Trust (or The Boy Who Cried Wolf)

Trust is a very important currency in marriage. It gives both partners a sense of certainty in the relationship, which helps it survive and remain strong. Certainty is a need we all have in life. Subconsciously, we would be willing to do a lot in order to have it met. When our sense of certainty is a bit shaky, we get anxious. This can be a killer in a relationship.

If you know the story of the boy who cried wolf, you understand why trust is so valuable. In the story, they boy would run to the village to beg the townspeople to help him. A wolf was chasing his sheep. The villagers rushed to help, only to discover that there was no wolf and the boy had lied. A week later, the boy did it again, and again, and again. The villagers came once, twice and even three time, and each time, there was no wolf. Until one day, the boy came running in a real panic, begging for help. A wolf was really chasing his sheep this time. But the villagers did not believe him. He had lied to them too many times. And the boy could only watch in horror as the wolf ate his sheep.

This post is part 29 of 33 in the series Save Your Marriage

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How to Handle Conflict Resolution in the Family

Every family has fights. Even in the most wonderful family, people fight sometimes. Fights can be between the parents, between parents and kid and between kids themselves. Fight create conflict and can damage the delicate fabric of relationships.

However, if you come out of the other side of the fight stronger, it can in fact strengthen the bond between family members. This is why conflict resolution in the family is so important.

If you are a parent and you have fights in your family, rest assures you are perfectly normal. The science of conflict resolution is easy to learn and master. Once you learn the tricks, life can be much easier.

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Attachment Theory: Attachment Styles in Relationships and Marriages

So far, we’ve covered how attachment styles affect babies and individuals, but what about attachment styles in relationships and marriages?

Have you ever heard the theory that we pick partners who are similar to our parents? I have wondered about this over the years. My life partner, Gal is similar to my dad in some ways and totally different in many other ways. He is also similar to my mom in some ways and totally different to her in many other ways. I find it hard to either confirm or deny the theory.

While it is hard to decide if this theory works based on personal attributes, attachment theory claims that in some strange way we relate and attach to our partners and in a way that matches the attachment style that was created between us and our caregivers in those first years of our lives.

This post is part 6 of 6 in the series Attachment Theory

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How Can Parents with Different Religions Raise Kids Successfully? (Q&A)

The question about two parents with different religions or belief systems raising kids has become very relevant in our society today. The world is much more multicultural and there are many mixed couples finding love and wondering about the impact of this on their kids.

My eldest daughter, Eden, is getting married in 2 months to her now-boyfriend, Sandy. Eden and Sandy are a gorgeous couple and we are very happy they found each other. No pressure or anything, but we are also very much looking forward to them having kids. The interesting thing is that Eden and Sandy come from two different cultural backgrounds, different languages and different faiths. Many of our family members and friends have been wondering about the “chance” of such a relationship succeeding and the difficulty in raising kids.

I cannot say exactly what will happen for Sandy and Eden. I am not a fortune teller after all. I am, however, the state director of a not for profit organization that provides education on diversity and advocates for religious and cultural tolerance. I strongly believe in this work.

In some way, Eden and Sandy have more similarities than many other couples do. For example, they are both migrants, both their parents are still together, they both value different cultures, they both speak languages other than English and appreciate others who speak other languages, they are both kind and accepting of others. I think the “chance” of a successful relationship depends not on the number of differences between them but in their ability to appreciate and take advantage of the similarities.

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Attachment Theory: Four Attachment Styles

In the first chapter on attachment theory, I explained the four characteristic of attachment: safe haven, separation distress, secure proximity maintenance and safe base. Based on how well the caregiver meets each characteristic, the baby and his/her caregiver will form a different attachment style.

In a famous experient titled the “Stranger situation” psychologists Mary Aninsworth (expanding on work done by Bowlby) observed children between the age of 12 to 18 months. She was interested in their response at being left alone and then reunited with their mothers. The results led her to 3 major attachment styles. In 1986, researches Main and Solomon added a forth attachment style. A number of studies since then have confirmed that the attachment style that developed in a child’s early years of life will determine their future relationships and connections with other human beings for years to come.

The four attachment styles are: secure, ambivalent, avoidant and disorganized.

