I was speaking with someone today and we were talking about the state of marriage in the world we live in. The truth is that prenuptial agreements have become more popular because of the rising divorce rates. While I’ve heard conflicting arguments about the rightness or wrongness of having one, I have to say that I believe that for certain couples a prenuptial agreement is a necessity. Think of it this way, we buy insurance for our houses and our cars. Most of us wear a seatbelt when we drive. While insurance and seat belts are something that we hope we never have to use, they certainly come in handy when your safety or security is threatened. In the event of an accident, the terms of the insurance policy that you paid for and agreed to come into play. You can save money and emotional distress because of the preparation that you’ve made for a rainy day. Prenuptial agreements are insurance for your marriage. While many may argue that getting one means that you plan on getting a divorce, I don’t agree. The truth is that people change and you never know what the future may bring. Getting a divorce is usually stressful, time-consuming, and exhausting. It’s also usually very emotionally charged because it signifies the deterioration of a once close relationship. Taking the time to create and sign a prenuptial agreement can be helpful in reducing stress and also may prevent you from (for lack of a better term) getting screwed over by someone who now probably does not have your best interest at heart. Pre-nups between people who are equally poor or broke may not be as important as pre-nups between individuals who have considerable assets and who may have waited until their careers were stable to get married. With more people getting married at older ages and later in their careers, I think that a pre-nup is a good idea. You don’t want to work hard, get married, go through a divorce and have to fight tooth and nail for what you worked hard for. You don’t plan to ever use your insurance but you sure are glad you have it when something unexpected occurs. Just because you’re prepared doesn’t mean that you’re expecting something bad to occur. I believe in hoping for the best while preparing for the worst–especially as it pertains to marriage and pre-nups. It never hurts to have some insurance.
Tag Archives: couples
It’s been HOW long?
I’m going to keep this pretty short and sweet but this song has been running through my head a lot in the past few hours. I was exposed to all types of music growing up but quality R&B is something of a lost art form. This is why I like Brian McKnight’s music. Granted, I may have more of a vested interest than most people because I’ve seen him numerous times and he went to my alma mater. But that’s neither here nor there. I’ve always admired artists who can convey a message of such deep human emotion through an equally moving set of chords and progressions that just fit. Brian has that gift. Recently I had the opportunity to see him perform live and it was an incredible experience. “6,8, 12” is one of my favorite songs ( I have many) because Brian does such an amazing job (as always) of capturing an experience that many people have felt at one point or another in their lives. The song talks about the process of letting go after being close to an individual but realizing that it won’t work out in the long run. Logic and experience both say that this situation should have been resolved a long time ago, but emotions and feelings say the opposite. So as a result, you’re stuck in a place of missing this person for an indefinite period of time. Or rather, 6 months, 8 days, and 12 hours. That place of limbo between being over someone and actually being with them. Definitely not the most comfortable place to be, but sometimes that’s just where we end up…
The Himaholic Chronicles
Kelly Price put out a song by this particular name and in this song she describes being in a relationship with a man who is addictive. She knows that he’s toxic but she goes through withdrawals when she isn’t around him. I know a LOT of people in a similar situation. They are a self-proclaimed “himaholic” or a “heraholic.” (Definitely just made up a word). But honestly, some people are just addictive–whether it’s in a good way or a bad way. It’s like you get so invested in them that you can’t get yourself back and it gets really hard to separate the two. If there was ever a Himaholics Anonymous it would be full of the stories of woe from women who got caught in vicious cycles of believing that they would change someone and then realizing that they could not but still returning to him because he was addictive. I remember someone once telling me that every human being is attracted to dysfunction on some level. While I won’t debate the truth of this statement, I can honestly say that I’ve seen a lot of examples. Himaholics and heraholics do exist. They are our friends, family, and sometimes even ourselves. There is not a tried and true proven way to get out of a relationship that isn’t good for you. Sometimes you just have to go cold turkey and tough it out until the addictive cycle is over. Not necessarily the most comfortable choice, but definitely a good decision in the long run.
