What Healthy Couples Know That You Don't: Relationship Advice and Respect

Rhoda Sommer LCSW

Relationships matter. Do you want to know the nitty gritty of what makes a relationship work? Get your answers to relationship questions. Learn how to keep respect alive & well, because lack of respect is why people get divorced. Learn what builds trust & how to recover from infidelity, drama or codependency. Advice from psychotherapist Rhoda Sommer based on over 35 years of working with couples. www.therapyideas.net

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174 episodes
Updated Wednesday

Episodes174

Newest first

Apr 2, 2019 · 28 min
Date & Love Bravely; Interview With Dr. Solomon
Date to learn more about yourself. Don't stay in the safety of passivity, watching who they are. Dates can be practice to grow. Think of "every intimate partnership as a classroom in which I can learn again and again about myself, about commitment, about integrity, about authenticity, forgiveness & about apology." Quote & Interview with Dr.Solomon
Mar 5, 2019 · 17 min
Misery In Your Relationship & 10 Ways To Fix It
Misery can so easily build in any relationship. Misery zaps your energy to think & it's easy to indulge your sad feelings. The two of you as a couple can fall to the bottom of your priority list. The misery usually spills over into bickering & fighting with each other because we don't kick the neighbor's dog, we kick each other.
Feb 5, 2019 · 28 min
Fighting Can Improve Your Relationship
Learn how fights can be turned into recovery and intimate conversations. In your fighting there are clues to what you are really suffering from that you have not been able to confide in your partner. Interview with Dan Wile who says "The heart of a couple relationship is saying what you need to say & feeling that it has gotten across. It is having conversations that work out."
Jan 7, 2019 · 16 min
Manipulated & Overly Generous in Relationships?
There are many lopsided relationships where one person is catered to & the other partner is what I call overly generous. Partners like to be the nice one but getting stuck in the niceness can evolve into a giant hidden pile of resentments. There is a price to be paid for too much kindness, you can lose track of who you are because you are so busy pleasing others.
Nov 7, 2018 · 33 min
Sexuality for Women Can Be Improved! Interview with Emily Nagoski
Sexuality can be a complicated business, very different from how easy it is on television. Interview with Emily Nagoski the author of Come As You Are. Find out what to do about low desire. Most problems with orgasm occur because frustration does not add fuel to the accelerator. In fact, Frustration hits the brakes in sex. Learn here how to improve your context to improve desire.
Nov 2, 2018 · 26 min
Love & Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples
Love matters so much to people, how it goes wrong & how to put it right. Emotionally Focused Therapy is based on thousands of studies on human attachment, it basically gives us a way of understanding love. It's scary to reach for your partner and expose your softer feelings, because we're all scared of rejection and that's not because we're wimps or immature. It's because we're bonding mammals and our brains are wired to see cues of abandonment and rejection from the people we care about as danger cues, which makes it really difficult for people to be authentic in relationships.
Sep 10, 2018 · 15 min
Codependency Means Someone Gets Lost & The Relationship is Lopsided
Codependency is a murky business. Codependency is always a part of the beginnings of every love affair. The beginnings are so enchanting for all of us. Your partner can do no wrong, they are absolutely brilliant. Codependency is a part of love & yet it can swallow love whole & make it disappear. Emotional dependency can be a healthy activity & a part of a healthy relationship as long as both partners are still individuals.
Aug 9, 2018 · 17 min
Partnership & Marriage Are Fragile Craft
Partnerships & Marriage really require a lot from both people. Partnership demands that both people share their points of view & that we must reshape our own personal reality to be more accurate. This is truly very hard work because part of being human is favoring our own point of view. Yet, deep inside we know a single narrative cannot contain anything as complex as the truth.
Jul 9, 2018 · 12 min
Are You a Top Dog or Do You Cooperate in a Top Dog Relationship?
A Top Dog relationship means you participate in a hierarchy of power by either swallowing & ignoring your more authentic self or by enjoying the role of being manipulatively in charge with your demands being met. The narrative of every couple must be written by two people, not one to have authenticity.
Jun 6, 2018 · 15 min
Love Means Paying Attention & Accepting Disappointment
It's so easy to start taking each other for granted. We develop habits of how we see each other & we make assumptions instead of being curious. When we don't feel seen it's really a big deal & we end up hungry. This definitely happens as the years pass & it's your job to freshen things up. It is beyond foolish to imagine you will never be disappointed in your partner because they are so wonderful & you miss being saturated in romantic love. We all have ideas of who we want to be & who we expect our loved ones to be. But that's just it; they are only ideas, mostly built on fantasies & illusions.
May 7, 2018 · 13 min
Ambivalent Marriages & Relationships, What to do?
