Step 5
Emotional Needs
In affair recovery, the relationship is fragile to say the least. An emphasis will be on not making the situation worse. Therefore, the issue of Love Busters will be tackled first.
– LOVE BUSTERS Protecting Your Marriage From Habits That Destroy Romantic Love”, by Dr. Harley – www.marriagebuilders.com
- Selfish Demands
- Disrespectful Judgements
- Dishonesty
- Annoying Habits
- Angry Outbursts
- Independent Behaviour
“ We cannot solve our problems with the same
thinking we used when we created them.”
Albert Einstein
How thoughts become habits
It’s essential to realize that what you THINK causes you to FEEL a certain way. That in turn causes you to DO certain things that ultimately lead to specific RESULTS.
It’s a chain reaction we call TFAR: Your Thoughts lead to your Feelings, which lead to your Actions, which lead to your Results. Your RESULTS reinforce your initial thoughts so they become self-fulfilling prophecies.
After proving yourself right over again, your thoughts become BELIEFS. Beliefs then become automatic thoughts that drive your behaviours . In other words, habits.
We will also focus on the difficult issues like:
- – Narcissistic personality traits – it’s all about the degrees
- – Machiavellian thinking – it’s all about the degrees
- – Intimacy Avoidance what does it look like
- – Lying
- – Fair Fighting Rules and John Gottman’s 4 Horseman
In addition, we will also look at:
- – John Gottman’s, 7 principles for Making Marriage Work
- – Dr. Doug Weiss, The 7 Love Agreements
- – Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s, Core Relationship Rules;
- – Dr. Harley, The Policy of Radical Honesty & Policy of Joint Agreement
Core Needs
How devastating is it to be loved yet not admired? Or the other way around, to be admired by your partner yet not loved. With only the first we might find we have simply married a “bed buddy”. But leave out either the LOVE or ADMIRATION and the cycle starts in reverse, pushing you farther and farther away. He is not motivated to admire because she is too controlling, so in the end there is loss of the other core needs.
- Love / connection / belonging
- Significance / separateness
- Certainty / truth / comfort / safety
- Uncertainty / variety / mystery / adventure / ambiguity
- Growth-Relational, Spiritual, Emotional, Cognitive & Physical
- Contribution – To others and from others
Emotional Needs
Admiration
Family Commitment
Non-Sexual Affection
Sexual Fulfillment
Recreational Companionship
Honesty and Openness
Physical Attractiveness
Financial Support
Domestric Support
Conversation
“ What people do is who they are”
Dr. Laura, 10 Stupid Things Couples do to
Mess Up Their Relationships
What we will focus on in Step #5
Look at what thoughts/beliefs/assumptions need to change to encourage new behaviours & habits to get the marriage back on the tracks and bring goodwill, and friendship back into the relationship.