Grace Chatting

In the last 25 years that I have worked with literally thousands of couples, inevitably a large number of those have been in the aftermath of an affair or some kind of infidelity.

There seems to be a view of those who have affairs that they are cavalier in their attitude and simply don’t give a damn about who gets hurt. Whilst it is true that some are like this, in my experience, they are definitely the minority.

Who’s to blame?

When infidelity becomes common knowledge, people invariably look to place blame, but this is not helpful. Ultimately, it is not really possible to apportion blame, and can only be speculative, although the one who has been unfaithful seems like the obvious villain.

For the vast majority of couples, the pain following an affair is devastating and blaming only makes matters worse. Often the betrayed party blames themselves in some way when perhaps the worst that they did was to take their spouse for granted to some extent.

Why does it happen?

The vast majority of people who have affairs never set out intending for it to happen, nor did their partners realize that their marriage was in danger. It doesn’t do to become too complacent. I saw a client who was 75 years old and her husband had left her for a 60 year old. Rather than place blame, I prefer to see it as a set of conditions which optimize the chances of an affair happening.

Red Flags

In the majority of cases where someone is unfaithful, most of the following factors were present:-

• · there were aspects of their marriage about which they were unhappy
• · they didn’t address it
• · The couples communication was poor
• · They had become disconnected
• · their spouse was unwilling to listen or take the matter seriously
• · they never wished to hurt their spouse
• · some friend or kind person they worked with noticed and gave a listening ear
• · they began to confide in this person
• · this person paid attention and listened empathically
• · this person treated them as though they were important and their feelings mattered
• · this person offered them a shoulder to cry on
• · they try once again and fail to talk to their spouse

You can see that now it is not so black and white whose fault it is. There are grey areas. It is never a good idea to apportion blame as far as infidelity is concerned, although the person who is unfaithful must accept some responsibility for the ensuing devastation.

Emotional Infidelity

At this stage, they may not have embarked on an affair, but certainly there has been emotional infidelity insofar as they have been confiding their intimate feelings to someone other than their spouse. This is usually the precursor to an affair, leading to secret meetings and eventually sexual infidelity.

Can the marriage be saved?

Yes is the short answer, but an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.In most cases these incredibly damaging situations can be avoided by nipping matters in the bud. Of course no two situations are the same, and there are many kinds of infidelity. Anytime someone is unhappy with their partner or marriage they need to persevere with sorting matters out rather than taking their troubles outside the marriage, unless it is to seek professional help.

These situations although painful, can be turned around by the couple learning conflict resolution and communication skills. Learn how to do this by getting a copy of my book, Breakthrough To Love

 

Grace Chatting, located in Plymouth, UK, is a Transformation and Relationship coach, writer, and workshop facilitator.  She is also a Family Mediator and Psychotherapist.  Her passion is empowerment arising from personal growth, integrity and authenticity.

Grace can be found on her blog www.gracechatting.com; http://twitter.com@GraceChatting/

 http://www.linkedin.com/in/GraceChatting

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Email grace@gracechatting.com

Grace can be reached on (44) 07816491165 if you wish to arrange a consultation

written by Grace \\ tags: Grace Chatting;Infidelity;Affair;Divorce

If you are asking yourself this question about your marriage or relationship, you are not on your own. This is the question countless people are asking themselves in the lead up to Christmas and the approach of 2011.

They will have been feeling unhappy in their relationship for some time; perhaps years, and are now thinking of ending it.

Perhaps like you, they hoped matters would improve when they had their summer holiday; it did, but not enough. Now Christmas is fast approaching and it is a very sentimental time of the year. Usually the decision to end a relationship affects a whole network of extended family and friends. It can feel very daunting to be the one to initiate a divorce or separation, knowing many others will feel upset about it, or may not understand the reasoning behind your actions.

In consideration of all this distress to yourself and others, it is easy to slip into thinking you will wait until after Christmas. As the saying goes, hope springs eternal. There is still the hope that perhaps somehow, magically, things might get better. Of course the stresses and expectations around Christmas put even more pressure on an already strained relationship.

Impasse

The lull between Christmas and New Year is a time when many of you good people feel weary with the apparent futility of the situation and don’t want yet another year of unhappiness. For most, you don’t actually want to end the marriage or relationship, you just don’t want to continue being unhappy. You quite reasonably want life to be better, but have exhausted all your efforts and don’t know what to do to change things.