Couples stuck in ambivalence are secretly in love with maintaining the status quo. Not being wholehearted about either improvement or leaving, erases so many missed opportunities. Living with a constant level of unhappiness and resentments is like living with malaria. You can do the work to repair & restore vitality to your relationship. Listen for 11 things you can do.
Apr 9, 2018 · 13 min
Relationship Problems are Often Power Struggles
Power struggles in relationships are totally ordinary & daily. Things can work in a couple where power is somewhat lopsided, but it will be boring & predictable if one person has all the power to make decisions most of the time. Sharing power is a dance in the messiness that is worth it to reduce arguments & fighting.
Mar 6, 2018 · 36 min
Together & How to Make it Last Over the Years
Too many relationships have an over developed sense of the critic, was pointed out in this interview with Dr. Joseph Melnick. It's easy to blame & tell people what they're doing wrong. Instead of telling each other about what's wrong, we need to restore trust with a curiosity about each other. He describes what he calls "cardboard relationships" that are like paintings you don't look at any more. In the beginnings of relationships it's so easy to be open & experimental. Then couples seem to lose interest in each other because routines can be deadening. Staying together requires work & learning new skills, to understand how you stop being interested in your partner.
Feb 8, 2018 · 12 min
Insecure? How it Contaminates Relationships Episode #41
Being insecure is something everybody struggles with. Insecurities are easily fed by fears when we believe we are misunderstood. Being insecure tests even the best of us. Insecurities can keep people trapped in emotionally masochistic relationships. Facing how we are unlovable can help us grow & change.
Jan 8, 2018 · 12 min
What Everybody Ought to Know for Relationship Survival Episode #40
We arrive in this world with very few skills to help us navigate relationships. It takes a few decades just to understand ourselves much less anybody else. I think long term loving requires that we give each other the benefit of the doubt. We all begin a bit too stingy & full of self interest.
Nov 17, 2017 · 35 min
Grief & Loss Survival in Relationships Episode #39
As we live our lives, we all experience loss, change and transition. While we all know the grief associated with change, each grief looks and feels a little different. And, everyone grieves differently. As you work through the losses, changes and transitions in your life you'll find it's helpful to be patient and gentle with yourself, because it's not easy and it takes time. The face of hope may change as you grieve. Hold it in your heart; keep it alive because you won't always feel as bad as you do when your grief is fresh.
Nov 7, 2017 · 42 min
Blended Families, Stepfamilies; A Map for Greater Understanding
Interview with Dr. Patricia Papernow, in her fourth decade working with blended families. Blended families are complicated, where adults may be thrilled to find a new love, children may experience that as a turning away from them. Loyalty Binds can create problems, which may work out better with a slower pace.
Oct 17, 2017 · 24 min
Pornography Addiction, Why it Should Worry You in Relationships
Pornography Addiction has become a problem for many couples. It sets up unrealistic expectations that real life can't compete with. Porn addiction often becomes a powerful problem because it's easier than dealing with the messiness of human beings. Our brains love the pursuit of novelty which is available so immediately on the internet.
Sep 19, 2017 · 13 min
Connection & Disconnection, Learn How it Works
In relationships we take the easy way out a lot. We lie & tell people what they want to hear instead of truth. We silently stash resentments & get divorced. We decide sex is a chore we don't want to be bothered with. We dump our insecurities on each other to fix instead of fixing them ourselves. We let our anxieties run rampant & spill all over our partners instead of trying to learn how to self soothe. We tolerate disrespect & sometimes contempt instead of asking our partner to course correct. These are all negative patterns that lead to disconnection.
Aug 16, 2017 · 12 min
Relationships with Personality Disorders
Personality Disorders are difficult in relationships because they have massive power through manipulation. So if you are in a relationship with a personality disorder, You must figure out how you give up your own power. You must learn how you participate in the dysfunction. It doesn't happen alone, it happens with you.

What Healthy Couples Know That You Don't: Relationship Advice and Respect

Date & Love Bravely; Interview With Dr. Solomon

Misery In Your Relationship & 10 Ways To Fix It

Fighting Can Improve Your Relationship

Manipulated & Overly Generous in Relationships?

Sexuality for Women Can Be Improved! Interview with Emily Nagoski

Love & Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples

Codependency Means Someone Gets Lost & The Relationship is Lopsided

Partnership & Marriage Are Fragile Craft

Are You a Top Dog or Do You Cooperate in a Top Dog Relationship?

Love Means Paying Attention & Accepting Disappointment

Ambivalent Marriages & Relationships, What to do?

Relationship Problems are Often Power Struggles

Together & How to Make it Last Over the Years

Insecure? How it Contaminates Relationships Episode #41

What Everybody Ought to Know for Relationship Survival Episode #40

Grief & Loss Survival in Relationships Episode #39

Blended Families, Stepfamilies; A Map for Greater Understanding

Pornography Addiction, Why it Should Worry You in Relationships

Connection & Disconnection, Learn How it Works

Relationships with Personality Disorders