Q&A with Dr. Bonnie Weil
Kardashian Divorce: Dr. Bonnie Advises Ways to Deal with Conflict and Stay Together
The latest news to come from the Kardashian camp is that Kim is conflicted about her recent divorce filing and has flown to Minnesota to see her husband Kris Humphries. “The fact that she’s having second thoughts is a good sign,” says Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil. “I believe just about any marriage can be saved if the couple is willing to put in the work and it seems like there might be hope for Kim.”
The conflict first arose after the couple had only been married for a short 72 days, apparently over a difference of opinion on where to live. Dr. Bonnie says this is evidence the couple has already left the honeymoon phase and is now moving to the power struggle phase, where they must learn to address each other on different terms. Kim wanted to settle near hear family in California, while Kris hoped to set up home base in Minnesota. “Although these are things the couple should have worked out prior to marriage, all is not lost due to this apparent impasse,” encourages Dr. Bonnie.
Although it’s disconcerting that, facing a disagreement, Kim’s fist reaction was to throw in the towel, her trip to Minnesota suggests she’s realizing dissolving a marriage shouldn’t be that simple. “Kim needs to learn how to deal with conflict in their relationship or, even if they work this issue out, there will be others that might send her running again,” Dr. Bonnie cautions, and suggests a few things to give the couple staying power.
Smart Heart Dialogue: The couple can use this as a way to move beyond the anger and blame that typically is placed when an argument or disagreement comes to a stalemate. It can be used for smaller, more inconsequential arguments as well. Dr. Bonnie encourages having a weekly ten minute “Smart heart”-to-heart with a figurative emotional “bullet proof vest” to protect from hurt, anger and defensiveness, as the couple listens and echoes back what they each heard the other say.
Fight Fair: Fighting in a relationship doesn’t have to signal the end – but rather, it’s HOW the couple fights that makes all the difference. Fighting doesn’t necessarily mean a relationship is on the rocks, in fact, couples who argue well are happier. Perhaps surprisingly, there’s also little distinction made about the so-called differences between arguing, fighting, bickering or even nagging – they’re all forms of expressing dissatisfaction with a situation or a person and learning how to convey these feelings, and how to respond to them, can make all the difference.
Break up to make up or “brush with death”: It may be this initial divorce filing provided Kim with all the separation she needed, but Dr. Bonnie typically advises a temporary breakup as a way to help resolve certain issues, and create a shake-up that many couples need. In certain circumstances, this is the only thing that will create an action step which will make reconnecting and making up easier to do.
New Life Only a Click Away
I recently saw a heart-breaking story in The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/fashion/in-a-divorce-the-clicks-of-a-mouse-modern-love.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&ref=fashion&src=me from a woman whose husband had been having an affair with a woman he met online, unbeknown to her. Perhaps even more tragically, this story is not that uncommon. In fact there are a number of statistics that reveal how widespread this has become:
Internet users devote three hours per week to online sexual exploits (MSNBC.com)
- -Statistics show more than 72,000 sexually explicit sites on the web and an estimated 266 new porn sites being added each day. These sites alone generate a revenue of $1 billion dollars each year.
(Harding Institute) - One in 10 respondents said they are addicted to sex and the Internet
(MSNBC.com and Dr. Alvin Cooper)
It’s become overly simple to meet someone online for sex – in fact it’s more difficult to avoid these types of propositions than it is to take advantage of them, as the woman in the article found when, following her divorce, she did a little online sex research of her own:
[After posting my ad] I refreshed my e-mail and a dozen more replies showed up. Within the hour I had more than 100. I was appalled but also flattered
Needless to say, these types of encounters are easy to procure and appear much less high-risk than attempting to pick someone up in real life. However, the real life consequences are just as devastating. It’s a way of over-riding true emotions by opting for a “high” of a sexual encounter instead. It could be the case that people looking for casual encounters via the internet are seeking out a way to mask the fact that they don’t want to deal with their emotions or don’t know how to engage in true intimacy. It’s a way of acting out – not talking out – extreme feelings in a person’s life. People who utilize the internet for these types of “relationships” are typically just in it for the high the feel in the moment without examining what’s making them seek that high.
When one person in a couple suffers from this need for thrill-seeking behavior it’s imperative that the person communicate with their partner – and with themselves – as to what’s leading them into this pattern. As I suggest in the documentary, Unfaithful (featured on the OWN Network), it’s imperative to dig deeper than indulging a momentary desire and learn what feeds the need to act in such a way.
In this sense, the course of action for dealing with this behavior is the same as if it weren’t fueled by technology. However the ever-presence of sex online has made this type of thrill-seeking much more accessible, and seem much less risky. This perception is just not true. Engaging in an affair – online, offline or otherwise – is fraught with risk and reveals relationship shortcomings that need to be talked out, not acted out.
Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil, PhD, author of the 2010 NY Times Reader’s Choice Award winning book Make Up Don’t Break Up with accompanying DVD Falling in Love and Staying In Love counsels couples considering breaking up, people who have committed adultery, and couples who want to strengthen their relationships damaged by resentment or unresolved anger, teaching people to “fight” to increase passion, bring back magic and restore the sizzle. Dr. Bonnie teaches Smart Heart Dialogue along with communication and connection tools, and counsels families and children.
Known as “The Adultery Buster” and the “No. 1 Love Expert,” she is the best-selling author of Adultery: The Forgivable Sin (adapted into a Lifetime movie starring actress Kate Jackson) Coming Nov 2011 as eBook, Make Up Don’t Break Up, Finding and Keeping Love for Singles and Couples (Revised edition Feb 2010, including DVD How to Fall in Love and Stay in Love for Singles and Couples), Can We Cure and Forgive Adultery?, How Not to (S)mother Your Man and Keep a Woman Happy, and Financial Infidelity.
Dr. Bonnie has appeared on a Discovery Health documentary titled “Unfaithful” and A&E on addictions. ABC’s Good Morning America, a three-day series on NBC’s The Today Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show five times, a four day series on Fox TV regarding dating. She appears frequently on ABC, Fox, CBS and NBC News, The View, 20/20, and CNN. Visit Dr. Bonnie at http://www.DoctorBonnie.com.
How to Save the Love of Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries… and they said it wouldn’t last!
Upon the news of the pending divorce between Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries, Dr. Bonnie Weil weighs on on what may have caused this domino effect of Lust/Love. This is a good example of when the “honeymoan” stage takes and sweeps a person into a different level. They say parents are better at picking a partner as people get swept away in the new love feeling. When the honeymoon ends, the power struggle begins… that is the beginning of the end!
“The endorphins from the honeymoon stage have worn off, and what you are left with is reality! We love the feeling of euphoria and utopia of the honeymoon stage.” says Dr. Bonnie. A couple must have a good foundation and the tools, in which Dr Bonnie provides with her ground breaking Smart Heart Skills and Dialogue in which have saved 98% of the couples she counsels. Dr. Bonnie teaches her patients that the the bridge to real-life love is stopping along the way to the power struggle stage. “We always pick a person that gives us the most trouble, so we can grow and become a better person. The thing that you love about your partner in the beginning you end up hating in the end. It wears on you like chalk on a black board!” Dr. Bonnie sees often in her practice. Smart heart Skills and Dialogue gives you the “know how” to navigate after the heart pounding honeymoon stage to the comfort, safe, real life love stage. “The problem is most don’t hang around long enough to get to the real life love because they don’t believe and know how to do it” says Dr. Bonnie. “They leave when the going gets rough instead of staying the course. This is what is wrong with Narcissistic “Greed/Me” generation that we live in.” states Dr. Bonnie.
According to The New York Post http://tinyurl.com/3zojvxx Kris Humphries learned of the divorce filing via TMZ just as the world found out. “This is the ultimate betrayal finding out via media, it is very hostile way to get back at a person.” quotes Dr. Bonnie.
Dr. Bonnie feels “Kim fell in love with love. Her biological clock is ticking and she may have felt pressure from the nuptials of her sister Khloe and the baby of sister Kourtney. Love is like the game monopoly. They went to the power struggle stage from honeymoon and did not pass Go. They jumped out too soon.” Everybody wants everything now but it is through the struggle that we become stronger and closer, that power struggle is what bonds a couple. They allowed that struggle to break them instead of strengthen them.
Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil (Dr. Bonnie) is a relationship expert who was named by Psychology Today as one of America’s best therapists, and by New York Magazine as one of New York City’s best therapists. She was recently honored with the 2011 New York Award in the Physicians category by the USCA “Best of Local Business Award. She is known as “The Adultery Buster” and the “No. 1 Love Expert,” she is the best-selling author of Adultery: The Forgivable Sin (adapted into a Lifetime movie starring actress Kate Jackson), Make Up Don’t Break Up, Finding and Keeping Love for Singles and Couples (Revised edition Feb 2010, including DVD How to Fall in Love and Stay in Love for Singles and Couples) and winner of the NY Times Reader’s Choice award for best dating book 2010, Can We Cure and Forgive Adultery?, Staying Not Straying, How Not to (S)mother Your Man and Keep a Woman Happy, and Financial Infidelity (Making Money Sexy).
Dr. Bonnie has appeared on a Discovery Health documentary titled “Unfaithful” and A&E on addictions. ABC’s Good Morning America, a three-day series on NBC’s The Today Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show five times, a four day series on Fox TV regarding dating. She appears frequently on ABC, Fox, CBS and NBC News, The View, 20/20, and CNN.