Is there someone in your family you wish you could get along with better?
Maybe it’s your kids, who hardly speak to you, or to each other, and you don’t really know why. Maybe it’s a sibling whose life seems to have gone off track. Maybe it’s a parent who constantly intrudes on your life, offering helpful “advice” that is unsolicited and unwanted.
Family relationships are difficult. The people who are closest to us are often also the ones who cause us the most pain and frustration. And it can feel awful having to struggle with the ones we want most to connect with, to love and be loved by.
Are you experiencing any of these challenges in your close relationships?
- Your attempts at communication with them repeatedly end in arguments?
- They make demands of you, explicitly or implicitly, that you feel are unreasonable, and you can’t seem to get them to stop?
- They try to control your life choices, your other relationships, or your parenting?
- They shut you out of their lives and nothing you try has helped you to get back in?
Most likely you’re not trying to get them out of your life; you just want this relationship to work “like it’s supposed to” but can’t figure out how. Or maybe you’ve made that decision that you need to cut this person off for your own well-being and the well-being of the rest of your family, but can’t cut the cord.
Stress in families is normal.
Some people have more, some have less. But all families, like all human beings, are imperfect. We mess up sometimes. We hurt each other and don’t know how to fix it, or how to change. Maybe your family has more than its share of hurts and messes. But that doesn’t mean it always has to be that way.
Family therapy can help.
Would you like to:
- Feel close again to your loved ones?
- Resolve conflict and disagreements with respect and levelheadedness?
- Learn how to be assertive about your needs, without hurting others or giving up your own self in the process?
- Manage perpetually difficult relationships in your life?
