Houston Marriage Counselor: 20% of Divorces Blame Facebook

As the Houston marriage counselor, I try to pay attention to research and trends that I see emerging, and one of the big ones over the past few years is the way the social networks—especially Facebook—seem to be causing relationship problems.

Several of my clients have complained that their spouses are always on social networking sites and said that it really bothered them, and a few even mentioned specific issues that I’ll get into in a bit. But I was still surprised to read an article saying that one out of every five divorce petitions not only put part of the blame for the dissolution of their marriage on social networks but on Facebook specifically!

Social Networks Can Cause Many Relationship Problems, Says Houston Marriage Counselor

Ultimately, the real issue with social networks is very simple: temptation. With the ability to instantly do all kinds of things right at our fingertips, it’s hard not to get tempted. Here are just a few of the relationship problems that excessive use of social network sites can cause:

  • Cheating. Whether you physically meet up with someone or it’s just online flirting, using social networks to form romantic attachments to people outside of your relationship is cheating. The worst part is that most people aren’t even intending to cheat but they start talking to someone online and become tempted.
  • Stalking and jealousy. One of the best things about social networks is that they allow you to reconnect with people with whom you’ve lost touch. But as nice as it is to see Tommy from middle school again, cyber-stalking your exes or rebuilding relationships with them can lead to all kinds of issues in your current relationship.
  • Venting. How many times have you seen friends who vent in their status updates about something at work or at home? Chances are, it’s a lot, and I can tell you as the Houston marriage counselor that neither of these is a good idea. Sure, you might get validation from friends who “like” your status but you’re essentially airing your dirty laundry for the world and putting your significant other in the spotlight against their will. Not a good way to solve a problem.
  • Drifting. It’s pretty hard to stay connect to your significant other if you’re spending all your time on social networking sites but for some people that’s exactly what happens. They get sucked into the virtual world and lose touch with the real one.

If you need help dealing with problems in your relationship caused by social networks, please don’t hesitate to talk to the Houston marriage counselor.

 

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Houston Marriage Counseling on the Relationship Bank

When clients come into Houston marriage counseling complaining that they feel like they’re drifting apart or that they don’t feel as connected as they once did, often I will ask them a series of questions:

  • What’s the last fun or romantic thing you did together?
  • When did you last do something nice for your significant other?
  • When did you last compliment your significant other?

There are other questions, but they all revolve around the same basic theme—if we want to feel positive about our significant other and avoid relationship problems, it’s an ongoing process of doing things to make them feel good. Otherwise, it’s only natural to start to lose that connection and feel like you’re not as close.

Houston Marriage Counseling: Make Regular Deposits into Relationship’s Bank Account

In some ways, maintaining a healthy relationship has a lot in common with maintaining healthy finances. Depositing money is a positive, just like buying each other gifts, going on dates, or complimenting each other. Withdrawing money is a negative (though typically a necessary one) in the same sense that the way the struggles of everyday living can keep you from connecting with each other is a negative.

Over time, if you have a lot of withdrawals or negative interactions without replenishing that account, things start to get dicey. In the case of your finances, you’ll probably start worrying about how you’re going to be able to pay for things. Where your relationship is concerned, relationship problems might develop because you’ll start to feel unappreciated and eventually even unloved.

For Depositing Advice, Seek Out Houston Marriage Counseling

Unfortunately, the very things that caused you to start to drift—your job, your kids, your other life responsibilities—aren’t going to just go away so that you can focus solely on your relationship. It comes down to you and your partner making a decision that the relationship is something worth prioritizing and doing your best to create positive interactions.

It doesn’t have to be an all-out date night where you have to find a sitter and make reservations and hope and pray that something doesn’t fall apart. Sometimes it’s just as nice to tell your significant other how nice they look, buy them flowers on the way home, or offer to handle a responsibility that’s normally theirs as a “gift.”

