1. Respect is more important than love
2. Checking in about the Relationship
3. Not taking each other for granted
4. Protecting quality time
5. Letting go of the small stuff
6. Making amends, owning your behavior
7. Working on your sex life
8. Actively create a future together

Video Transcription

Hello, my name is Sevin Philips. I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist and I’ve been working with couples for many years. During this time, I have found 8 key principles that really help in creating a healthy, long-lasting relationship.

If you’re dating or you’re new in a relationship, these principles are excellent for developing a foundation for the relationship you want.

And if you’ve been in a relationship for a while, even if you’re having challenges in that relationship, these are the principles to practice together to make it better.

The first principle is respect is more important than love. We all know that love is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. It’s the thing that drew us together in the beginning. But what happens over time is if we’re disrespectful – we’re bickering, we’re defensive, we cut each other off, we start name calling, whatever the disrespect is – we erode our love over time.

It happens really suddenly sometimes that we don’t even notice. Then we wake up one day and we find that we’re adversaries with the person that we were in love with.

So I want you to take this seriously. Take your behavior seriously and stop. Don’t allow it anymore. Make an agreement with your partner that if anyone becomes disrespectful that you can call a timeout and take a break until you can come back and talk about it later.

One more thing I want to say is I know oftentimes underneath, a lot of times we’re hurt or our needs are not being met and that’s kind of why we’re being disrespectful. It’s not a justification for it, but I want to say this because I know sometimes we need to address larger issues going on underneath in order to heal that.

The second principle is checking in about the relationship. This could happen once a month, once every three months, but it needs to happen regularly beyond just “How are we doing?” “Oh, okay.”

Actually talking about the details of our relationship. “How are we doing with our sex life? How are we doing with our finances? How are we doing with our household stuff?” Is there any harm that’s been done to either one of you that you want to express?

Now this isn’t a blame session. This is the kind of place where you can just speak from your experience and have somebody else hear you. Even if a solution doesn’t come apparent, you at least get to air it out. This way, you get to prevent things from building up over time.

I want you to take these two principles to heart and I’ll be back for my next series with two more.

8 Principles for Creating a Healthy Relationship Part 2

Hello, my name is Sevin Philips. I’m here to talk about the 8 principles for creating a healthy relationship. This is video 2.

Principle 3 is not taking each other for granted. It’s a very easy thing to do, especially the longer you’ve been with somebody, you just stop appreciating how you support one another on a daily basis.

Remember in the beginning of the relationship you might’ve been paying attention and noticing what the person was doing for you that felt really good? You’d say that. “Wow, I love when you do that” or “Thanks so much for doing the dishes. I was really tired.”

Whatever the small and seemingly insignificant comments are, they have great impact on one another. Especially the longer you’ve been with one another, to know the other person appreciates you really encourages you to want to do more.

So I ask that you install this no matter where you are in your relationship. Appreciate each other often.

Principle 4 is protecting quality time. You might remember when you were dating when you were looking forward to seeing the other person. You knew the other person was holding that spot, that date night, as important. You just felt really good about that.

In a long-term relationship, it’s very easy in day-to-day life. We have work, we have kids, we have many things that we actually put our relationship on the back burner for. Some of that is understandable, because the relationship stalls. “We’re not going anywhere.”

But what happens is we kind of lose that connection over time. So oftentimes what happens as a default is people call their quality time their down time. In other words, the time we spend together is when we come home from work, we’re relaxing, not talking; maybe watching TV. Whatever it is.  And it’s really different.

It’s actually really different when you were dating earlier on when you were actually talking, engaging and looking forward to seeing one another.

I suggest that you both decide once a week, for example, having a date night. “Every Sunday, we don’t do anything with anybody else. This is our day together.” Really protect that time and looking forward to it again. It’s a great way to reconnect and it’s a great way to remind each other how important you are to one another.

I look forward to delivering my next two principles to you. Take care until then.