Marriage Maturity
One thing that has really stuck out to me this week is the fact that having a good marriage requires a certain amount of maturity. It’s easy to stay when everything is going well but it’s harder to stay when the inevitable bumps in the road come. I’ve also met a lot of people recently who have been with someone for a long period of time but do not want to make the commitment of marriage. But once you’re married and the thrill is gone, it’s easy to go. Real life hits and suddenly the other person is no longer a priority. This is really when the rubber hits the road. Leaving because of something insignificant is a sign of immaturity in my opinion. Love can be a feeling but I think that in a marriage, love has to be an actual CHOICE. Feelings and emotions come and go but commitment is long term.
The Beauty of Self-Regulation
I’m always a little wary of any term that starts with the word “self” and then has a dash. I guess you can blame it on the fact that I’m a systemic thinker. Every person is influenced in some way by their environment, their family, and their friends. However, self-regulation is a term that I’ve come to like because of my experiences in my environment. Self-regulation is a skill that many people don’t have. We’ve all seen people when they are getting escalated or extremely angry and all of a sudden they blow their top and do or say something extremely stupid. I’m willing to bet that some of these people were the kids who had temper tantrums until their parents got tired of it and gave into their demands. Not cool. I think of self regulation as the ability to calm down and take a step back from the situation because you know that it’s getting out of hand. Unfortunately, self-regulation also requires self-awareness–which also is extremely rare. I see this all the time in the couples I work with. They start arguing over something completely mundane and before you know it, both just start slinging mud at each other. Emotions are high and each person feels the need to defend him or herself by “proving” that the other person’s actions were way worse. The past gets brought up and before you know it, both people are so dis-regulated they don’t want to have anything to do with each other. But what if this cycle didn’t have to happen? Most people can identify when they’re irritated or annoyed by something and many times they know exactly what that “something” is. I’m not an advocate of avoiding issues, but sometimes taking a break from an argument and then coming back to it when you’re calm and are thinking clearly can save a LOT of unnecessary stuff. When you’re mad, chances are that you aren’t thinking straight. You’re not calm or even able to hear the other person’s point of view. Taking a few minutes or hours to remove yourself from the situation or even to take 15 deep breaths can help you to think more clearly and to stick to the topic at hand instead of using it as an opportunity to bring up anything and everything from the past in order to get it off your chest. You’ll be able to choose your words more deliberately without the fuel of extreme anger. Definitely easier said than done but still worth a try.
The Law of Averages
One of the ways that I conceptualize human interactions is though the lens of what I call the law of averages. Having been in school for the past five consecutive years, I’ve learned a lot about averages as I’ve gone through classes. Every class in its syllabus lines out what is expected in order to get an “A” in the course. In my undergraduate and high school years, an “A” was a 93% or higher. One of things that I did as I was going through a class would be to constantly average out my assignments so I knew what grade I needed to get in order to get an “A.” Doing this was really helpful for anxiety because I knew that even if I barely passed certain quizzes, I would make it up on the test or the bonus work. With most couples that I see, the good times are really good and the bad times are really bad. One of the questions that I ask in therapy is: What’s been the average of the relationship? Has trust, honesty, genuineness, and love been present the majority of the time? One of my teachers once told me that no one care about the middle part. A good beginning and a strong ending is what really matters. So if you have a good foundation in your relationship and you can learn to reconnect after a heated discussion, argument, or difference in opinion, then the fights won’t be such a threat to the quality of the relationship. It takes time to build that between people but the end product is well worth the work involved.
