We talk a lot about managing your differences and learning to see them as opportunities to grow as a couple. Quite often, subjective things like “opposite personalities” are opportunities to express respect and trust, and don’t have to be what breaks the relationship apart. Helping couples in trouble see that is part of why we write this blog.

However, some ask us, are there ever certain qualities that should be avoided (rather than “improved”)?

Sure there are, and that’s always important to remember. Sometimes, recurring conflict in a relationship isn’t caused by not knowing how to handle conflict – it’s caused by toxic personality characteristics.

In an article we found called “Yes, Virginia, Some Mates Really Are Wrong,” this same issue is discussed, and some basic no-no’s are outlined. The first? A partner who refuses to handle their substance abuse:

“An addict’s primary loyalty is not to the relationship, it’s to the addiction,” explains Ken Page. “Active addicts become cheaper versions of themselves and lose integrity or the ability to do the right thing when it’s hard. Those are the very qualities in a partner you need to lean on.” Gamblers fall into the same compulsive camp, with the added twist that their pursuit of the big win typically lands them, sooner or later, into deep debt that threatens the foundations of relationship life.

A partner who repeatedly strays away from the relationship can also destroy trust and intimacy. Like abuse or other forms of control, compulsive cheating is something that you should not have to put up with as a partner. The article also notes some other negative personality characteristics that should be red flags for any relationship:

[C]hronic lying; chronic worrying or neuroticism; emotional overreactivity; proneness to anger; propensity to harbor grudges; low self-esteem; poor impulse control; tendency to aggression; self-orientation rather than an other-orientation. Situations, such as chronic exposure to nonmarital stress in either partner, also have the power to undermine relationships.

If you get to the point where you’re delivering an ultimatum,” says Bradbury, you haven’t been maintaining your relationship properly. “It’s like your car stopping on the side of the road and you say, ‘It just isn’t working anymore’— but you haven’t changed the oil in 10 years.

(See the entire article here)

How about you? Are you managing your partnership properly, or is something more serious going on that’s poisoning your relationship? You can talk to Dr. Nora today, she’s our expert conflict coach. Your first conversation with her is free!

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to suffer alone in an unhealthy relationship for one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.You can begin with our passive aggressive system created just for men, at Stop Your Passive Aggression, with a plan for action to change your life with new skills included. Just click this link and get started now!

 

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If you could change something about your relationship, what would it be? More respect? More trust? More commitment?

We all have times where our partners don’t give us what we want, but sometimes we also don’t get what we need - the basic foundation traits of a healthy relationship. Without our basic relationship needs being fulfilled, it’s hard to function as healthy, happy people, isn’t it?

Now a permanent part of our sibling site, National Relationships Month, the Deep Love Needs Survey offers you the opportunity to explain your deepest relationships needs to us. We’re listening to you! We read your responses every day to get an idea of what new resources we can create to help you, so that we can help you on your way to achieving relationship happiness! 

You’ll also get a free coaching session for taking the survey!

Ready to go? Visit us today at the Deep Love Needs Survey

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Technorati Tags: aggression, anger, Cold Shoulder, conflict, confrontation, critique, frustration, humiliation, isolation, loneliness, love, negative emotions, reconciliation, rejection, Relationships, resentment, verbal abuse

Today we’ll highlight an issue that affects most of us: balancing workplace conflict with our home life. We’re all guilty of letting our frustration at work spread to our homes, but do we always notice it? And what are the effects?Here’s an interesting article from Scientific American that might open your eyes. “If you think that nasty co-worker is creating problems for you alone, think again. His rudeness may have a ripple effect that extends as far as your spouse’s workplace.

A recent study at Baylor University found that working with horrible colleagues can generate far-reaching stress that follows you home, causing unhappiness for your spouse and family and ultimately affecting your partner’s job.”

The study was published in August in the Journal of Organizational Behavior. According to the author of this study, Merideth J. Ferguson, exposure to rudeness at work resulted in stress for the family as well as the partner. What she also discovered (but you probably know already) is that there is a direct relation between rudeness experienced at work, and how stressful the workplace felt.

What we may not think as deeply about is what else Ferguson found: when you are exposed to rudeness on a regular basis (in the form of unkindness, humiliation, etc) you can lose self-esteem, or become anxious or depressed.