8 Principles for Creating a Healthy Relationship Part 3

Hello, my name is Sevin Philips and I’m here to talk about the 8 principles for creating a healthy relationship.

Principle 5 is letting go of the small stuff. You know what I’m talking about. It’s the dishes, it’s the “You’re always late,” and even asking your partner to change forever and they haven’t done it and you get really steamed up about it. It’s that stuff.

I know there will be things in your relationship that will be very important to you that you’ll need to stand up for and ask your partner for their support or their help. However, I want you to really choose your battles. Some of the stuff we need to be willing to let go of if we’re going to be happy with somebody and live our lives with them.

Life is very short, and if you’re getting a lot from your partner, they’re the person you want to spend your life with, be willing to live with some of this stuff. They probably have to learn to live with some stuff that you have as well.

Principle 6 is making amends and taking responsibility for your own behavior. When you’re hurt in an argument or in a relationship, sometimes we don’t want to make amends. We feel wronged and we feel justified. That’s a very dangerous mindset. I’m asking you to turn this around. In other words, take responsibility for your own behavior. It’s the only thing you can take responsibility for. Even if he or she started it, if you end up finishing it, make amends for that. You’d be amazed how contagious and infectious humility is.

For example, somebody’s wronged you and you say something like this: “You know, I may not agree with what you said in our argument yesterday but I want to tell you that the way I reacted wasn’t appropriate, and it wasn’t respectful and it’s not the way I want to be with you.” Something like that where you just take responsibility for your side.

You’d be amazed at how much your partner’s heart might melt as a result of doing this. You’d be even further amazed that it will really give them permission to want to do the same thing.

And it really puts us in a different position. Instead of being adversaries again, we’re responsible for our own behavior, we make amends when needed and we’re able to move forward and truly heal when we have these arguments and fights. We can get beyond them instead of them just building up.

I look forward to sharing my next principles in my next video. Take care.

8 Principles for Creating a Healthy Relationship Part 4

Hello, my name is Sevin Philips and I’m here to talk about the 8 principles for creating a healthy relationship.

Principle 7 is working on your sex life. Many of us have a myth that if we have to talk about our sex life or if we have to work on our sex life that means there’s something inherently wrong with our sex. And it’s not necessarily true if you think about it.

You’re constantly getting to know yourself. I don’t care how old you are; there’s always more to explore in your own sexuality.

And if you’re with somebody for 20, 30 or 50 years, things are going to happen that are going to change how you feel about sex. What used to turn you on isn’t going to turn you on in the future. You need some sort of way to talk about this with your partner if you want to maintain and have a healthy sex life for a long period of time.

Even if you’re really uncomfortable talking about sex, you can even talk about that you’re uncomfortable talking about it and that can be the start of the conversation. “Hey, we’ve never done this. I know we need to, but I’m really scared and I don’t know how to start.” That’s a great way to get going.

Principle number 8 – creating a future together. Actively working on your future, thinking about what you want to do together and what you both really feel good about and looking forward to it is one of those characteristics I see in really healthy relationships.

What it does is it really sets you apart from being a roommate or just a friend. It’s the thing that actually makes us feel like we’re special, that we’re moving through time in a really unique way, that we’re bonded in this one way and we’re looking towards the future together.

This actually takes some effort sometimes. We get into the day-to-day life and we just kind of go through life. Sit down. Talk to your partner. Figure out where you want to be. Dream and vision a little bit. Open up the doors. You normally say, “Oh, we can’t do that.” Just take that down and consider that. Maybe you can. “If we could, how could we?” Do some dreaming together. It’s a great practice.

Then bring it back down to reality and say, “Well, what’s the step in getting towards that?” and actively work on creating that together. It really brings you together and it really makes you feel like you’re a team.

These are my 8 principles for creating a healthy relationship. I hope you take them all to heart, practice them in your lives and have really, really satisfying relationships.

