Working with Couples and Families
“Rediscover loving and intimacy with your partner. Teach your children well”
I work with many couples and families. Two individuals or a family who have forgotten how to communicate with each other. Both looking for love, support and understanding – but something is getting in the way.
Working together you can start to rediscover the loving you need and miss. Through a series of gentle exercises you will learn how to find intimacy. By learning to talk and listen to each other you will relearn how to trust each other and cherish the qualities that first drew you together.
By owning your anger, your love and all your other feelings you can become closer than you have ever been before. This relationship can change for the better if you both want it to.
Even in the first session you can start to experience each other in a different way – to see your partner for who s/he really is. As your relationship changes so you will change as individuals and discover things about yourself you always suspected but never really knew. As you begin to communicate with each other notice how the atmosphere at home changes, how children respond to a happier, less conflicted home. You can be better role models for your children, showing them how to express anger and other feelings in a different way.
Start to heal the anger that has been passed down your family over the generations. Find love and compassion for your parents and siblings. Understand why they acted the way they did and break the chain of anger so it doesn’t get passed down to your children.
Are you a Step dad, Step mum, Step kid?
- Is it hard going?
- Are you doing your best?
- Feeling unappreciated?
- Not listened to or respected?
- Always second best?
- Wondering what to do next?
The truth is that putting families together can be hard work. If you are in a step family you will know this is true. Bringing two families together takes time and goodwill. Building new love, new caring and a new family unit needs care and mainly happens in small steps.
Step parents can be set in their ways, new step kids can resent the changes in their lives and wish for the old family to come back.
All of this needs to be gently looked at, openly discussed and negotiated. One step at a time.
In my experience this can be done effectively by getting the family all together to talk in a place away from the stresses and strains of every day living. The children are often relieved to be in a space where they feel they can have a voice, air their worries and be listened to. The adults are equally relieved that there is a way forward out of what may be a difficult and challenging home situation.
This process can take as each new family member learns about their place in the new family – accepts that this IS a new family and figures out how they can take their place in it. It can appear most tough for the children, the adults often need some support too.
Joining a step family can also involve dealing with loss of the old – whether though bereavement or divorce – as well as embracing the new. Sharing the worries, concerns and fears in your family, learning to communicate with each other can bring you closer. Kept to yourselves they tend to create stress both inside and outside. Being a stepgrandpa or grandma can be tough as well.
By learning to talk and listen to each other you can start to trust in yourself and the others. Step family relationships can bring happiness, fulfillment and joy. Even in the first session you can start to experience each other in a different way. As you begin to communicate with each other notice how the atmosphere at home changes, how children respond to a happier, less conflicted home. Working together you can create more intimacy and loving in your new family.