As we discussed on this blog before, low self-esteem and anxiety can cause you to behave in ways that aren’t conducive to your life emotional balance or your family’s. You may be irritable, aggressive, use the silent treatment, avoid conflict, or be excessively critical of others. All of that creates hostility at home, which is the last thing you need!

So, what can you do if you are being exposed to rudeness and conflict at work?

Ferguson suggested that being mindful of where you are (home, not work) and what you are doing can help you separate things in your mind. However, sometimes it’s hard for us to concentrate fully on our family and friends when our day has been really stressful. For that reason, it’s important to find someone you can talk to about the issues you’re having and how they’re making you feel.

Keep in mind that if your behavior towards your family has been negative because of your stress at work, they may not be receptive to you at first. It’s important that in this case, you talk to a counselor about your stress. They can teach you stress-management techniques that you can use directly in the workplace.

If you’re struggling with rude or aggressive behaviors in the workplace, we also have a resource available for your use, at Passive Aggressive Workplace.

Quotes from: Workplace Rudeness Has a Ripple Effect

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.We can begin by you having a complimentary consultation at Conflict Coach, with a plan for action to change your life with new skills included. Just click this link and get started now!

 

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Technorati Tags: aggression, angry husband, conflict, confrontation, critique, domestic violence, emotions, frustration, Healthy Marriage, verbal abuse, workplace anger, workplace stress

What about you? If you are reading this blog, you probably feel that your relationship is in danger of falling apart, simply because you and your partner don’t know how to handle conflict well.

Some of the things you may be experiencing are:

Having unrealistic expectations – yes, it’s true; when we first meet each other, we are always trying to make a good impression and be the best we can be. Healthy relationships, however, are ones that realize that when you’ve been together for a while, flaws are a normal things that we all have. As such, we handle them with grace. Are flaws handled with grace in your relationship? Are you constantly feeling like you’re being let down, or letting your partner down?

Lack of trust – this one says it all. Do you feel like you can’t trust your partner? Are broken promises the rule, not the exception, in your relationship? Trust is an integral part of mutual support and understanding – without it, the relationship is lost.

You don’t spend time together – if you isolate yourselves from each other to avoid conflict, you are only creating feelings of mistrust and miscommunication.

Miscommunication – does it feel like the two of you can’t talk without one taking something the wrong way, or the other saying something they didn’t mean? The solution is not to avoid each other; it’s learning how to communicate effectively.

If you are experiencing any or more of these situations, we now offer an immediate, lasting solution that works: Conflict Coach.

With Conflict Coach, you will learn that any conflict situation can be turned into a learning experience. We want to teach you the skills you need to do this, in a healthy way. We offer privacy and convenience, with one on one phone and online sessions at a low rate.

Please visit http://conflictcoach.me to get started.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.

Technorati Tags: aggression, appreciation, coach nora, conflict coach, conflict nora, conflict resolution, confrontation, feelings, forgiveness, negative emotions, relationship conflict, Relationships, verbal abuse

No more family anger explosions leaving a sour taste in your memory, and in other’s memories for ever? Having the peace of mind that all family gatherings will proceed smoothly and that the little ones will not have an opportunity to feel scared again?

To be a safe and predictable person for those around you at home, it is essential that you are able to maintain your composure when you feel like your ‘buttons’ are being pushed. This strength will help you to achieve your goals in your personal life as well as your goals for your personal relationships.

1. If and when you feel some negative reaction, store that emotion and don’t act out on it. Force yourself to think: “I’ll deal with this tomorrow; not today!” So you can give yourself time to examine all aspects of the “offense” and verify if they are true…and if you need to respond. Some offenses are best left unattended and ignored.

2. Pay attention to others. Whatever they are telling you, make a purpose to send the message: “I understand what you are saying” and say it frequently, before (or instead of) offering advice.

3. Watch your emotions and make a point of not feeling immediately attacked or victimized. probably the other person doesn’t mean the comment in that way? It’s better to ask questions from the other person: “Is it true that you feel upset with me”

4. Take responsibility for your feelings, and don’t blame other people. It is not what they did to you, is your reaction to what others did….so watch this difference. So many times they are not doing things to aggravate you, they can be simply confused or distracted or careless…..