East Bay, Berkeley Relationship Counseling Center (Couples Counseling Therapy)

Do you keep ending up with people who are not good for you? Yes, it’s true the person you are picking is behaving poorly.  Since we cannot change someone else’s behavior, we must examine our own patterns in picking the wrong person. In doing this, we can begin to conceptualize healthy relationships and hold that as our new standard.

Unhealthy Relationships:

1. We mistake love for physical attraction, neediness and the need to rescue or be rescued. (Examine how your desperation effects your perception)
2. We choose emotionally and physically unavailable people in relationships. (Examine your fear of intimacy)
3. We pick people who treat us poorly by being punishing, critical, controlling or demeaning. (Examine your low self-esteem.)
4. We lose interest in our own personal interests and activities and become enmeshed with the one person and their interests.  (Examine your boundaries.)
5. We stay in and return to unhealthy relationships. (Examine your fear of loneliness.)
6. We begin sexual relationships or become emotionally attached without really knowing someone.  (Examine your boundaries.)
7. We fantasize about who we think someone is and then are crushed when they fall short of that fantasy.  (Examine what is reality vs. fantasy)

Healthy Relationships:

1. When something is wrong we can talk about it.
2. We encourage each other to be better people.
3. Having separate interests and friends isn’t a threat.
4. We can be vulnerable about feelings with some degree of safety.
5. We can handle difficult situations as a team.
6. We both are dedicated to spending quality time with each other.
7. Trust builds through our growing capacity to be honest with one another.

Remember unhealthy patterns are necessary to learn and grow!

Video Transcription – Couples Counseling Therapy

Hello, this is Sevin Philips and I’m here to talk about getting into healthy marriages. I know many of us want to be with somebody that we truly love, admire and are happy with.

Sometimes we find ourselves searching and not finding the right person or we even get into different marriages, but seem to find the same characteristics in the people that we’re with.

First of all, we really need to examine our own unhealthy relationship patterns. Sometimes we say we say we just didn’t find the right person, but really, we ourselves have to examine why we are choosing these kinds of people.

Here are some common themes that I see. One of them is that we can mistake love for neediness, or even physical attraction or the desire to be rescued.

Sometimes we find ourselves continuing to get into relationships with unavailable people. You might find that you tend to choose people who treat you poorly, whether they’re controlling, or demeaning or critical.

You also might find when you’re single you have all these interests in outside friends, but when you get into a relationship, you lose those along the way. You become enmeshed with one person.

You might find that you know you’re in an unhealthy marriages, yet you just can’t seem to get out of it. Or you do get out of it, only to find yourself returning to that same person.

Sometimes we get sexually connected or even emotionally attached to somebody too soon, before we really know who they are.

Also, we can fantasize about who we think someone is and then we find out later that they weren’t the person we thought they were and then we blame them for not being that person.

These are some common one. But we really need to do is first examine our own shortcomings and take responsibility for our part in picking these people.

You might suffer from low self-esteem or you have a difficult time taking care of yourself and creating healthy boundaries in a relationship. You might find that you’re terrified of being alone or even really desperate to be in a relationship. These things can really cloud your vision and making poor choices.

Also, I think to move forward having examined these relationship patterns, you kind of have to have an idea of what a healthy relationship, one that you can talk to somebody when things get difficult, that when you do talk about your feelings, it’s safe to do so. You might find that you feel like a team when you’re under certain situations that are difficult, and that’s always a good thing. Both people really should protect the marriages as far as the quality time you spend with one another.

What I really like is when both people really encourage each other to be the best people they can be in their lives, whether it’s in their career, their arts or just anything that the person wants to be in their life; just supporting one another in that kind of way.

You can make up your own list. But what’s most important is you have an idea what it looks like for you.

I would love to hear any suggestions you have about relationship patterns that you’ve been in or make any additions at all to the healthy ones that I mentioned. I hope you’re well.

