Dec 14, 2016 11:06 am

An email I received recently went something like this: “Sometimes I put in my best and yet it seems I must be trying too hard to make the relationship work because whatever I do it still doesn’t seem to be going the way I want it to. Why?” I hear this so often and yet […]

The post Committed Relationships – How to Move on to the Next Stage appeared first on A Couple’s Journey.

Dec 07, 2016 11:06 am

Even though we tend to accredit Sir Isaac Newton with the discovery of the “laws of attraction”, it was actually the ancient Greek Philosopher Plato who first studied these phenomenon. In addition there were others from the ancient world who already understood about the properties of magnets that showed that “opposites attract” and “likes repel”. […]

The post Do Opposites Really Attract? appeared first on A Couple’s Journey.

Nov 30, 2016 11:07 am

Listening is such an important part of relationships, one often overlooked in our consideration of what makes a relationship great. The skill of listening really isn’t a difficult one and you can improve your listening skills in just a few simple steps. Perhaps the most important tip for being a better listener is to give […]

The post Are You a Truly Effective Listener? appeared first on A Couple’s Journey.

Nov 23, 2016 11:01 am

By definition love and lust are quite different in that, love is based on affection while lust is based on desire. The Macquarie dictionary defines love as a, “strong affection for another person.” and lust as, “a strong desire for…” generally referring to the possession of something e.g. power or for some personal gratification such […]

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May 11, 2016 10:08 am

In all relationships there is only one kind of response to your partner that is acceptable. If the couple are well tuned to themselves and each other this could be happening from the beginning though for many this is a growth thing and doesn’t develop until much later as you come to know each other…

The post The Traffic Light for Change appeared first on Love Lies & Games.

Apr 30, 2016 10:25 am

Pavlov’s Dogs and Skinner’s Theory of Conditioning Ivan Pavlov, a Russian Physiologist, and BF Skinner, a US Psychologist, are most well known for their experiments with behaviour in the early 1900s. You might recall hearing about Pavlov’s behaviour modification experiments with dogs and pairing feeding them meat with a ringing bell. Naturally the dog would…

The post Getting What You Want from Your Partner appeared first on Love Lies & Games.

Mar 23, 2016 11:14 am

When in relationship, as in life, our thoughts, feelings and behaviours become habits. Getting what you want could thereby follow those old well-worn habits, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. If not, you could use this to inspire and even change the way you express your thoughts and feelings. You can become more assertive by following…

The post How to Be Assertive appeared first on Love Lies & Games.

Mar 11, 2016 04:39 am

I will illustrate the topic with an example from the story of “Lyn” and “James”. At one time Lyn decides to take her children on vacation with a girlfriend and her children for a few days. But when Lyn tells James of the plan, he is not OK with it. When she asks why, he…

The post Responding Assertively to Game Playing appeared first on Love Lies & Games.

Relationship Stage 1: When all I can see is the good bits of you The first phase of a ‘real’ relationship is called ‘Symbiosis or Exclusive Bonding’. You arrive at a dance, your eyes lock in on someone across the other side of the room and you know that this is the person with whom […]

The post Relationship Stages (Part Two) appeared first on A Couple’s Journey.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Shakespeare Following on from my previous blog entries introducing the idea of scripts and the games people play it seems appropriate to now address the ‘acts’ or stages that your script takes you through and of the games we play as we […]

The post Stages of Relationship (Part One) appeared first on A Couple’s Journey.

Is It Chemistry Or ‘Script’? For me the answer to this question is easy. It is ‘script’ which, in truth, may also be about the chemistry or the chemical response we have when we first meet the person we think will be the love of our lives. But I’ll say more about that later. As […]

The post What Is This Thing Called Chemistry? (Part Two) appeared first on A Couple’s Journey.

There have been many theories to explain how we come to choose the people that we will go into a relationship with. Some theories focus on our attraction being most often to the people that have qualities or characteristics that we may not feel we have ourselves and unconsciously believing that if we miss them […]

The post What Is This Thing Called Chemistry? (Part One) appeared first on A Couple’s Journey.