No one is saying that this is easy, though, so if you and your partner still can’t seem to reconnect the way you want to, Houston marriage counseling is here to help.

 

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Houston Relationship Counselor: Fighting Over Small Things Is Really About Wanting Change

As the Houston relationship counselor, I hear this one a lot: “She fights with me over the stupidest little things. You left the seat up. You forgot the milk. You shouldn’t start more than one book at a time.” Obviously the specific complaints vary from person to person and gender to gender, but it comes down to the same thing: big fights over things that seem like they should be incredibly small. What’s your spouse’s problem?

The thing that most people miss—especially when they feel like they’re being attacked—is that there’s often a pattern or a message behind the issues that their partner is trying to communicate. Unfortunately, sometimes even the partner doesn’t quite understand what that is, just that he or she is frustrated and annoyed and you are the cause. So, instead, your partner complains about something that seems to make sense—even if it’s not that much sense.

Of course, the big problem with all of this is that the real problem isn’t being solved, and focusing on the small things may even be making it get worse and worse until you need to seek out marriage help. Want to know what the secret—what that message behind the message—really is? “I want you to change for me.”

Changing Doesn’t Have to Be a Bad Thing, Says Houston Relationship Counselor

In popular culture, one partner wanting the other to change has received a bit of a bad rap but it doesn’t have to be a negative thing. Most successful long-term relationships require each of us to bend a little bit because we want to make the other person happy.

When your spouse complains about you forgetting the milk, maybe what she’s really saying is that she doesn’t feel like you listen to her because you’re always ignoring or “forgetting” what she says. And that fight over starting too many books at once might be his way of telling you that he feels overburdened by responsibilities and wants you to help out more instead of relaxing with a book—or maybe that he wishes you’d spend time with him instead.

If your partner were to put it in those terms, you’d probably be far more willing to work on the problem, but interpreting these complaints can be tricky on your own, and you may need marriage help.

The Houston Marriage Counselor Can Get to the Real Problems

Don’t feel like you’re all alone. If you need help dealing with ongoing fights over small things, contact the Houston marriage counselor today.

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“Odd Couples” Are the Only Kind, Says Houston Marriage Counselor

As a Houston marriage counselor, I see lots of people who come in complaining that their significant other just doesn’t understand them. They are, in fact, polar opposites.

You’ve heard this story before, surely. One is a neat freak, the other a hoarder. One checks off items on a to-do list every day, while the other prefers to stroll along, taking frequent stops to smell the roses.

That all of this “opposite” behavior has led to friction and the couple needing relationship help is no surprise. But what probably would surprise those couples (and maybe you, too) is that we’re hardwired to seek out these differences in our potential mates. Moreover, it’s probably pretty good for us as human beings because living with these “opposites” forces us to modify our own behavior – if only slightly.

Houston Marriage Counselor: We Crave Different, Then Complain About It

Of course, it doesn’t really matter if our spouses are helping us to grow as human beings if they are also frustrating the heck out of us in the process. That’s where the relationship help I can provide comes in.

When we approach each other from diametrically opposed mindsets and behavior patterns, we tend to see what the other person is doing as “wrong,” and interact with them in a way that betrays those feelings. Either we make fun of and belittle their behavior as silly or cute, or we rail against them for acting in ways that strike us as lazy or irresponsible.

Not surprisingly, the typical reaction to being approached in such a manner is for our defenses to go up and for the person being “attacked” to fight back. This causes arguments, which escalate into fights as each person becomes more entrenched in their position, and no one wants to give even a little bit.

It’s All in the Approach, Says the Houston Marriage Counselor

All of this could be avoided if we just learned how to talk to each other better. Ask instead of demanding. Listen to why one person wants change while the other wants to stay the same. Compromise.

Of course, all of those things are a lot easier to say than do. If you and your partner are having difficulty living with your differences and finding ways to talk about them, try contacting the Houston marriage counselor for help.

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