Sex addiction is a SERIOUS problem  in today’s society, due in large part of the Internet.  The internet has made pornography accessible, affordable  and anonymous. Cybersex has been coined the “crack  cocaine of sex addiction.” People who would not  otherwise be prone to addiction (those that don’t have a  background of trauma, “non-addict profile”) can “get  hooked” in the same way that “non-addict” individuals  can get addicted very quickly to cocaine.

Here are the some of the basic  characteristics of sex addiction:

1. Compulsive behaviour that completely dominates the  addict’s life.
2. Sex becomes a priority more  important than family, friends, and work.
3. Sex  becomes the organizing principle of the addict’s life.
4. The addict is willing to sacrifice what he/she  cherishes most in order to preserve and continue his/her  unhealthy behaviour.
5. The addict uses sexuality to  regulate their emotional life.
6. Sexuality is used as a  pain reliever or a way to relieve anxiety.
7. The addict will do  things that are dangerous, exploitive, and will cause  shame afterwards.
8. The addict feels lonely and  non-intimate.

Take this free screening  test and find out now if you may have a problem. http://www.recoveryzonecanada.com/tests/sex-addiction/SAST/index.php.

I’m  currently training to become a Certified Sex  Addiction Therapist (CSAT), and I’m offering my clients a wide variety of powerful tools and  techniques to address this life and relationship damaging addiction.

We’ll be talking about the importance for  couples to check in daily. I’ve talked about this in a  previous Relationship  Essential so you can refer to it for further  information.    The main point is that staying connected  daily virtually guarantees relationship success.

The #1  reason couples cite for getting divorced is that  they SLOWLY GREW APART.

Tune in on Friday and get the whole  scoop!   Here’s some of the key points we’ll be  discussing:

1. The #1  reason for divorce is INATTENTIVENESS. Most  divorcing couples cite, “gradually  growing apart” as the main factor in the demise of  their marriage. This is why staying connected daily  is so important. In our busy lives, it’s very easy to  put other things (work, kids, hobbies, television, etc.)  ahead of your relationship.
2. Spending  a few minutes connecting each day puts critical deposits  in the couple’s LOVE BANK ACCOUNT. Forgetting to connect  daily is like an emotional withdrawal from the  account and it takes more effort to gain that goodwill  back. It’s similar to going to the gym regularly.
3. Connection is different than communication – connection  means feeling cared about, close and comfortable.  Couples should think connection NOT communication  because communication goes a lot better when  couples feel connected.

Sig Taylor, MSW, RSW Calgary Couples  Clinic

Monday, February 6, 2012
6:00 – 7:00pm
3rd floor, North Open Area
Registration begins December 19th

Register online here: http://calgarypubliclibrary.com/services/programs-events/register-for-programs?id=3754l1&ad=s003&dt=s025&lc=s001&pt=s

Some of you may be thinking “when my partner’s upset, I just don’t say anything or show my true feelings and I keep it all in.” This is a bad strategy as well because what you think and say to yourself internally is more important and than what you say verbally. Studies show that at least 80% of communication is non-verbal and even it you try to hide your true feelings, your partner will inevitably pick up on it.

What’s the solution? When your partner’s upset try to look for the understandable reasons why. Nobody gets upset for no reason; there’s always some understandable factor in why your partner feels the way they do.  Brent Atkinson recommends his clients ask themselves these kinds of questions:

- Maybe your partner was having a bad day.

- Maybe your partner didn’t have all the facts.

- Maybe your partner was reading something between the lines that you didn’t intend to be saying.

- Maybe this issue was more important to your partner that you previously understood.

- Maybe your partner wasn’t upset so much about this particular situation as s/he was about where s/he feared things might be headed.

- Maybe your partner felt threatened by you in a way that you didn’t’ understand.

- Maybe your partner was afraid s/he was going to lose something very important to him or her if s/he did things the way you wanted.

- Maybe your partner was acting this way because s/he felt (or had recently felt) criticized or dismissed by you, and s/he felt resentful and uncooperative because of this.

- Maybe your partner just has really different priorities or expectations than you do. Maybe s/he was acting perfectly consistent with his/her priorities.

Flooding & Time-Outs

If you do find yourself in a nasty conflict, you’re brain is likely FLOODED. If your heart beat goes over  90 – 100 beats/ minute, your brain goes into fight or flight mode. You lose your peripheral vision, hearing shuts down and your brain is focused on pure survival. You can’t hear, see or think…not a good situation for problem solving and effective communication! The answer: take a 20 minute time out. Science tells us that’s precisely the minimum length of time it takes for our brain chemistry to normalize. Make an agreement with your partner to take a time out when this happens. A hand signal works well and also communicates that you’re NOT leaving the relationship and that you DO CARE – you’ll resume the conversation and deal with the issue after you’ve calmed down.

Calgary marriage & family therapist Sig Taylor will be talking about ”the relationship habits and emotional skills of successful couples, and the patterns that predict divorce.”

Anyone interested can register online at calgarypubliclibrary.com or by calling 403-260-2620.

Tuesday October 18th @ 6:00pm to 7:30pm on the 3rd Floor North Open Area at the main branch of the Calgary Public Library.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

“My husband likes to keep the receipts for everything, just in case,” she explains. If that doesn’t sound too annoying, wait for it: “The problem is he doesn’t have a filing system. He just leaves them on the table, the breakfast bar, any available surface. In fact, just talking about the receipts is making me feel annoyed.”

It’s a minor little thing, but for anyone who’s ever shacked up with their significant other, you know these things – wet towels on the bed, toilet seat left up, furious flicking of TV channels–add up fast. To 312 fights a year, actually, say UK researchers in a study by betterbathrooms.com. “All couples argue,” said spokesman Nick Elson, “but to see how much time they argue over simple things like household chores was a bit of an eye opener.”