5. Take a playful attitude towards your angry persona…you can give it a name as in: “When I’m in my “Angry Joe” mode, I tend to think that everybody conspires against me, but afterwards I can see that it’s only my imagination…”Angry Joe” is very active paranoid self of mine, but I can control him…”

As time passes, you will be able to be more objective about your needs, your reactions, and learn that it is always a choice to get angry at others. You can choose instead to control your reactions, calm yourself and see this “Angry Joe” part of you as an old response that now needs to be excluded when answering to present challenges.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today, by offering you this ebook about how you can recover from anger explosions.

Technorati Tags: anger, angry husband, attitude change, control, emotions, feelings, forgiveness, healthy relationships, hidden anger, resentment, respect, Self-Esteem, verbal abuse

To immediately ask yourself, “Do I abuse my partner?” may cause you to panic. It may bring feelings of denial and shame, forcing you to shut down before you’ve really started.

Sometimes it is easiest to work from the outside in – start with those you have small affections for, and analyze how you treat them. As you consider your actions towards others, and the results of those actions, move farther into the circle of people you love. Think about your friends, your extended family, your parents, and finally your partner. Don’t think only about what you do, but what feedback people give you. Is there open communication, or do they ignore or submit? Are you often told you need to work on something, and usually just ignore it?

Confronting your own shameful actions can be hard to deal with, like watching a soap opera of your life. We try to deny that our relationships are often full of drama and little subtleties that can throw a wrench in things and make us hurt one another.

Learning to handle relationships in a healthy way cannot begin until we confront these bad memories – either ones we caused or ones we were subject to. In thinking about your relationships with others, try not to focus simply on what they do to you, but how you react and what you do to them in return. Are there patterns that seem to emerge? Do you handle many situations in the same way? How do people react to you when you act that way?

If you have trouble finding a start, watch someone else’s drama unfold – either on TV or in real life. How do they interact? As they hurt each other (as people in dramatic situations are prone to do), do they retaliate in anger, turn away and withdraw, avoid it by doing something else, or blame themselves and become a trembling mass of nerves?

Once you begin recognizing these harmful traits in others (and their consequences), you can return to an analysis of your own actions. Without doing this, it is impossible to determine which attitudes need to change in order to preserve the relationships that are most important to you. Once you recognize it in yourself, you will also be able to recognize it in the people who hurt you.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today, you can get your own copy of the ebook: Healing Emotional Abuse.

Technorati Tags: abuse, appreciation, critique, Emotional Abuse, feelings, Healthy Marriage, humiliation, loneliness, Relationships, resentment, verbal abuse

Overt abuse is the more obvious form of abuse. The abuser is often aggressive and physically and/or psychologically violent. They may employ vicious name-calling, act with subversive behaviors like spying or phone-tapping, use sex as a tool for manipulation and self-satisfaction, spend large amounts of money without respect for the victim’s needs, and deny love, affection, and warmth to the victim or the entire family.

Often, through coaching and the victim’s own commitment to change, overt behaviors will cease. In some cases however, the abusive mindset is so deeply rooted that an abuser will switch from overt abuse to covert abuse.

Covert abuse is well-disguised and hard to pin down. It manifests in manipulative and sneaky behaviors. One such example is a line like, “I can have anybody I want, but I’m with you.” Or leaving the house but denying an explanation of why or where, leaving the victim open to doubt and insecurity. The abuser may give subtle hints about the victim’s inability to do something right or their inability to understand the abuser, and turn the conversation around and insist that they are the misunderstood victim. Other mind games might be a denial of compliments and affection, but will talk about other women/men constantly. They may forget important dates and treat the victim differently from friends, co-workers, and other women/men.

Covert abuse creates a harrowing relationship for the victim, one seeded with doubt, insecurity, and feelings of foolishness and jealousy. Some victims may experience the abuse and wonder if abuse is occurring at all, and whether they are just blowing things out of proportion.

Don’t get locked in that trap. If the situation was the other way around, how would treat your partner? Would you take the time to reassure, comfort, and explain in situations that could be taken the wrong way? If you’re willing to do that to preserve a relationship, and your partner is not, you have a problem. It isn’t about something you did – it’s about what your partner isn’t doing.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today, by buying the ebook with solutions for healing emotional abuse in your life and having a happier love relationship….

Technorati Tags: abuse, aggression, appreciation, conflict, control, critique, Emotional Abuse, feelings, Healthy Marriage, hidden anger, rejection, verbal abuse

It had a dirty secret….if the wife would have different takes on a situation she would have to sneak her views into a conversation, because her husband was the one supposed to do decision-making.

