Is the thrill of  making up worth the fights in your relationships?

Do most of your conversations seem more like fights than discussions?

Does the tension build as you and a loved one battle to be in the right, and have the last word?

Are you compelled to make the first move and make up so that the tension subsides?

Or do you hold out until your loved one eats humble pie and validates your stance?

The cycles of  fighting and making up become a competition about who is more needy of closeness in the relationship.

Fighting and making up on a frequent basis can be exhausting and prevent you from enjoying intimacy with friends, partners and family.

Psychotherapy can help you relate in more comfortable ways by

1. Helping you become aware of your hot buttons so that you don’t react on impulse.

Benefit: you don’t say things you regret and have to atone for later on.

2. Helping you identify the source of the hot button so that you stay in the present moment and don’t let past wounds hijack your emotions.

Benefit: you perceive and respond to your loved ones based on who they are, not who they remind you of.

3. Helping you resolve unfinished business from the past that gets replayed in your current relationships.

Benefit: you have more space  to make your relationships unique and satisfying in ways that old ones were not.

4. Helping you use curiosity as a way  of getting close rather having to fight first before having the closeness available or justified.

Benefit: your nervous system gets rewired so that you can seek and receive affection and contact without having to go through a war first.

Copyright Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Call 310. 985. 2491 and make an appointment

Get started on learning to relate without going through the repeated failures of fighting and making up.