Blame. We hear it on a daily basis now. No matter what you listen to or watch, someone is blaming someone for something. Frankly, I am tired of it. It is exhausting in the national discourse and it certainly doesn’t work in relationships. When relationships falter, look for signs of blame. Highly defensive people blame…

In doing couples coaching, I draw heavily on the three decades of research by John Gottman, Robert Levenson and colleagues at the Gottman Institute. This group has contributed much to our understanding of healthy relationships through their research with couples. Gottman describes couples as “masters” or “disasters” of relationships. As you would guess, “the masters of…

What type of abuse is hard to live with? You might think, well, this is a really dumb question. All types of abuse are hard to live with. And you would be right. But one type of abuse is especially difficult because it is not so obvious. It’s subtle and often difficult to detect. In…

Recently, on my weekend radio show (podcasts are available anytime), we did two shows on dealing with a narcissist with an expert therapist. Why? Because so many people struggle with someone they know who has these traits or diagnosis. And when you are in a relationship with this type of person, it is exhausting for…

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