In all relationships there is only one kind of response to your partner that is acceptable. If the couple are well tuned to themselves and each other this could be happening from the beginning though for many this is a growth thing and doesn’t develop until much later as you come to know each other…

The post The Traffic Light for Change appeared first on Love Lies & Games.

Pavlov’s Dogs and Skinner’s Theory of Conditioning Ivan Pavlov, a Russian Physiologist, and BF Skinner, a US Psychologist, are most well known for their experiments with behaviour in the early 1900s. You might recall hearing about Pavlov’s behaviour modification experiments with dogs and pairing feeding them meat with a ringing bell. Naturally the dog would…

The post Getting What You Want from Your Partner appeared first on Love Lies & Games.

When in relationship, as in life, our thoughts, feelings and behaviours become habits. Getting what you want could thereby follow those old well-worn habits, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. If not, you could use this to inspire and even change the way you express your thoughts and feelings. You can become more assertive by following…

The post How to Be Assertive appeared first on Love Lies & Games.

I will illustrate the topic with an example from the story of “Lyn” and “James”. At one time Lyn decides to take her children on vacation with a girlfriend and her children for a few days. But when Lyn tells James of the plan, he is not OK with it. When she asks why, he…

The post Responding Assertively to Game Playing appeared first on Love Lies & Games.

Jul 27, 2016 10:09 am

A question I get asked so often relates to when there are so many demands on a couple how should they set their priorities. One such question I received recently went something like this: “I am a 22-year-old lass. I have been in a relationship for 6 years. He loves me a lot and can’t […]

The post Have You Made Your Partner Important Enough? appeared first on A Couple’s Journey.

Jul 20, 2016 10:04 am

Once upon a time men and women would meet at a school dance or the annual town ball or via friends setting you up for a blind date. Things were simpler then. You didn’t expect to stray too far from your home town to meet the love of your life and once you did you […]

The post Virtual Lovers and Other Long Distance Relationships appeared first on A Couple’s Journey.

Jul 15, 2016 10:09 am

I received an email recently and this is all it said. I think this is a brilliant question and so will attempt to answer this as best I can. There is a beautiful naïvety and freshness behind this question that rings with a message full of love and hope for the future, a future which […]

The post I Just Got Married… What’s Next? appeared first on A Couple’s Journey.

Jul 09, 2016 10:06 am

I think this is a brilliant question. It’s about the difference between Unconditional Love and Conditional Love. I’ll come back to this question in a moment. Let me first tell you a story. Barb, aged twenty-one, and Baz, aged twenty-four, have known each other for several years and are planning to marry someday soon. Both […]

The post Where is the Unconditional Love? appeared first on A Couple’s Journey.

May 11, 2016 10:08 am

In all relationships there is only one kind of response to your partner that is acceptable. If the couple are well tuned to themselves and each other this could be happening from the beginning though for many this is a growth thing and doesn’t develop until much later as you come to know each other…

The post The Traffic Light for Change appeared first on Love Lies & Games.

Apr 30, 2016 10:25 am

Pavlov’s Dogs and Skinner’s Theory of Conditioning Ivan Pavlov, a Russian Physiologist, and BF Skinner, a US Psychologist, are most well known for their experiments with behaviour in the early 1900s. You might recall hearing about Pavlov’s behaviour modification experiments with dogs and pairing feeding them meat with a ringing bell. Naturally the dog would…

The post Getting What You Want from Your Partner appeared first on Love Lies & Games.

Mar 23, 2016 11:14 am

When in relationship, as in life, our thoughts, feelings and behaviours become habits. Getting what you want could thereby follow those old well-worn habits, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. If not, you could use this to inspire and even change the way you express your thoughts and feelings. You can become more assertive by following…

The post How to Be Assertive appeared first on Love Lies & Games.

Mar 11, 2016 04:39 am

I will illustrate the topic with an example from the story of “Lyn” and “James”. At one time Lyn decides to take her children on vacation with a girlfriend and her children for a few days. But when Lyn tells James of the plan, he is not OK with it. When she asks why, he…

The post Responding Assertively to Game Playing appeared first on Love Lies & Games.