East Bay, Berkeley Relationship Counseling Center – Couples Counseling Therapy

Sevin Philips , Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

San Francisco – Relationship Counseling Center – Couples Therapy

If we are on the computer too long our partners can feel a little left out. Even worse so if they are talking to us while we multi-task online. This article is meant to be a reminder to us all, ‘We need to be mindful of our boundaries between business and personal time spent online and with our families or loved ones.” You may not classify yourself as an internet addict, however most of us can admit, at some level, our gadgets and attention online can and do interfere with our relationships.

Here are some warning signs that your time spent online is getting in the way of your relationships:
1. Surfing the web becomes a more powerful draw than spending time with family or friends.
2. Paying more attention to gadgets than what is happening in real life.
3. Fiddling with your mobile device while on a date.
4. Checking social networking sites, emails or feeds obsessively.
5. People feel hurt when you are talking with them and clicking away on the computer at the same time.
6. Gaming more than 1-2 hours a day
7. Texting or checking email while driving

Help finding the balance
1. Define where work ends and personal life begins, especially for those of us who are online for a living.
2. Set limits to checking email and visiting social sites.
3. Define inappropriate times to use technology.
4. Set a boundary with yourself if your work expects you to monitor business communications outside of work.
5. If your girlfriend/boyfriend, partner or friend is talking to you while online, stop what you’re doing and give them your full attention or tell them that you need to finish up and get back to them later.
6. Never text or check email while driving, even though it is tempting.
7. If your ‘numbing out’ with technology, come back to your life and face the issues you’re avoiding.
8. Stay away from texting or IMing while you’re newly dating someone. It’s too easy to be misunderstood by someone who doesn’t really know you yet.
I suggest you try some of these practices in your daily life for a week’s time. If it doesn’t enrich your relationships, you can always go back to your old life.

By Sevin Philips, MFT

Video Transcription -Couples Therapy

Hello, this is Sevin Philips and I’m here to talk about technology and how it affects our marriages, but really just to give you some reminders. So here’s my checklist.

Where’s the line between the time we spend online and when we start actually spending time with people in our lives? You might be surfing online. In the evenings, you might work online. You might work from home and really delineating when one ends and the other begins, because sometimes the line gets very fuzzy.

Another thing is that with handheld gadgets that we have in our lives, it’s amazing. I think it’s appropriate to ask a new question which is “When is it not appropriate to pull it out?” Maybe it’s a great question to ask our friends. Just ask, “When is it not okay?” When we’re having conversations, maybe prior to having conversations and just trying to figure that out.

Another thing is that some of us are incredible multi-taskers. You might be one of these people. But none of you are good enough to be able to really be online and at the same time be present for somebody else when they’re talking to you. So the best thing to do is to either put the computer down or just say to the person, “Hey, I’ll be back in ten minutes. When I finish this up, I’d love to talk with you.” Just don’t do both.

Some people also suffer from edging onto that obsessive quality around being online and perhaps checking email or checking your Facebook feed. We have to ask that question: Are we going there? One way to notice the quality of it is does it have a mindless quality to it? Without a real purpose, we’re just rechecking that feed. If it does, then maybe you do have to check this out. It could be a couple of times a minute, it could be a couple times an hour. It’s really up to you.

What you can do is set some goals for yourself if this is the case. “I only check it a couple times in the morning, I only check it a couple times in the evening and maybe at these times during the day.”

Another thing I think we hear a lot about, especially in the media recently, is around texting and driving. I’ve heard people say, “I only do it when I’m at a stoplight or a stop sign.” I think a better question, though, we need to ask ourselves “Can this wait 15 minutes?” Perhaps we’re just getting used to something that isn’t necessary and is also extremely dangerous.

So if you are pushing the line, ask yourself, “Is this something that could wait 15 minutes?” If it is, wait.

The last thing I want to mention is a lot of people come into my office who are dating or having new relationships. So many misunderstandings happen around IMing or texting. It’s just best to ease off that a tad, in the beginning of the relationship at least. Things feel a little cryptic. It’s hard to read into it. Sometimes we have stories about how the other person feels and we just read into things.

