Erika Krull, MSEd, LMHP, has written a good article entitled, “Marriage Communication: 3 Common Mistakes and How To Fix Them.” 

In her article she lists these 3 common mistakes:

1. Yelling at your spouse.
2. Having a competitive attitude.
3. Making marriage about me instead of we.

Her article is worth reading and the her message is clear: when you focus too much on yourself, and fail to recognize your spouse’s viewpoint, your marriage suffers. Changing the way you think and how your communicate can work wonders in improving your relationship!

Marriage is compromise! Nobody gets everything they want from their partner all the time but as the Rolling Stones song says, “you can’t always get what you want but if you try sometime you just may find you get what you need.”

Remember nobody is loved perfectly in marriage, however there has to be more satisfaction than frustration to make a relationship last.

Gerry Lane, LCSW, LMFT , Atlanta Marriage Counseling

“You love me so much, you want to put me in your pocket. And I should die there smothered.”
D.H. Lawrence

“Demanding too much togetherness in romantic relationships tends to push people away and kill their desire.”
Gerry Lane, LCSW, LMFT

The less emotionally reactive each spouse is to the other the healthier the relationship. If one spouse reacts with strong emotion to the smallest change the other spouse makes for some freedom then either the couple fights openly and creates distance or the spouse that wants a small amount of independence becomes passive aggressive, depressed or both.

Gerry Lane, LCSW, LMFT

“Seldom, or perhaps never, does a marriage develop into an individual relationship smoothly and without crises; there is no coming to consciousness without pain.”
Carl G. Jung

“It is easier to act yourself into a new way of feeling than to feel yourself into a new way of acting.”
Harry Stack Sullivan

“Why do otherwise sane, competent, strong men, men who can wrestle bears or raid corporations, shrink away in horror at the thought of washing a dish or changing a diaper”
Frank Pittman

Marriage Counseling is a different animal than Individual Therapy. Individual Therapy focuses far more on the internal cognitive processes and helps the person examine personal choices.

In Couples Counseling the focus is on the interaction between partners. The simplest way to think about Couples Counseling is to view it as analyzing how partners treat one another. Most couples therapy is short term between 5 to 10 sessions, that is if each spouse is motivated and willing to examine how their behavior is effecting their partner and make proper changes. Couples Counseling focuses more on changing behavior but also on helping each spouse become more sensitive to the feelings of their partner.

As the great american Psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan said…

“It is easier to act yourself into a new way of feeling than than to feel yourself into a new way of acting”

Gerry Lane, LCSW, LMFT. Marriage Counseling Atlanta

A marriage without fidelity provides no security or real intimacy!

In marriage two wrongs don’t make a right but make a good excuse.

The narcissist misses the great pleasure of life, which is to love another as much as he loves himself.

Gerry Lane, LCSW, LMFT. Marriage Counseling Atlanta

Gerry Lane was quoted as the expert on marriage counseling in The Wall Street Journal about Danny Lee Hormann, who suspected his wife was having an affair. Danny put spying software on the wife’s cellphone her computer. He even put a GPS device on her car and followed her one night to a cabin on the lake. Danny was jailed for 30 days for spying on his wife.

Read the Wall Street Journal article