Stop wasting time
All of us at some point in time have either experienced personally or heard stories of unrequited love. There are dozens of movies where the main characters never actually get together and we are all somewhat let down by this turn in the script. It’s easy to feel that if you love someone they’ll love you back. However, reality often paints a totally different picture. I remember hearing someone tell me that if two people meet and they click, the relationship is automatically dysfunctional because all humans are naturally attracted to dysfunction. I tend to disagree to some extent with that perspective because I think that healthy, well-adjusted, and emotionally intelligent people can have really successful relationships without some of the usual dysfunction. No one wants to be in love alone. It sucks. However, one characteristic of emotional maturity in my opinion is that you can recognize when something is a lost cause. Not because you’re admitting failure, but because you’re accepting the reality of the situation. When you’ve done all you can to show interest in a person and let them know that there is an interest, there’s no need to beat yourself up if they don’t return that interest in you. We can’t make people like us or even make them love us. Continuing to push your love and affection on someone who doesn’t want it is a COMPLETE waste of time. If they wanted you or were in a place emotionally where they could accept and return affection, they would. But to do the same thing over and over again, hoping that the other individual will change and miraculously like you back is pretty much the definition of insanity. Time is money and it is a waste of emotional energy to continue emotionally giving
while hoping for a different result than you’ve got.
The Friend Dilemma
One of the very first things that couples often say or even promise to each other after a breakup is that they’ll stay friends. They swear up and down that this little “hiccup” in their romantic relationship will not affect their friendship. I think that this “staying friends” idea is just a way for both parties to feel better about the breakup. I don’t think that it’s possible for couples to be friends right after they break up. There’s too much history. Emotions are raw. The reality that they’re not together any more hasn’t even settled in yet. There needs to be a clean break that allows both people to heal and to regroup. I think that ex-couples can be friends after they both have gotten over the break up. It’s easy to claim to be friends when on ex-partner wants to resume the relationships and uses the “just friends” story in order to make a demand on the other ex-partner’s attention and time. All this could be easily avoided if both individuals took the time to honestly evaluate their feelings and to regroup. There’s no need to be friends right after a breakup. It doesn’t serve a purpose and (in my opinion) is just plain dumb. Thoughts?
Potential Patrol
I love potential. I admit it. Not necessarily potential in myself, but potential in other people. I think of potential and ambition as somewhat linked together. I can see all the potential in the world in someone but if they don’t have ambition, they are just a waste of potential. No one reaches their potential accidentally. It takes planning and a desire to do something worthwhile. I remember when I was about 10 or 11, I decided that I would do something productive with my life. While I don’t know if I’ll ever “arrive” and proclaim that I’ve reached my potential, I do know that I’ll be able to honestly say that I tried. As much as I like potential, I don’t think that it should form the basis of any type of relationship. People rarely change and when they do, it’s their decision. Being in a relationships with someone thinking that you’ll inspire them to do better and to reach their potential is stupid. Plain and simple. You want to be with someone who has shown some kind of progress toward fulfilling their potential. No, they don’t have to have fulfilled it yet, but actually knowing about it is a good first step. I think that women are notorious for making huge investments in a potential partner because they see potential. However, they quickly are disappointed because potential does not equal ambition. Why not avoid the disappointment and be with someone who has actually made an effort to fulfill their potential? Chances are, you’ll be happier with that decision. Everyone has potential. Few have ambition.
Anger-ology
As I’ve mentioned before, one thing I’m working on in myself is being more aware of my emotions. This weekend found me rather angry over situations that had occurred in the past week. As a therapist, I’ve often noticed that feelings of anger are often products of other emotions. Anger is a emotion used sometimes when we have a hard time verbalizing our primary emotions. I’ve noticed with my couples that feelings of hurt often disguise themselves as anger. It’s easy to blame the other person or to say or do something out of anger instead of saying that you have been hurt. But anger can also be motivation to get out of your current situation. I’m working on dealing with anger in a way that is both healthy and productive and I’ve found that the gym can be an excellent place for that. Next time you feel some angry, take the time to dig deeper and identify two underlying emotions that might be causing it. You’ll raise your self-awareness and learn more about your thought processes.
Alisha's Angle 