“Of course I’ll be there at 5:00.” That stuff is pretty straightforward. But when it comes to sharing your experience and maybe deeper things, you might want to stray away a little bit from the texting and IMing.

These are some of my suggestions. I bet you have some of your own. I would love to hear them.

San Francisco – Relationship Counseling Center – Couples Therapy
By: Sevin Philips, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

Love is an amazing event that grows between two people. You can love someone and yet at times be disrespectful and unloving towards each other. This cycle is heart-wrenching and can erode love quicker than anything. The cycle begins with a person in the relationship feeling hurt, unloved or disrespected and leads to this person feeling justified in their poor behavior. .
Relationship Advice:
We all have the right to be treated with respect no matter what. We all have inherent value and worth.
1. Two people agree that it is unacceptable to be disrespectful.
2. Agree that time-outs are OK. (Walk away in a good way)
3. Wait twenty four hours to talk again about issues.
*Many people find that after 24 hours the original issue isn’t as important as remembered.

Video Transcription

Hello, this is Sevin Philips. Love is one of the most beautiful things that we have to share with one another. Yet, the number one offender with love is being disrespectful with one another. It’s a heart-wrenching cycle.

One of the most dangerous things about it is that when we feel hurt and we feel disrespected by one another, well, we feel justified to treat the other person poorly, unloving and disrespectful.

One of the best ways to do this is to turn it around and really get to the bottom of it, which is that none of us have the right to treat one another disrespectfully no matter what. We all have inherent worth. We all have inherent value.

The faulty thinking that we actually have the right to harm one another is the thing that gets us into the most trouble.

What we do have a right to do is we have the right to take care of ourselves. We aren’t doormats. What I like to do with couples is to switch them from having justifiable anger moving towards “You have the right to take care of yourself.”

The first step is to agree with one another it is unacceptable to be disrespectful to one another no matter what. What we do have the right to do, and what the next step would be, is that we can take of ourselves by having a timeout.

This could look as simple as saying, “Listen, I’m so angry, I can’t talk to you anymore. We’ll talk about this later.” If that’s as best as it can come out, that’s completely fine.

This is going to be very difficult for some people because it’s unbearable sometimes to have conflict that’s unresolved. To have it unresolved even for a minute can feel like a year. But you have to ask yourself: is it more important to fight this out and perhaps harm one another or to wait a while, do it in a good way and have some real healing happen between you two?

So bearing it is definitely a good practice. For those of you who think this is a get out of jail free card – “Oh, I get to do a timeout whenever I want” – it’s not true actually. You do need to come back and talk about it.

Having said this, I oftentimes suggest, even though it could be a couple of hours when you actually feel better, you can come back and talk about it – often suggest 24 hours. What’s really interesting about this is couples will come back and tell me, “I could barely remember why I was so upset.” This really goes to show that oftentimes the things that we fight about, that we argue about and hurt one another over are often smaller things that aren’t worth doing. They definitely aren’t worth harming the love that we have with one another.

Please take this practice. Check it out. Protect the love that you have. Protect yourself and your own right to take care of yourself, and let the love grow.

Transcription

Hello, my name Sevin Phillips. I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist and I’m here to talk about conversations starters. Who hasn’t felt nervous when meeting new people? Which one of us hasn’t put our proverbial foot in our mouth and has fallen flat on our face when we tried to talk to somebody new?

My suggestion is to always be yourself and be genuine. Anytime we try to start a conversation with something we don’t care about or make some statement that has nothing to do with who we really are, people can tell. People are intuitive. We know when someone is using small talk or they really don’t care about what they’re saying. Why should you care? No wonder it feels awkward. It doesn’t work.

So what really is the best way to do it I think is to ask a question of somebody, but before you do so, give them something of yourself.

Here’s an example: You’re at a dinner party you turn to someone next to you and say, “Hey I’ve taking some cooking classes. What I’ve learned from these cooking classes is that I can take risks in cooking. Lately, I’ve been putting spices in that I’ve never used before, and it actually has turned out not so well sometimes, but a couple of times it’s been pretty good. Have you ever tried that before?”

