Tag: abuse

All of us want to have an awesome sexual life with our partners. Unfortunately, many of us may have one of the three major roadblocks before us that can keep us from having awesome sex lives if not addressed.

The roadblocks I am focusing on here are not interpersonal, communication issues, and so on. Those would be joint issues both partners would work on together (though I will get into that to some degree). The roadblocks I will focus on here are the two biggest individual roadblocks I have seen in my office over the past 25 years that keep individuals from experiencing a maximal sex life with his or her partner.

It’s no secret that childhood experiences affect adult behavior. For example, we all know that kids who grow up in an abusive home are more likely to abuse others or to be abused as adults. Yet for some reason, we still think that with a strong dose of old-fashioned willpower, people can take responsibility and overcome their relationship issues. The classic American pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps attitude conquers all… doesn’t it?

Well, no. Neurological science shows that the truth is much grimmer.

"Secrets close doors between people. The secret-keeper has to skirt important subjects and becomes silent when the conversation gets too close." ~ Jane Isay

Can we keep secrets in our marriage and expect it to thrive?  Intimacy is predicated on our ability to expose all of ourselves to someone we love. The ideal behind this idea is the belief that true love will cover the multitude of wrongs. If we're naked and exposed with all of our flaws, yet still loved, then there must be something worthwhile about us after all.

About 1/3 of U.S. adolescents are victims of physical, sexual, emotional, or verbal abuse from a dating partner, with the highest number being girls, according to a report published by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. As parents, it’s hard to know how to steer our daughters towards healthy guys who will treat them well, but the following are ideas that will help girls attract good guys.

1. Trust your gut. One of an adolescent girl's best protections versus dating violence has to do with trusting their intuition. Girls tell me that when a guy walks into a party, their radar goes off telling them that he either feels safe or that he seems like a creep.

You have seen those kiss and make up scenes in movies, I'm sure.

The cute guy does something to make his woman livid. Very soon, a few telling kisses along her neck does the trick and before long, she has succumbed and they're locked in a passionate embrace with more excitement to come.

When the reality hits home about us doing something to displease our spouse, many of us pull out all the stops to seduce our partner to take his/her mind off whatever has gone wrong in the relationship.

"Why did you stay so long?" was the question my mother asked me when I finally got a restraining order and filed for divorce to end my abusive marriage of 20 years to my first husband.

She asked me that question after I had fled the state of Oklahoma in July 2009 with my two young children and found refuge in the home where I had grown up 10 hours away in Mississippi.

I thought to myself, "Really? I can’t believe she is asking me that, because she knows what our church teachings were about divorce." Basically, that it is wrong. At weddings I heard the scripture many times that said, "What God has joined together, let no man put asunder."

Excerpt from "The Teenage and Young Adult Survival Handbook"

As the holiday season would approach people would start talking about all the plans they had laid out for the holidays and began to become excited. For me, as the holidays approached a shadow of anxiety and pending sadness would start to hover over me. As others become more and more excited as the countdown to the holidays began, I would become more and more stressed. The commercials would say the holidays are for the family. The problem with me was that it was my family that usually ruined the holidays! For me, it meant I would be home more. And that also meant my abusive alcoholic father would be around the house more as well. Nobody looked forward to that.