When you consider leaving, you realise that there are many good things about your partner you would miss, and particularly the impact this would have on children. On the other hand with every new year that passes the situation feels increasingly intolerable.

This is the reason why there is such a peak in the number of applications for divorce in January. For the vast majority, they, and probably you, will not have considered getting professional help to resolve the relationship difficulties.

You Don’t know What You Don’t Know - Get Professional Help

Many people (perhaps you are one of them) think that if their partner isn’t willing to join them in seeing a counsellor then there is no point in pursuing the matter. They also think that just because they can’t see a solution then there can’t be one.

Have you allowed for the fact that you simply do not know what you don’t know. It is always worth spending one hour to go along to see a professional who deals specifically with Relationship issues, Here is what one client said;

"Life before Grace’s support and guidance left me feeling like I was drifting from one day to the next with a real lack of clarity and personal achievement.  Grace has encouraged a greater sense of self-awareness, self-confidence, motivation and focus to live a happier and richer life.

My marriage, and other personal relationships have been enriched through effective and positive communication skills.  Grace continues to teach me some very valuable tools to be able to listen to and support my husband and his needs, whilst at the same time not compromising myself and enabling my own needs to be fulfilled.

I am honestly not sure where I would be today if I had not had Grace’s support and guidance, but what I can say is that I now have a much clearer idea of where my life is heading and am enjoying a happy and fulfilling marriage" Tania S

Grace 

Grace Chatting, located in Plymouth, UK, is a Transformation and Relationship coach, writer, and workshop facilitator.  She is also a Family Mediator and Psychotherapist.  Her passion is empowerment arising from personal growth, integrity and authenticity. Grace can be found on her blog www.gracechatting.com; http://twitter.com@GraceChatting/  http://www.linkedin.com/in/GraceChatting http://facebook.com/GraceChatting Grace can be reached on (44) 07816491165 if you wish to arrange a consultation

written by Grace \\ tags: Marital break up; divorce; relationship problems; new year; 2011; Breakthrough To Love; Grace Chatting

By Grace Chatting

No-one wants to think that they are in an abusive relationship, and quite often people don’t realise that their partner is being abusive – they just accept the behaviour as being normal for their partner. To the outside world they make excuses about their partner being overworked, financial problems, had a difficult past, not feeling themselves, but privately they feel hurt by their partner’s actions. By the time they realise that this behaviour is a constant pattern, they have begun to believe that their partner is right! Most people think that, if they aren’t being physically abused, then they aren’t in an abusive relationship, but this is not the case.

Control

One of the most common forms of abuse is control. Your partner insists that everything has to be their way. They say where you go, what you wear, who you talk to, who you don’t socialize with, even down to how you stack dishes or fold laundry.

Do they control the money and make you account for everything you spend? This isn’t because they can do it better, it’s because if you do what they say, then they have control over you and the relationship.

People who find themselves in this kind of situation often go along with the demands of their partner simply to keep the peace. Failure to meet the standards of the controlling partner can incur more physical or emotional abuse which is more difficult to deal with than simply making sure that the glass tumblers are placed upside down on the shelf!

Need to be right

If you find that your partner does have a tendency to always have to be right and have things done his/her way, you may need to accept that it isn’t just a quirky part of their nature, it’s a form of abuse and you need to do something about it.

Criticism and put downs

If your partner constantly discounts what you say and criticizes you, in public and/or in private, this is abusive behaviour, even if it is said in a joking manner. In a relationship you have a right to expect that your partner will support you and treat you respectfully.

That doesn’t mean to say that they have to agree with everything you say, or do, or look, but it does mean that they don’t judge you either when you’re alone, and never when you are with other people.

A relationship is about love, and love is unconditional. If it comes with strings attached, it’s not the real deal and you need to get out of the relationship before your self-esteem is damaged.

Infidelity

Is your partner unfaithful, or do they constantly accuse you of being unfaithful and flirty in your interaction with others? This is also a form of abuse. Do they threaten physical abuse towards you or anyone else in your home – even if they don’t follow through – this is intimidation which is also a form of abuse. Do they constantly blame you for what goes wrong in their lives? This is abuse.

These and many others are signs that you have a problem in your relationship that needs resolved, or you need to move out of it before it affects you. Some of these may be things that happen very seldom, others may be a constant part of your everyday life – if they are constant, you need to act now. If the instances are seldom, and don’t affect you too much, then monitor the situation and be prepared to act if the regularity increases.

No-one in a relationship deserves to be abused, so if you’re in that position, love yourself enough to move out of it and find someone who will treat you with the love and respect you deserve.