What you’ve done is you offered something of yourself that you care about. You’ve even given somebody the fact it didn’t work out so well – which people love. They love that you’re a human being just like them. You’ve also asked them a question about something that actually matters to you, and they can tell. All of that will lead to more comfortable conversation. Give it a try and let me know what you think. Thanks.

Transcription
Hello, my name is Sevin Phillips. I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist. A lot of us have a hard time saying no. I think specifically in the workplace it’s exceptionally hard for most of us.

Now, I know when you’re hired to do a job and your boss asks you to do something, you typically have to do it, because that’s what you were hired to do. But there’s a lot of cases I think – for example, when a peer asks you do to something – where we feel like we should say yes, and we do, and we feel regretful about it. I have a tactful way of handling this I think is really respectful to both parties.

The first step is when you feel anxiety about saying yes or no to anybody, I always want you to say, “You know what? That’s a good idea. Let me think about it and get back to you really soon.” That way, it gives yourself times to really think about it and contemplate and decide whether or not it’s the right thing for you.

Let’s assume that you don’t want to do it. A really tactful way in step two is coming to the person and saying, “Hey, I’ve given it some thought. It’s not really a good idea for me to do this right now, because I’m going to be doing this.” That’s pretty much it.

What you’ve done is you’ve been really respectful to the other person by considering their needs, and secondly you gave yourself enough room and time to really decide that you don’t want to do something and you took care of yourself.
I hope that helps. Thanks!

Sevin Philips gives guidance on starting a marriage. Couples Counseling advice for relationships.

Transcription
Hello, my name is Sevin Phillips. I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist. I’m here to talk about premarital counseling and really give you the things that I bring up in session with people who are starting their lives together. It’s a great way to fine tune your relationship and be set up for success. It’s a great way to take care of future bumps in the road and ensure that you will have a better chance at going through those things together in a good way.

The first one is pretty obvious: communication. We all have a different style of communicating. Some of us don’t want to rock the boat so we tend to withhold information and don’t want to bring up hard talk about subjects. Some of us are more reactive.

Whatever it is where ever you are in your partnership, you want to make sure you guys can, when these things happen, have some sort of way to talk these through together so they don’t go under the surface and cause you trouble later on.

Sex is a big one. It’s the thing we’re usually are uncomfortable talking about. It’s got to be one of the hardest things to talk about. In the beginning of the relationship, it’s no problem, right? Who needs to talk about it? But, in a lifetime together – 5, 10, 20 years together – sexual needs change and you have to have some format to be able to talk about these things. In addition, if you’re going to have children, being pregnant or first year of the child’s life, this is going to affect your sex life and you have to have a way to navigate these things.

Another one (probably the biggest one on the list) is money. Even though it’s not about money, it’s for the most of us, about security. Are we going to be okay? Is one of us more of a saver? Is one of us more of a spender? That’s why money usually comes up in a marriage. It’s really sensitive. It really triggers in a really core way.

You want to understand to talk about how you’re going to do this in a really successful way. Sometimes people put all their money in one pot. Sometimes people have separate accounts for their own personal spending and a pot in the middle to pay for everything. It doesn’t really matter which one you choose, but you want to choose that makes you feel the most comfortable, that makes you feel the most secure in your lives and that you can be set up for success in your lives finically.

Another one is expectations and roles. You might think, “Once we’re married, nothing is really going to change.” And maybe that’s true. But a lot of us have really hidden expectations and ideas about what life is going to be like together. Maybe we go them from our parents. Whatever it is, we just want to talk about what it is that you want things to look like. How do you want them to be when you have kids? How do you want to share the roles? And around the household chore, how does that work? What are your expectations about being married? Just having those out is a really great conversation.