To him, maybe. But just a simple homemade survey of friends confirms what everyone already knows: minor irritations with your partner are everywhere, and just about everyone has them.

Bryer’s ex left dirty plates everywhere around the house. Jessica’s fiancé sticks boogers to the garbage pail for her to scrape off. Emily can’t stand the size of her boyfriend’s big bites, and Margot’s man pops his jaw when he chews. As for me, it’s the open drawers and cupboards.

It’s just so easy to close a drawer, I think, riling myself up as I make another apartment round closing drawers. Why can’t he just do it? Slam! And if it’s so simple, why am I so infuriated? Bang!

“That’s funny on one level,” says Calgary-based marriage therapist Sig Taylor, “but people break up over these things all the time.” A whooping two-thirds of these disagreements – sorry to say it – are unsolvable. “They’re called perpetual problems, and they’re fundamental differences that people have,” he says.

“People are simply wired up differently to manage their emotional stability. So for one person, leaving a toilet seat up is no big deal, while for another person, it can be really upsetting,” he says.

And since there seems to be an implicit gender discrepancy here, I dare ask why our slobbery examples are so male while the nagging is so female. Studies show 80% of issues are raised by women, as are two-thirds of divorces.

“Generally speaking, women have a much more sophisticated relational system that’s focused on connection, whereas men tend to be oblivious,” says Taylor. This means to a man, a cupboard is just a cupboard. “But women attach meaning to it – he doesn’t care, I can’t rely on him – then react to the meaning, not the cupboard.”

But does that mean women should just tone down their sensitivity to symbolism? Not quite, says Taylor. Successful couples know to meet somewhere in the middle – and then let it go.

If you’re the irritator: “You should say, ‘I don’t care about the toilet seat, but you do and I care about you, so I’m going to close the seat.’ Then try. If you just want to do whatever you want, that’s called being single,” says Taylor.

And for the irritated, recognize that your partner is different, but not wrong. “Don’t have a judgmental attitude, don’t blame them and say they’re a bad person. Say, ‘I notice you’re more relaxed than I am about this and that’s ok’.”

Thankfully, this means the old adage is very wrong. People can change, and they should. “You have to – it’s not even optional,” says Taylor. And when one partner is less annoyed and the other’s less annoying, then a measly receipt can have no power over you.

The more you blame your partner, the more likely it is that they will treat you badly. Believing that your partner is more to blame than you is like a nuclear weapon in relationships and the odds of things improving when you believe this are slim to none.

Most of the blame in relationships comes from core differences that are  NOT SOLVABLE. Over 60% of fights and arguments are related to fundamental differences in temperament and personality and are therefore NOT amenable to change. Most of the time when someone gets upset, we automatically tend to think someone has done something WRONG. This is usually not the case;  most of the time your partner hasn’t done anything wrong, they’ve just reacted differently than you would have in the same situation.  We all have different ways of maintaining emotional stability and what tends to make one person feel emotionally stable often makes the other feel anxious and stressed out.

For example, some people are planners while others are more spontaneous. I was working with a couple recently and I was talking with her about these core differences. She said to me, “the best holiday I ever had was when I went to Greece on my own with nothing but a credit card and a pair of sunglasses!” Her partner, a planner, was stressed right out, just hearing her say that! For him to feel emotionally stable, he needs to plan things in advance.

Another common difference is how people express their feelings. Some people are expressers and in order to maintain emotional stability, they need to “vent” in the moment. That usually makes them feel better right away but it tends to create conflict, especially if their partner is an easy going, slow-to-upset type. These folks have more laid back, “don’t sweat the small stuff,” attitude and don’t like or need to express themselves until things have reached the boiling point. Neither are right or wrong, they just reflect different  ways of maintaining emotional stability.

Studies show that successful couples DON’T BLAME OR MAKE EACH OTHER WRONG for these differences. Instead, they find ways of accepting and accommodating these differences.

Of course some things are WRONG - lying, sexual unfaithfulness, dishonesty, not keeping agreements, etc. I’m not talking about these situations and they need to be dealt with in a different manner.

Studies overwhelmingly show one consistent thing – the only thing you can change in your relationship is yourself. If you want your partner to treat you better, then you must relate to them in a way that is predictive of being treated well - you must learn to think and behave the way successful couples do – they have a NON-JUDGEMENTAL ATTITUDE.

Stay tuned for my next Relationship Essential: “The 5 Habits of Successful Couples”

You can find a lot more reasons to be married in the excellent book, The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially by Maggie Gallagher and Linda Waites. The operative word here is “happily married.” Studies also show that unhappy couples are significantly less happy than those who remain single.

40% of couples in Canada will divorce and that number is significantly higher in the United States. That’s a lot of unhappy campers. Worse yet, 80% of couples that get divorced never seek counselling and of the 20% that do seek counselling, they wait for at least 6 years. By the time couples get into counselling, things are often so bad that saving the marriage can be difficult or impossible.

These days, getting divorced has become the norm and perhaps even trendy. Of course what people are really striving for is happiness and they believe that the solution is to get divorced and find a new partner.  Sadly this strategy often backfires. Second and third marriages have an even higher rate of failure because we carry our relationship habits with us into the next relationship. It’s like getting a new car but your driving habits remain the same.

“Studies show that 75% of couples in long-termcommitted relationships are not very happy together.”

Consider this -  if nearly half of the couples getting married end up divorced, how happy are the couples that don’t get divorced? A large percentage of couples stay together because they are negatively committed, that is, they stay in unhappy marriages because of all of the bad things they believe will happen if they get divorced – concerns about children, financial issues, religious beliefs, fear of being alone, etc.

Call now and find out how you and your partner can get into the 25% group of happy couples!