Getting help

If you are in an abusive relationship and don’t know how to get out of it, speak to someone at your local Women’s Aid or Domestic Violence Team.

Best wishes

Grace

written by Grace \\ tags: Grace Chatting;relationships;domestic abuse;domestic violence

By Grace Chatting

“If you keep doing what you have always done you will keep getting what you have always got. Do something different.” Henry Ford

Many of you reading this will have had long standing problems in your relationship or  marriage. You have probably gone over the issues numerous times without success, and now you have given up hope that matters will ever improve. You are beginning to think that you neither can, nor want to carry on as things are. You are in a “Too good to leave, too bad to stay” dilemma and now you want to make a decision, one way or the other. The difficulty is you keep swinging between staying and going.

Effects of too much focus on problems

When you both keep going over and over your particular problems without solutions, you both become tired and weary with it all. Warmth and affection are withdrawn, and you both sleep on your own side of the bed. Some of you may even have moved to separate bedrooms. You find yourselves communicating at the level of house mates – without the fun.

Every once in a while, one of you says, “we need to talk”, but somehow, going over the problems again just leads to more arguments, further entrenchment and despair.

Feelings of anger, frustration and resentment mount with the passing of time and can lead to escalating degrees of hostility, and sometimes even violence.

Running a Marathon

Consider the following scenario.

If you were in training to run a marathon and badly sprained your ankle, what would you do? Clearly, you could not carry on training without considerable pain and further damage. In fact in making the damage worse, you would probably have to drop out of the race.

A more sensible approach is to have a period of rest and recuperation, to give the ankle time to heal properly. During this time, you might see a physiotherapist for treatment and therapeutic exercise which you would practice until you had recovered sufficiently to get back into the race.

What do you think is likely to happen if you gave way to the temptation to get back into the race before the ankle was totally recovered? You’ve got it, the pain and damage would flare up again and you would be back to square one.

It is the same thing with trying to resolve longstanding marital problems; you need a period of rest and recuperation. You need to park the problems for a while, before one of you throws the towel in, and ends the marriage.

Taking a break away from trying old ways of addressing problems, that you know do not work, is what you both need right now. This does not mean that you are pretending that the problems don’t exist, or that you are simply sweeping them under the carpet, far from it. It is recognising that your unsuccessful attempts to resolve matters have possibly become the worst problem, and is having a seriously detrimental affect on your marriage.

Most people when they reach this stage assume that the only way through it is to end the marriage. Not so. It just means that, like the marathon runner, you need to take a break during which time you seek professional advice and exercises which if carried out properly will allow you to carry on with your marriage, and hopefully, you will be a winner.

“Marriage is the hardest thing you will ever do. The secret is removing divorce as an option. Anybody who gives themselves that option will get a divorce.” Will Smith

So, I am recommending that you take Step 1 and agree to park your problems for 90 days. During this time you will learn how to reconnect with each other.

When the love and affection and good will have returned, and you have both learned the new skills which this book will teach you, then, and only then, do you return to addressing your problems, if they still exist.

You may find like many couples, that by the time you have been applying the 10 Steps in Breakthrough to Love, most of your problems have, either disappeared, become less significant or are at least more manageable.

It is helpful to make the agreement to park your problems explicit

In A Nutshell

Going over and over problem areas in your marriage without resolution becomes a problem in itself and is detrimental to a marriage. In order to move ahead it is necessary for you both to agree to refrain from trying to resolve the problems for at least 90 days. This allows you both to reconnect with each other and get your marriage back on track.

Watch out for the next Step,

Grace

written by Grace \\ tags: Breakthrough To Love;Grace Chatting;Communication;relationships;divorce

Journey to Consciousness

 

 

 

I have recently finishes my book “Breakthrough to Love: A Step by Step Guide For Couples in Distress” It is being edited right now. A number of you have asked bout it, so here is a flavour, starting with how I came to write it.

 

I had little experience of intimate relationships when I was growing up. I didn’t even have a mother or father, instead I was taken care of by two unmarried sisters. It was a familiar story back then in Ireland, (and other places too I suspect). My mother had grown up in an orphanage and was the archetypal “poor servant girl” who was seduced by my father whom, I am told, was from “good stock” in the Dublin area. Needless to say when he learned that my mother was expecting me he ran the proverbial mile.