Another thing is children. If you’re going to have children, there are some subjects we usually don’t talk about. What are your feelings about discipline do they differ? Do they vary? Talking about those ahead of time – parenting styles. Also, spirituality is something that comes up. Do you have a difference in your believe systems, and if so, how are you going to raise your children? How do you agree upon these things?
This is just an idea of what it’s like when you come to premarital counseling. It’s a really fun and open conversation, and again, it’s all about setting you up for a really happy relationship. I hope that was helpful. Thanks so much. Bye-bye.

Los Angeles, Beverly Hills – Relationship Counseling Center – Couples Counseling Therapy

Video Transcription

Hello, my name is Sevin Philips. I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist and I’m here to talk about conflict avoidance.

Some of us, in relationships, are uncomfortable with having conflict, with upsetting our partner, with having to deal with the fallout of sharing stuff that’s just difficult to talk about. So we learn to hold it in and not say it.

In the short-term, we win out, right? There’s no conflict.

But, in the long-term, and what most people don’t know is the curse of it is that it causes a lot more damage to the relationship by not expressing your needs. By not going through the conflict earlier on, you have much more conflict later on.

So if you’re feeling disconnected lately in a relationship or maybe you haven’t been having sex as much, something has happened that’s upsetting to you, bring it up. Learn to be honest and to identify those things in yourself that are important to you and difficult to talk about.

And set the precedent of having these kinds of conversations with your partner. If you’ve never done it before, it’s going to be scary; it’s going to be difficult. But if you and your partner can learn to do this more frequently, it doesn’t have to be as threatening anymore.

In fact, underneath, dealing with conflict and addressing our needs is love. “I love the marriage. I love you so much that I want to work on this now so that it doesn’t get bigger and more difficult for us.” You can tell your partner that.

The added benefit for being truthful is that your partner learns to trust you. If you’re able to say when things are not good, when things are good, they’re really going to know they are. It builds a really strong foundation of trust in a relationship, this kind of honesty.

So if this is you out there – difficult time with conflict, “I think I’d rather hold onto it and not rock the boat,” think twice. If someone is important to you and you’re in a long-term relationship and you want it to last, learn the skill of conflict and bringing it up. Address your needs. It’s going to work out in the long run and it will be a lot easier.

Los Angeles, Beverly Hills – Relationship Counseling Center – Couples Therapy
By: Sevin Philips, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

Normal and valid experiences:
• Overwhelming grief and sadness catches us off guard
• Emotional ups and downs lead us to feel like we are going crazy
• Concern with over-burdening our loved ones with our sadness and grief
• If you where the one who didn’t have a choice in ending the relationship you are left feeling powerless, betrayed, abandoned and sometimes resentful for not getting a chance to work it out
• Everything changes at once, including relationships with friends, in laws, moving, finances and changes in the family unit.
• The hopes and dreams we shared with our partner no longer exits, leaving many of us questioning who we are and where we are going.

Suggestions:

1. Read the Book- Rebuilding: When your relationship ends, by Bruce Fisher
2. Watch out for isolation: force yourself to create weekly events to show up to (workouts, friends, classes )
3. Join a support group of people going through the same thing

Video Transcription

Hello, my name is Sevin Philips. I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist and I’ve been helping people walk through the process of divorce and long-term breakup for many years. I’ve also done a divorce support group for over three years.

There are some things I want to share with you if you are going through a breakup or a divorce that I think might help you understand and maybe even validate some of your experiences that you’re having. I also have some suggestions for you to take in order to heal.

One of the things that catches us off guard is the amount of grief and sadness. We’re not prepared for it, and it oftentimes can last longer than we ever thought it would. It’s normal and it happens to most people. And it does end whether you think it’s going to end for you or not.

One of the things that’s a byproduct of that is that sometimes we feel that we’re a burden to our family and friends because we’re sad so often and that tends to want to make us isolate.

Another thing is if you are the one that didn’t have the decision to end the relationship, you’re probably left feeling powerless that you didn’t have a choice. Maybe you’re resentful that you weren’t given the opportunity to work on the relationship.

