Make Up Don’t Break Up When Moving In And Picking Out Furniture!!
You CAN avoid the “normal” power struggle when making home decisions and actually become closer!
If you’ve visited this site before, you will remember that we all pick a person who gives us the most trouble—it’s supposed to be that way as opposites attract. Why? The person who challenges your tastes or spends differently than you can actually challenge you in a positive way. That is, if you both learn the simple smartheart skills to balance your differences—then you will actually get closer! As you and your partner embark on this new and exciting journey, it’s important to keep a few things in mind:
Recognize and accept the “normal” fear
Remember moving in together is a beautiful, romantic but also scary step for couples. Instead of recognizing the “normal” fear moving in (getting closer) brings on, couples “fight” to rationalize they should break up instead of make up. Let the love shine through and work harder as love, like life, is a reasonable risk.
Decor isn’t a dealbreaker
Moving in and picking out furniture should never be a problem. In fact, it is a great “non-problem” and is a part of the moving in process that should be enjoyed. Spend some time together and sort through both you and your partner’s belongings. What should you keep, donate, or toss? Find what you both agree on and make those decisions together. When it comes to buying new items (especially the big ticket ones), make sure to find a middle ground. When in doubt, look around for inspiration. Whether you’re purchasing paint for the walls or a dining table for years to come—there are plenty of resources online.
Make space for individual needs
When you’re in the process of moving in with your partner, the word “together” may be at the top of mind. While the majority of this process does involve coming together, it’s important to remember that you’re still an individual with individual needs, which are often different than your partners. Don’t lose the “I” when becoming “we.” Try carving out your own space within the shared space and talk with your partner about ways to be apart while still being together. Perhaps you’re an avid painter? It may be beneficial to have your own studio space—someplace to escape to.
Be comfortable with complications
To be “sure” and have no complications means being alone, and being alone means loneliness. How about being grateful you found someone you are in love and can afford moving in together with? All those wonderful, but sometimes tricky, decisions are because you married your opposite. If you do the work and hang in there you’ll see that opposites are more alike than different.
When the time comes to actually make the big move, try to remember the key points outlined above. Moving in with your partner should never be a reason to break up—it should be a process that you work through together and become closer while doing so.
Dr. Bonnie, author of Make Up Don’t Break Up and Financial Infidelity (helping couples discuss money) outlines these simple steps to moving in harmony, and recommends working on these skills BEFORE you shop so you enjoy “shopping till you drop” in the most romantic way and enjoy this honeymoon period!
Spring represents new beginnings, what better time to move in together.
I am here to support you with any questions you may have from how to make up to how to deal with an affair. Please do not hesitate to call me directly at 212-606-3787 with your relationship questions.
Here is to finding and keeping real love!
Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil, Ph.D. – Love and Relationship Therapist, Mentor & Coach
The best-selling author of:
Can We Cure and Forgive Adultery
Make Up, Don’t Break Up: Finding and Keeping Love for Singles and Couples
Adultery: The Forgivable Sin – Turned into a movie Unfaithful: Discovery Health
Should The Betrayed Ever Meet The Lover?
This is the final post of the three-part series. Often the betrayer feels sorry for or does not want to hurt the paramour or lover and cannot end the affair! Then the betrayed must step in, however, there are strict guidelines for when and how to confront the lover and when contradicted!
While this may sound like the plot of a Grade B psychological thriller, I believe it is sometimes helpful for the Betrayed to meet the lover, even if only over the telephone. Unhealthy obsession is the usual reason I recommend a controlled confrontation in a neutral area between Betrayed and lover. If the betrayed spouse is so obsessed with thoughts and questions about the lover that he/she cannot move past it into forgiveness, reconciliation, acceptance of responsibility or even grieving for the damaged marriage, the process is stagnant and progress becomes impossible.
Remember, your spouse’s lover is probably not as gorgeous, brilliant, virile, or irresistible as you imagine. In fact, chances are good that the lover is a lot like you, your spouse’s true image, his or her opposite. After all, you have the characteristics that caused your spouse to see you as having the missing parts that made him/her a whole person. Despite the fact that he or she has cheated, in almost all cases, you are your spouse’s true love.
Every suggestion, exercise, and contract in Can We Cure and Forgive
Adultery, Understanding Our Biochemical Craving For Connection is presented with the objective of helping you and your spouse to rekindle that love and keep it glowing in your hearts forever. Meanwhile, however, you must resolve any questions or obsession you have with your spouse’s lover before you can move forward.
Confronting the lover is necessary if your partner wants to stop cheating, has the motivation but can’t take the action. When I treat couples I also see whether the betrayed’s subliminal message is it’s OK just don’t leave me! I teach boundaries, and guidelines to the couple to use adultery to identify what’s really wrong and fix it (getting rid of the smoke screen of adultery.)
I am here to support you with any questions you may have from how to make up to how to deal with an affair. Please do not hesitate to call me directly at 212-606-3787 with your relationship questions.
Here is to finding and keeping real love!
Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil, Ph.D. – Love and Relationship Therapist, Mentor & Coach
The best-selling author of:
Can We Cure and Forgive Adultery
Make Up, Don’t Break Up: Finding and Keeping Love for Singles and Couples
Adultery: The Forgivable Sin – Turned into a movie Unfaithful: Discovery Health
Financial Infidelity; The #1 Relationship Wrecker
How To End An Affair
The affair must stop for change to occur, however, ending an affair is easier said than done. This is the 2nd of a three-part series.
If you didn’t end your affair before you confessed it, you must do so immediately. You cannot begin to restore trust with your mate until he/she is certain that you are having no contact with your former lover (which we’ll discuss more later in this chapter). Giving up the affair may be harder than you expect, and will probably cause you to feel very sad. You must allow yourself to grieve—and your spouse must accept this process, too—before you can move on to a “new” relationship with your mate. You will simultaneously be grieving your damaged relationship with your spouse—an emotion the two of you can share—and looking at the early stress, loss, and separation (refer to Chapter 2 if you need to re-examine causes of early loss) that made it difficult for you to form a lasting, healthy relationship.
All of the psychological work I am recommending in this chapter that you undertake presupposes that you and your spouse are also attending to the biochemical and sugar imbalances—including any addictions to alcohol or drugs—that contributed to the relationship problems and resulting adultery.
Balancing your biochemistry and soothing your psyche must go hand-in-hand if either is to succeed for the long term. This is true for both members of a couple. As we’ve seen, both members of troubled couples often have sugar or biochemical imbalances, or chemical dependencies that contribute to the downward spiral their marriage takes once the “honeymoan” is over.
Most marriages can be saved even with adultery if an affair is stopped and many couples finally work out their underlying h issues then and reach real intimacy with adultery as it’s catalyst. I offer a groundbreaking theory, treatment, and protocol to my clients which has yielded a 98% success rate when followed.
Next week I end this series with “Should the betrayed ever meet the lover?”
I am here to support you with any questions you may have from how to make up to how to deal with an affair. Please do not hesitate to call me directly at 212-606-3787 with your relationship questions.
Here is to finding and keeping real love!
Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil, Ph.D. – Love and Relationship Therapist, Mentor & Coach
The best-selling author of:
Can We Cure and Forgive Adultery
Make Up, Don’t Break Up: Finding and Keeping Love for Singles and Couples
Divorce-meter: Should You Stay or Should You Go?
To the two percent of couples who divorce, I say: Congratulations! You tried to save your marriage, you did a lot of work on yourself and your relationship, and it just wasn’t meant to be. But before we get to that point, I ask couples seriously considering divorce to take my “Divorce-meter” questionnaire.
“Divorce-meter”: Should You Stay or Should You Go?
- Were you ever “in love” with your spouse?
- Has the love between you disappeared? If yes, are you sure
- Did you and your partner both commit yourselves to working seriously on your problems?
- Are you trying to escape emptiness?
- Are you bitter? Are you able to forgive?
- Do you want to be “right” so you don’t have to forgive?
- Do you hold grudges? Do other people in your family?
- Do you suffer from false pride?
- Is your inability to let go of your anger a sign you want to divorce?
- Did you receive a sexually transmitted disease from your partner? Are you unable to forgive the Betrayer because of that?
- Are you avoiding intimacy out of panic?
- Is your hurt too deep to forgive?
- Are you confusing hurt with the death of your relationship?
- Did you have and confess an affair to escape your marriage?
- Did you work through your guilt about being the Betrayer before you decided to divorce?
- Is this unresolved guilt the true cause of the divorce, not the fact that you fell in love with someone else?
- Are you putting your lover’s needs ahead of your family’s and partner’s?
- Whether you are the Betrayed or the Betrayer, are you using divorce to escape your feelings of emptiness?
- By not accepting responsibility for the part you played in the affair (whether you’re the Betrayed or the Betrayer), are you making divorce the only possible outcome?
- Do you truly understand the emotional resources you need to develop inside yourself, and what another person can give you?
- Do you feel you’ve been emotionally divorced for a long time?
- Did you try action oriented marital therapy? Did you do it alone if your partner?
If you answered “yes” to most of these questions, you may be divorcing for the wrong reasons. And please seek professional help before calling the divorce lawyer! Make certain that divorce is the only answer, and that you are truly unable or unwilling to work out your problems. Don’t set yourself up for a lifetime of regret.
I suspect, however, that you are among the 98 percent of my patients who decide to stay together, work out their problems, and find true love in the marriage they’ve already created. I hope you are—but that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook! You still have work to do in the area I call “resolution”: the Betrayer must end the affair (if you haven’t already), both partners must decide what (and if) to tell the children, and begin to re-establish trust and love. This could be the hardest part of all.
If your partner is having trouble ending the affair and many times adulterer does not want to hurt the feelings of the lover or paramour or the lover and need help to end the affair. Next week I will go into how to end an affair.
Do you want to save your marriage? Get your questions answered. Call me directly at 212-606-3787.
Here is to finding and keeping real love!
Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil, Ph.D. – Love and Relationship Therapist, Mentor & Coach
Best-selling author of:
Can We Cure and Forgive Adultery
Make Up, Don’t Break Up: Finding and Keeping Love for Singles and Couples