She could suggest, but the final decision (and credit) was not hers. Even if she had, God permit, some really good ideas…she needed to take care of her husband’s face by attributing such ideas to his creation.

And when she felt entitled to some decisions of her own? Several heavy weight traditions would discourage her. Church would preach submission to husbands; society would control her by ridicule. There was little a husband needed to do to “keep her in her place.’’

Even if we accept the benefits of sustaining this state of affairs, times have changed, and this hyerarchical marriage order has disappeared. Has it?

Sometimes I doubt it, because we can see that this male superiority marriage model persists. How? It has taken a different form now given that it’s the husband’s job to enforce her obedience, because society and church have abandoned preaching about wife’s submission to husbands.

It’s left in the hands of a husband to make his wife comply and obey, and to support his authority in the home. How does he do it? Lacking divine authority, there is the tool of emotional abuse to help him make his wife to feel inferior.

How? How come I’m linking persistent male authority with emotional abuse in marriage? Very simple: now, the way to have her humbled and in her place is to make her feel diminished and wrong, being always corrected because being criticized by a higher authority. I know a couple, now in their seventies…she has been all her life a stay-at-home wife and mother. He stills walks into the kitchen and announces to everyone: “she is always burning the food, what is she burning today?”

Is it true? Even if it is, what is the need to shame her in front of her relatives or friends? To prove male superiority, of course! After all those years of marriage, his instincts as the last word, judge and executioner are prevalent. Could he had learned to see her skills with more love and compassion? Could he appreciate more her positive aspects? Of course he could!

What he is doing is using snide comments to inflict public humiliation on her…leting her know who is still the boss. The harsh critiques, negative comments and complaints about her only role are the ways in which she is told to keep her place; if she protests, more abuse will be coming.

Why men do this? They don’t have any obvious need to continuously prove superiority…right? Or is it perhaps their insecurity that forces them to nag, criticize and demean the people who love them the most? So they can show who is the boss?

This attitude is really pathetic and has no place in a healthy marriage… How many divorces do you know, caused by her fatigue at being treated as a lesser, never equal partner?

If you married expecting that your partner would be the person accepting you warts and all; love you and admire you even beyond what you yourself know about your skills…then this is fraud. It means that you can’t trust the person you promised to love above others, because this person is reducing you to a lesser place below him.

Emotional abuse in marriage intent is to support male superiority, but ends up destroying the relationship. Are you in a marriage damaged by emotional abuse applied to support his dominant role? If so, how do you manage to keep your self-esteem alive?

Nora Femenia is a well known coach, conflict solver and trainer, and CEO of Creative Conflict Resolutions, Inc. Visit her blog and signup free to be connected to her innovative conflict solutions, positive suggestions and life-changing coaching sessions, along with blog updates, news, and more! Go now to http://www.creativeconflicts.com.

Technorati Tags: abuse, appreciation, Emotional Abuse, emotions, feelings, frustration, Healthy Marriage, humiliation, negative emotions, recognition, verbal abuse

Unlike physical abuse, emotional abuse may not heal by itself over time. Given that its impact targets more the psychic areas than the body, you could be unconsciously scarred for a long period of time.

Because the damage is on the self-esteem and identity areas, healing emotional abuse means healing primarily both your mind and soul, not your body. Healing an emotionally abusive relationship can only take place once you realize that you are indeed in a power grab, abusive control style of relationship, not an egalitarian one. Prior to this, you need to do the following:

Accepting the sad reality that you are in an abusive relationship is hard and painful, but necessary. You can’t continue thinking that he is “too tired” or “making jokes but not seriously making fun about you.” This is for real a sad place where he tries to humiliate you to keep you under his control.

Being with both feet on the reality ground will give you a good reason to fight back. At this point, the unequal relationship between you and your husband is already twisted. Whatever the explanations he would give about abusing you, he still has no right to humiliate and insult another person…

Want to read more? Here

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.

Technorati Tags: anger, appreciation, Emotional Abuse, humiliation, Self-Esteem, verbal abuse

“Can a Passive Aggressive Marriage Be Healed?

and can be found here:

Can a Passive Aggressive Marriage be Healed

Enjoy, and post your challenging comments!

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.

Technorati Tags: appreciation, Emotional Abuse, passive aggression, passive aggressive, passive aggressive husband, Relationships, verbal abuse