Dear Malcom, Congratulations! Now, please let me ask a favour of you. It’s just a little thing I’m thinking. I’m thinking about when you’re at work. In that big room, the one with all those seats, where all you political people get together to discuss political things. It’s just a...
Want a great marriage or relationship? Time for a marriage and relationship audit. Here's one way to check out how you're tracking: First, line up (in your mind, or better still, on paper) all the positive interactions that you and your partner have with each other on...
Great communication skills are crucial for anyone wanting a great relationship. Relationships are complex and differences will arise. We need to know how to speak up, and we need the confidence to do it even when we may earn the displeasure of our loved ones. Great...
Yay! Thankfully, in episode 5 of Channel 9's "Married at First Sight", we finally get to see a couple show how conflict resolution skills make for great relationships. After four episodes so far, we’ve now seen numerous examples of how couples destroy great communication when succumbing to...
Been watching channel 9’s Married at First Sight? We've reached episode 3, the weddings and honeymoons are over, and our newly-weds are now settling into their first days of co-habitation with their respective partners. But where are the relationship experts when they’re needed? Surely this is...
Marriage and relationships aren't always easy. Things get easier when partners work together to create relationship success. When we are unhappy in a relationship, we are normally pretty focussed on what our partner is doing wrong. People often tell me that if only their partner would stop...
Relationships evoke strong emotions. Sometimes they're so strong, partners loose their ability to think and react in healthy ways. Learning how to relate during normal day to day interactions is one thing: managing to do so during times of extreme stress is a completely different...
There’s a central truth about relationships and marriages. Couples who know it are already streets ahead in their ability to resolve relationship conflict. It’s a very simple truth, but it’s one that many of us either don’t know, or easily forget, and it’s this: when...
If you found yourself sitting next to a marriage counsellor at the quiet end of the table at a dinner party, and you got chatting, what would be the questions that you’d want most to ask? Would you be curious about what really goes on in...
When we left the city some years ago, we chose a garden with enough space to do pretty much anything we wanted. Our dreams were far in excess of any gardening we’d ever taken on previously. Conversations about plant species sprouted into our repertoire. We’d...
“Creating a healthy
happy self”
“Turning troubled
relationships around”