Houston Relationship Counseling: 7000 Languages Means At Least That Many Ways to Listen

I can’t tell you how many times in my Houston relationship counseling sessions I’ve heard, “He never listens to me!” or “She just waits for her turn to talk!”

Everyone “knows” that listening is an important part of maintaining healthy relationships, but most of us don’t really understand what that means or how to listen. And it’s kind of understandable, because as Mark Nepo points out in his fantastic new book, if there are 7,000 different active languages in the world, that must mean that there are at least that many ways to listen and understand each other and the world.

Mark’s argument is that we need to be more open to our surroundings and keep our ears and minds receptive in order to truly take in the world. If we can do this, we’ll form a better connection not only with people in our lives, but with our spiritual selves. I think that his lesson is one that can be applied very nicely to romantic relationships and offer marriage help.

Learn to Listen to Everyone Differently in Houston Relationship Counseling

As much as Mark says that there are 7,000 ways to listen, I believe there are over 7 billion ways to listen. That’s right, one for every human being on the planet.

It’s because we’re all unique individuals with highly specific experiences. No one is exactly like you – or your husband or wife. But we can only learn to understand the unique way in which our loved ones communicate by actually listening to them. And not just to what they say, but how they act and dress and interact with us.

People are telling us how to listen to them (what they need) all the time, but most of us are either too busy thinking about what we want to say, or too narrow minded in our ideas about what listening means. Some people want you to respond so they know that you’re paying attention. Others simply need a sounding board. And still others actually want engaged conversation and answers – even if the questions seem rhetorical!

Houston Relationship Counseling: Two Ears, One Mouth

Want some real marriage help? Just read the old proverb that says we have two ears and one mouth. Translation: listen more and talk less. It’s something that applies to lots of situations, but when you’re focusing on your relationship, the goal should always be to figure out what the other person needs. The way to do that is to listen to them. Don’t interrupt, and don’t just wait for your turn to speak. You might just find that listening teaches you more about yourself, too.

To learn more about the different kinds of listening, contact Houston relationship counseling today.

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Function and Romance Can Meet in Houston Relationship Therapy

I’ve seen firsthand in Houston relationship therapy that there’s no one correct way to have a successful marriage. Some couples need to spend every waking second together or they feel lost and abandoned; others work better – far better – if they’re away from each other a lot.

And then there’s the case of functional couples versus romantic couples. Do you know which one you are? Are both of you functional or romantic, or is one different than the other? If so, there’s a good chance you’ll experience friction and could need marriage help.

Houston Relationship Therapy: Functional Versus Romantic Relationships

The term functional is an unfortunate one, because it makes the relationship sound clinical and boring and, well, kind of like a failure. Nothing could be further from the truth though if the people in a functional marriage themselves have functional personalities.

What does that mean? Well, functional people thrive on schedules and planning and organization. A typical weekend of marriage for a functional couple might involve grocery shopping, auto repair, cooking, and cleaning the house where neither spouse sees the other until they come together for a Sunday dinner with friends.

Sounds boring? Not to a person who appreciates a well-oiled machine, and that’s exactly what their marriage is. They found a person who appreciates good time-budgeting skills and getting stuff done just as much as they do, and they’re happy.

Romantic couples, in contrast, would probably prefer to spend the weekend sleeping in together, making a nice brunch, going out to the movies, and making love. If they’re having friends over, they can always order in to get more time together.

Neither one of these marriages is right or wrong if they work for the individuals in them. Problems can arise, however, when a functional individual finds themselves married to someone who is romantic, or vice versa. They inherently want different things out of the relationship, and this can lead to strife. They need marriage help.

Houston Relationship Therapy: Learn to Meet in the Middle

Lots of couples who come to me face problems like this, and obviously it’s more complicated because few people are all function or all romance. We do, however, tend to lean more one way or another, and it’s important for spouses to talk to each other about their needs.

I help my clients to understand that one person’s need for romance is just as important as the other’s need to complete their to-do list. Like all relationships, it’s a give and take. Sometimes that might mean a solution like scheduling in romantic time to appease the functional person and the romantic one.

If you want more Houston relationship therapy advice, call today.

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The Houston Marriage Counselor: How to Handle Overwhelming Situations

As the Houston marriage counselor, I know that experiencing a personal disaster can leave you feeling powerless and overwhelmed. Illnesses, accidents, and deaths are often things over which we feel like we have no control, but that doesn’t mean that our choices are taken away from us completely.

If you are going through an illness, you have the choice to either share what’s going on in your mind with your significant other and let them be a part of it or shut them out and try to deal with it on your own. Likewise, they have the choice to be there for you or back away, and to treat you as they’ve always treated you or act differently. What neither of you have control over is how you feel, and that’s what often leads to actions and choices that cause trouble in marriages when couples are forced to face these overwhelming situations.

Get Relationship Help from the Houston Marriage Counselor

Luckily, you don’t have to go through it alone. If you and your spouse are dealing with something overwhelming in your lives and it feels like a train is barreling towards you, relationship help is out there.

In my years of experience as the Houston marriage counselor, I’ve found that most people tend to hone in on whatever the worst case scenario is for their problem and let themselves be ruled by fear. He’s going to die. She’s going to leave me. And so on. It’s something that I like to call a “fuzzy” focus, because they rarely think about the specifics of whatever that life would be, seeing only an amorphous big bad that they can’t control.

The Houston Marriage Counselor Can Give Control Back to You

One exercise that I like to use involves asking a simple question to each of them: “What if…?” I have them talk about the worst case scenarios that they fear and the best case scenarios that they hope for, and in so doing provide a way for them to cut through the overwhelming fear and think rationally about what’s coming.

In this way, it’s not unlike making a Pros and Cons list, or any other organizational activity that breaks something down into a process for our brains. By turning it into a clear, simple process, it enables us to work through it in smaller, step-by-step ways. This is an exercise that you can do yourselves, but anyone having difficulty should contact the Houston marriage counselor.

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Houston Relationship Counseling: Stay Married – Don’t Make Divorce an Option

In Houston relationship counseling, I believe it is my job to do my utmost to help you work through your marriage problems and save your relationship. When couples come in already talking about the possibility of divorce at the first session, I always know that my job is going to be a little bit more difficult.

And it isn’t because those couples have marriage problems that are more severe than other clients – even if their issues were that one wasn’t taking out the trash enough and the other was always taking the car without asking, I’d expect their situation to be difficult. Why? Because when couples even start considering divorce as an option, that is much more likely to be the end result.

Houston Relationship Counseling Advice: Avoid Using the “D” Word

When we let thoughts like that into our minds, we’re already starting to see them as real and plan out what would happen in that scenario. Who gets to see the kids when? What do we do with the house? Is Bob more your friend or my friend – because we certainly can’t share him.

As horrible and frightening as these questions are, human beings have an amazing ability to shrug off the bad when we can break things down into their basic components and look at the logistics in this way. In fact, I’ve seen people get so bogged down in the details like this that they forget about the things that they’ll actually be losing and how they’ll feel about that if a divorce goes through.

That’s why, when one of my Houston relationship counseling clients brings up the “d” word, I stop everything and ask them a question: “Do you want to make this marriage work?” Invariably, the answer is yes – after all, they wouldn’t be there otherwise! So then I lay down some ground rules: they are to push divorce out of their minds as much as possible. No talking about it – in or out of therapy – and if possible they shouldn’t think about it. Divorce is not an option, because they are going to fix whatever problems they have and make this marriage work.

Arguing that thinking about divorce can lead to it might seem a bit silly, but studies of successful, long-lasting marriages (of 35 years of longer!) have shown that the one commonality between all of them was that divorce was simply not considered.

So instead of letting my clients think about divorce and start to plan out the logistics of how it might work out, I turn their detail-oriented focus to breaking down their problems and fixing them one at a time. If you want to see how this can work for you, seek Houston relationship counseling.

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