It offers us a really unique position to heal. Most likely, it’s hit you in that soft spot of feeling betrayed or abandoned. These are just some of the elements that need to be talked about in healed.

Another factor that most people who haven’t been through this don’t understand is it’s not just the end of the relationship that you’re facing. Everything is changing. You’re moving, finances have changed, your relationships to some of your friends are changing and if you have children, the family unit is changing. Everything is changing all at once. It’s very disorienting.

Another thing I feel is even if we can get over or accept that the relationship is over, sometimes we’re still grieving the loss of the hopes and dreams we had for our lives. These oftentimes outlive the grief for the person that we’re in a relationship with and it leads us to this question of “Who am I now and where am I going?”

Eventually in the process, you need to address “What do I do next? Who am I? What do I want to do with my life?”

These are all just ideas that I have of things that are normal to come up in a divorce process. One suggestion to heal is a book. It’s called “Rebuilding.” It’s by Bruce Fisher and it’s an excellent roadmap that helps you understand the emotional process you’re going through.

The other is the tendency to isolate is pretty great. I’m suggesting that you push the envelope as much as possible and show up to things. Go work out, go walk to the beach, whatever it is that you do. Specifically on the days that you usually spend with your partner, book appointments in your calendar ahead of time every week during those days as much as possible with your friends to have things to look forward to. All great suggestions.

Lastly, join a support group. Check Craigslist, Meetup.com. Find a good small group that’s led by a professional that’s a safe environment for you to be in that you can hear other people’s experiences. I can’t tell you how amazing it is to see people maybe who are a little further along on the path and see “Wow, I can get there, too” or even see people who are newer on the path and know “Wow, I’ve come a long way.” It’s an amazing place to feel safe. It’s the one place you can go once a week where you don’t have to act, or pretend or do anything. You can just be who you are and everybody understands it.

I hope this helps and I’m wishing you well.

San Francisco – Relationship Counseling Center – Couples Therapy

7. Working on your sex life

8. Actively create a future together

Video Transcription Advice

Hello, my name is Sevin Philips and I’m here to talk about the 8 principles for creating a healthy relationship.

Principle 7 is working on your sex life. Many of us have a myth that if we have to talk about our sex life or if we have to work on our sex life that means there’s something inherently wrong with our sex. And it’s not necessarily true if you think about it.

You’re constantly getting to know yourself. I don’t care how old you are; there’s always more to explore in your own sexuality.

And if you’re with somebody for 20, 30 or 50 years, things are going to happen that are going to change how you feel about sex. What used to turn you on isn’t going to turn you on in the future. You need some sort of way to talk about this with your partner if you want to maintain and have a healthy sex life for a long period of time.

Even if you’re really uncomfortable talking about sex, you can even talk about that you’re uncomfortable talking about it and that can be the start of the conversation. “Hey, we’ve never done this. I know we need to, but I’m really scared and I don’t know how to start.” That’s a great way to get going.

Principle number 8 – creating a future together. Actively working on your future, thinking about what you want to do together and what you both really feel good about and looking forward to it is one of those characteristics I see in really healthy marriages.

What it does is it really sets you apart from being a roommate or just a friend. It’s the thing that actually makes us feel like we’re special, that we’re moving through time in a really unique way, that we’re bonded in this one way and we’re looking towards the future together.

This actually takes some effort sometimes. We get into the day-to-day life and we just kind of go through life. Sit down. Talk to your partner. Figure out where you want to be. Dream and vision a little bit. Open up the doors. You normally say, “Oh, we can’t do that.” Just take that down and consider that. Maybe you can. “If we could, how could we?” Do some dreaming together. It’s a great practice.

Then bring it back down to reality and say, “Well, what’s the step in getting towards that?” and actively work on creating that together. It really brings you together and it really makes you feel like you’re a team.

These are my 8 principles for creating a healthy marriage. I hope you take them all to heart, practice them in your lives and have really, really satisfying relationships.

San Francisco – Relationship Counseling Center – Couples Therapy
By: Sevin Philips, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist