LoveWork: Skills for a Relational Life

Send us Fan Mail Kristy and Jerry take a deeper look at how self-esteem (yours!) remains at the core of a relationship's chances for success. The futility of trying to change your partner while not feeling good enough about yourself (or even knowing your own needs) is discussed, with special attention paid to each of the four quadrants conceptualized by Terry Real (and Pia Mellody) in Relatio...

Send us Fan Mail Is your partner a narcissist? And what are the implications if the answer is "Yes"? Is this term over-used, or under-recognized? What possibilities realistically exist for someone who is in a relationship with a narcissist? Jerry and Kristy wrestle with this in today's episode. 

Send us Fan Mail You know the feeling; that moment when your spouse asks you to do something that you absolutely, honestly DON'T want to do. But they enjoy it. What do you do? Radical honesty in the direction of "taking care of myself"? Or....aren't there just times where you have to "bite the bullet" and "take one for the team"?  And how is this different f...

Send us Fan Mail What happens, for a couple, after one partner has had an affair and it is now out in the open? What are the best things you can do (and the worst ones)? How long is the healing process? Is it really true that going through this together can lead to a closer relationship that existed previously? Jerry and Kristy consider it. 

Send us Fan Mail Talking about money -- and how it affects your relationship -- is one of the hardest things for a couple to do. Without even knowing that we are responding to our family of origin's stories and values we often develop resentments and major barriers to intimacy with our partners and don't know how to begin talking about it. Jerry and Kristy try to unravel some of this and...

Send us Fan Mail Kristy and Jerry explore some of the most challenging types of disconnected moments between couples. How comfortable are men with crying, or big expressions of emotion? Do men run and duck, looking for cover, abandoning spouses, emotionally, just when their connected presence is needed the most? How can this cycle be broken?

Send us Fan Mail We all want time to ourselves. But what about when that seems to conflict directly with connecting relationally to the significant others around us? What then??? Are there ways of maintaining healthy connections while giving ourselves what we need solo? Jerry and Kristy consider this. 

Send us Fan Mail Jerry & Kristy discuss the growing trend of angry politics ripping couples apart and testing their relationships as the media around them continue to provoke people to ever-rising levels of division. Alternatives are considered. 

Send us Fan Mail Jerry & Kristy ponder the ONE THING we'd love you to MOST GET in the realm of couples' therapy. And -- in preparation for a few weeks off at the end of August -- we have two excellent fake fights and demonstrate how things could be handled differently.  Let us know what you'd like to hear us cover, as topics, in our 2nd season, which begins in September. 

Send us Fan Mail In our follow-up episode Kristy and Jerry consider what we often here from women in sessions regarding being in a couple/marriage/parenting arrangement. We conclude with a seemingly spontaneous -- and annoying -- fight, showing how alternative ways of expressing/reacting get you better results. 

Send us Fan Mail What do (some) men sound like in therapy, to a couples' therapist? What are their initial presenting complaints? Can generalizations safely be made, after hearing the same themes repeated over and over again? Jerry & Kristy compare notes, and try to draw some positive momentum from it.  We also offer a sample couples' relationship fight, with it reworked using skills...

Send us Fan Mail Ahhhh...the gentle (or powerful) allure of Other People. They're just....perfect. Aren't they? Wouldn't life be perfect with them? Jerry and Kristy consider the challenges, and illusions, the flashing attraction to others might bring.

Send us Fan Mail Jerry & Kristy tackle the thorny topic of the intersection of sexual behaviors in relationships as they may reflect basic patterns of codependency. The importance of self-esteem, boundaries and other basics often get lost in the mix when another person's varied needs come into play. Strategies for achieving a sexual reset that offers mutual satisfaction in the actual worl...

Send us Fan Mail Kristy and Jerry look at 3 of the typical reactions to conflicts within relationships and wrestle with understanding the limitations of all of them. Can there be a different way? What does that look like and sound like?

Send us Fan Mail Kristy & Jerry look at some ways that our failures to self-soothe and regulate our emotions impact relationships negatively. We illustrate with some tried-and-true roads to failure and then correct them, illustrating how differently it can be handled. 

Send us Fan Mail Is viewing porn good for your relationship? Your sex-lives together? How do couples actually integrate it into their relational lives? Or do they not do that at all? Is there a serious downside to viewing porn? Or are the effects fairly benign? Are there certain realms, even in relationships, that are, or should be, for just you?  Can any of this enhance your connection to your lo...

Send us Fan Mail Kristy & Jerry take on the wonderfully volatile, rewarding and challenging topic of sex within relationships. What does sex, in relationships, bring up for us? How do we reconcile our own desires, or lack of desire, for, and with, our partner? And just exactly how good could it be? What would happen if we talked about these things outloud?

Send us Fan Mail Join Jerry and Kristy for the vivid experience of our first fight, with a great deal of perspective, laughter and alternative ways of handling things within a relationship identified. 

Send us Fan Mail Kristy & Jerry explore the idea of boundaries within relationships and the challenges that are brought to them by the ever-widening presence of technology in our lives. How much privacy should 1/2 of a couple be entitled to? Do you give up all privacy when you are married, or in a committed relationship? Should you? And how do boundaries interact with intimacy? Does it have to...

Send us Fan Mail Jerry and Kristy consider the enormous challenges and complexities of one of the least-intuitive constructs humans have invented: The Blended Family. Step-parents, natural parents, step-children and children from the first (or second) marriage all seem to feel the challenges, in different ways, as it looks all-too-often impossible to successfully make this work. What can actually...

Send us Fan Mail What, exactly, constitutes an emotional affair? And is it really  cheating? As long as you're not technically having sex isn't it kind of o.k.?  And -- once discovered or divulged -- does it always have to signal the end of a marriage? In our 10th episode, Jerry and Kristy will consider....

Send us Fan Mail Jerry & Kristy talk about the weekend Relationship Boot Camps we run and ask the question: Why should you pay attention to THIS workshop? What's in it for you? And...your relationship?  Visit https://loveworkrelationships.com/ for more information re: how to register

Send us Fan Mail Jerry & Kristy take a deep dive into one of the most notable of losing strategies that couples regularly deploy: Being Right.  Where does this come from? Why do we keep doing it when it fails over and over to get us what we really want? And -- most importantly -- how else could we handle these moments?

Send us Fan Mail Kristy talks about her divorce, looking back at some key elements of the past that were believed to be true at the time, but needed to change. The influence of family-of-origin, inherited beliefs about how a woman is supposed to be in a marriage, habit and fears are considered. The disequilibrium of the first year of divorce is explored, along with a path towards healing identifie...

Send us Fan Mail Jerry talks about his divorce, looking back at some key elements of the past that were believed to be true at the time, but needed to change. The influence of family-of-origin, inherited beliefs about how a man is supposed to be in a marriage, habit and fears are considered. The disequilibrium of the first year of divorce is explored, along with a path towards healing identified a...