This post is part 2 of 6 in the series Attachment Theory

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Attachment Theory: Main Characteristics of Attachment

Baby boy in a sailors hat sitting in a lifesaver float

The emotional bond between people depends on their ability to connect and the style of the connection. The attachment we have with the people in our lives (partners, children, siblings, friends and even our own parents) are strongly associated with the attachment we formed in our early years of life, with our primary caregiver (usually our parents). Similarly, the challenges we experience in our relationships as adults are shaped by the patterns of challenge from our early attachments.

According to John Bowlby, attachment is the connection a baby forms with its parent to ensure their basic needs of safety, comfort, care and pleasure are met. He described this attachment as “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings”. Bowlby believed that the style of the relationship between the parent (mainly the mother) and the child in this critical period of the baby’s development becomes a blue print for later relationships.

The main idea of attachment theory is that the caregivers provides the baby with a safe and secure base from which to explore the world. The baby knows that it is safe to venture out and explore the world, and that the caregiver will always be there to come back to for comfort in times of stress and discomfort.

This post is part 1 of 6 in the series Attachment Theory

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Ronit’s 100 Happy Valentine’s Day Tips

This year, Gal and I are celebrating our 34th Valentine’s Day and we are very proud and happy to be together. We are also sad to look around and see that fewer and fewer couples are able to find happiness and love on this day. Over the last five years, more of my clients experienced relationship breakdowns than ever before. Divorce and separation are very sad and challenging for the couple and for their families.

This week, I received a request from a radio show to share 5 Valentine’s Day tips with their listening couples. This made me think that I have many more tips and the fill list from my relationship tool kit is below.

I highly recommend having such a list for yourself. If you could give other couples advice on how to have a happy relationship, what would you say? Write down your ideas and read them every once in a while (even I have to read my own advice from time to time, especially in tough times).

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Good Relationship with Loving Affirmations

Relationships and the way we connect with others are very important and essential to our happiness and success in life. Research shows that people who are in good relationships are healthier, happier and they live longer. So, good relationships are the best prescription for a long life. I would take two prescriptions of that kind of medication.

We learn about relationships from the people closest to us – usually, our parents, later on our siblings and much later, from friends. If they model good relationships, we copy them. If the model bad relationships, we model that as well. Why? Because as kids we don’t have any way of filtering bad examples. It is only as we grow that we start developing critical thinking, and we start noticing that relationships at our house are different to other houses. Often times, that can make us frustrated because we don’t have the skills to make things change.

I once worked with a woman who was 37 years old. She had so many partners and no stable relationships. We checked her beliefs and found the source of the problem. We discovered that the origin of it was from her dad leaving her mom and her siblings when she was about 10 years old. He left to be with another women and she adopted a belief that “all man are assholes” (I am quoting). As a result, she did not trust men. With a belief like that, it is hard and even impossible to find a relationship, not to mention keep it.

This post is part 5 of 6 in the series Affirmations

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The Ten Commandments of Good Marriage

This week Gal and I celebrate 34 years together, including many years of good marriage. To celebrate, we decided to go on a trip to Thailand. The photo above is of us at the top of one of the most beautiful places in the world – Ang Tong National Park in Ko Samui. This trip was one of the first times in the last 25 years that we took 2 weeks off. It was the first time since we became parents that we took time away from work and kids, and went away on a vacation. It was wonderful.

The question that we often get, after 34 years together, is “How did you do that?”. The answer I have in mind is, “one day at a time”. 34 years, each with 365 days of love, challenges, excitements, disappointments, happiness, anger, joy and frustration. It had both its ups and its downs. I guess we need the sun and the rain in order to appreciate the rainbow. Our love to each other has changed, for the better.

One of my clients, who has been married for 2 years, talked about married life being boring. She asked me if being married to the same guy for that long is not boring. I told her that I can say many things about my relationship with gal, but it is far, far from being boring. So she asked me about my tips and I came up with my own ten commandments of marriage.

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Moving House Made Easy: Telling the Kids

Snail with house on back saying: we are moving

One major challenge of moving houses is telling the kids about it. Most parents are afraid to do this. They wonder when the right time will be to share the information with the kids and how to do it.

If you have young kids, do not tell them about the move a long time in advance.

Children’s perception of time is not sophisticated enough yet and they will just be anxious. As soon as you tell your kids that the move is on, they begin to deal emotionally by saying goodbye to the people and things around them (this is a coping mechanism we all have to manage). As a result, kids who are about to move away are often not invited to parties. People around them do not invest in their relationships any more.

This happens to adults as well…

This post is part 3 of 13 in the series Moving House Made Easy

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