great wedding reception decoration ideas ? How about some wedding table decoration ideas ? You’ll find lots of decorating ideas at www.decoratefor.com

PostHeaderIcon Anniversary Gifts – The List

You’ve actually made it. You’ve survived another year of marriage and now it’s time to pick out an anniversary gift for your spouse. The traditional list of gift ideas is there for a reason. Some of us just have a hard time thinking of something to buy. Those of us with a limited imagination will fall back on what is comfortable. Ultimately what happens, especially if you’ve been married a long time, is you end up getting your spouse the same thing year after year, especially if you happen to know your spouse has a preference for certain things.

For example, if your husband is an avid sports fan, you’re more likely than not, going to get him something sports related, maybe a jersey of his favorite sports team. Maybe he’s a card collector. In that case, you might get him a 1957 Mickey Mantle card. Maybe he loves auto racing so you get him a poster of the Bobby Unser and each year that goes by, you get him something similar, playing it safe and not really using much of an imagination. This is not to say he won’t like his gifts. He’s just not going to be very surprised.

For the men buying the gifts, it’s the same thing. If the man knows his wife loves jewelry and what woman doesn’t, then he’s going to get her a bracelet one year and a necklace another year, maybe a ring another year and the string of gifts alone those lines will just continue year after year. And again, while she may like the gifts, there’s not going to be much of a surprised look on her face when she gets them.

An anniversary is very special. The day you celebrate it is very special, so the gift that you buy for the anniversary should be special as well. Part of that gift being special is the surprised look on your spouses face when he or she gets it. That’s why we have a list. Because for each item on the list there are a number of options for the gift itself, which we’ll go into in more detail in future articles.

Some people might think that having a list makes the anniversary gift even less of a surprise. For example, if it’s your first anniversary and you know that the first one is paper, you’re going to expect something made out of paper. So where’s the surprise? Well, for starters, how many things are made out of paper? If you sat down and really thought about it, you’d discover that there are quite a few things made out of paper. So ultimately, your possible gift ideas turn out to be greater than if you just thought about what your spouse likes. In addition, there is always the chance that your spouse will disregard the list one year. Now, wouldn’t THAT be a surprise, especially if he or she stuck to it for the first 17 years?

In the next article in this series, we’re going to discuss some normal and not so normal gift ideas for your first anniversary. No, anniversary gifts don’t have to be predictable.

Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to http://anniversary-gifts-guides.com/“>Anniversary Gifts