You love your spouse more than life itself, but you are very uneasy about your spouse's parents' significance in your family's life and decisions. Issues with your in-laws can be an extremely tough situation and can make your life unbearable at times. If you have issues with your in-laws, you need to deal with those issues now. And if you plan to have children, not dealing with present-day issues can make that experience a living hell.
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Disagreeing about parenting approaches is inevitable when you have kids. It will most likely happen time and time again. The conflict may be over something as simple as allowing dessert close to bedtime, should they be allowed to sleep over at a friends or as daunting as addressing risky behaviors among teens like drug and alcohol use. Regardless of the size of the dilemma, parents can move past conflict and towards compromise with the right frame of mind and, most importantly, keeping a dialogue. Here are a few tips for addressing disagreement.
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One of the biggest problems is that constant or charged bickering can make others uncomfortable to the point that you’ll find your circle of friends shrinking rather than widening. Maybe you’re a more private person who doesn’t care about socializing in large groups anyway, but it’s nice to keep your options open, especially when it comes to friends you enjoy as a couple. Don’t get me wrong: I am not advocating putting on an act in front of your friends at parties to prove that you’re the happiest couple alive. That would probably backfire, anyway.
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Do you ever see a problem coming a mile away—a potential conflict between you and your partner—and spend hours (at least in the back of your mind) worrying about it? The good news is, it’s normal. Like kids worried about showing our parents a poor grade, we often blow things out of proportion. We assume that if we have bad news for our partner, he or she is going to have a terrible reaction.
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According to the American Psychological Association, between 40 to 50 percent of married couples in the United States divorce. That’s not news to anyone these days—the divorce rate in Western cultures has been notoriously high for decades. What does that mean to you? For one thing, during the course of your relationship and lives, you’re going to witness your fair share of friends, family members, colleagues, neighbors and others going through divorce.
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March 11, 2014
by Casey Truffo, LMFT
When you first got married, the thrill and anticipation of learning about someone new kept the flame alive. There were so many new experiences for the two of you to delve into as a couple that boredom or mundane routine was the last thing on your mind. Fast-forward a few years and what was once an exciting experience has now come close to being an “obligated responsibility”. Your life is routine, and it seems that you have learned everything there is to know about your spouse.
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