 

She, fearing that she would be put into one of the Magdalene laundries, fled to Belfast where she concealed the pregnancy and gained employment as a live in mother’s help. Of course once I was born, she was homeless. I was informally fostered by the two sisters who were only slight new acquaintances of my mother’s. This was supposed to be a temporary arrangement. I did not see my mother again until I was in my thirties.

 

I mention all this to highlight the fact that I grew up with no male role models, or models of how couples or two parent families operated, and this was compounded by the fact that I went to an all girl’s convent school run by nuns. Interestingly, like many others before and after me, I was clueless about what marriage and children involved, or that we tend to gravitate to what is familiar. I married a man who was “never” there. The marriage was disastrous almost from the beginning and ended in an acrimonious divorce eighteen years later. My ignorance and lack of knowledge about these matters had an enormous effect on me and my three children.

 

I vowed I would never let that happen to me again. In personal therapy I learned how the circumstances of my past had influenced my choices and behaviours. I realised how I had been living in a state of unconsciousness all my life. It grieved me to think of the legacy building up for my children but I was determined that the buck would stop with me. It was not easy being on my own with three children and no family support but I created a substitute family and began the difficult, painful and exhilarating journey to consciousness.

 

I studied Social Science, obtaining an honours degree, and also qualified as a Social Worker involved mainly with children and families, child protection, and children in care. Recognising the damaging effects on the children of the many divorces I observed, I trained in Family Therapy, Family Mediation, Counselling, Couples Counselling and more recently Relationship Coaching and Life coaching. As my own consciousness rose I began to see how pervasive the lack of conscious living and loving was.

 

I had steadfastly remained single for ten years, but I began to realise how wonderful it could be if two conscious people were in a relationship with each other. That was my benchmark and I was prepared to remain alone rather than settle for any less; then I met Alan, with whom I have had the happiest years of my life.

 

I noticed that quite a number of couples, whom I saw in Family Mediation for the division of property and assets and to agree contact arrangements for the children, clearly still cared for each other. I couldn’t help thinking that if they had had the right kind of intervention; their family may never have split up. I began to focus on couple relationships and divorce, and was dismayed to see how many couples lived lives of quiet desperation.

 

I wanted to change this, to make a difference, but I did not enjoy the couple counselling that I did at the time. Most couples appeared to just want a referee to listen to them blame each other and find fault and most of the counselling frameworks in my view were too hands off and non directive. I had decided it was too much hard work with little job satisfaction, and that I was going to give up working with couples.

 

Around this time in 2004 Alan and I went to a three week training in Germany facilitated by Kathlyn Hendricks co-author with her husband Gay Hendricks of the books “Conscious Loving” and “Lasting Love”. The trainings were on “Conscious Living and Loving for Couples” See www.hendricks.com and www.plymouthtrainingandevents.com

 

This was a totally different way of working. It was more of a coaching model, where blaming and fault finding were not entertained. The focus was very much on raising awareness of the underlying dynamics of healthy relationships and how a couple could take those healthy dynamics on board. And it was fun! I came back to the UK with a whole new sense of purpose and perspective on couple and relationship work, which I have now developed over the years with good results.

 

Marital breakdown inflicts enormous damage on many of the people involved. It is not only the separating couple, who suffer, but also their children, extended family and society. The degree of human misery is immense. For example the Marriage and Relationship Support Report carried out by the government showed that divorced men attempt suicide five times more often than married men and divorced women three times more often than married women.

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My own experience, personally and professionally points to the fact that people in relationships often, quite simply, do not know what to do to save their marriage or how to make it better. In my view, it is this lack of knowledge more than anything else which is the main problem couples face.

 

Consider what you learned at school: probably maths, geography, languages, science etcetera. Did anyone ever teach you how to resolve conflict or how to go about choosing a life partner, or how to have a fulfilling life?

 

I ask this question sometimes at Workshops and groups, and I have not come across anyone who has answered ‘yes.’ My observations are that people look slightly embarrassed about not having learned these vital skills, and don’t want to admit that perhaps they still need to learn them.

I have looked at what it is that I do successfully to help couples make a breakthrough in their marriage, steering it away from the rocks of divorce and leading them to a whole new level of happiness and fulfilment. The result is Breakthrough to Love process which consists of three Stages and ten Steps, which I shall tell you about in my next posting.

 

Love and Light

 

Grace

 

PS I have recently set up a Group on Facebook “European Conscious Relationships”, check it out!

written by Grace \\ tags: Consciousness;Breakthrough To Love;Intimate relationships;Conscious loving