7 Mistakes couples are making that can lead them to divorce

July 29, 2018 by

When I started researching relationships I was staggered at how much information I had to learn. For example, every couple is totally unique and they have created very unique ways to experience their problem(s). 

This meant every couple requires totally unique solutions based on a well-defined plan to help them solve their specific problem(s). This results in couples needing multiple approaches to interrupt and permanently correct corrosive patterns.

In today’s post, I’m going to share some of those patterns that help couple lose their connection without them knowing. This post is designed to help any couple reading this stop making their situations worse by either stopping the corrosive behaviour or to seeking help to stop out of control patterns.

1. Lose connection with yourself

It’s so easy to lose a connection with yourself in a relationship. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Marriage Coaching Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

How to solve marriage problems!

July 8, 2018 by

The answer to this question is you must find a way to see your problems in solvable terms. Many people are looking at their relationship problems as impossible to solve and it’s this thinking that helps them give up or break a relationship that could have worked.

If you are a regular reader you will know I don’t think all marriages can or should be saved. What couples in trouble should do is become curious to understand the root of their marriage problems so they don’t make a mistake they’ll regret.

Below are some brief situations that looked impossible to solve until they really understood what was happening and what to do about it.  [Read more...]

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“Problem Partners” Uncovering the mask

March 18, 2018 by

Many couples struggle when one person starts to develop a personal problem of some kind. They struggle because the relationship cannot grow because of their problem and in many cases, it’s been dying for years because of this problem.

In today’s post, I’m going to talk about some of those problems I see and what could be going on for them and their marriage.

Last year I saw a lady who was depressed. After spending time with her I discovered her depression was designed to mask a deeper challenge for her.

She was afraid to open up in a relationship and so remained closed as a means to protect herself using depression (something she could create) as the problem everyone could see and focus on.

By helping her understand how the depression was created and how to be safe in a relationship she now has her life back.

A gentleman came reluctantly came to see me with his wife. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Marriage Coaching Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

How to fix a broken marriage no matter what’s happened?

July 10, 2017 by

After developing a marriage breakthrough program for couples in crisis and applying it to the man on the street, major celebrities, to business leaders and entrepreneurs and successfully bringing these couples back from the brink of divorce time-after-time.

Here are a few of the key principals I have learnt on this amazing journey with couples right on the edge of divorce.

1. The most important focus for any couple.

I have learnt that this decision is critical not just in maintaining a successful marriage, but an essential part of the relationship building process.

Put your partner first..! If your partner feels [Read more...]

Filed Under: Marriage Advice For Her, Marriage Advice For Men, Marriage Coaching Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Want to learn the skills and tools to stop the problems and make your relationship work again?

January 16, 2017 by

After developing a marriage breakthrough program for couples in crisis and applying it to the man on the street, major celebrities, to business leaders and entrepreneurs and successfully bringing these couples back from the brink of divorce time-after-time.

Here are a few of the key principals I have learnt on this amazing journey with couples right on the edge of divorce.

1. The most important focus for any couple.

I have learnt that this decision is critical not just in maintaining a successful marriage, but an essential part of the relationship building process.

Put your partner first..! If your partner feelsthat anything is more important than them expect problems. What could affect them could be anything from the attractive single person in the office, to a seemingly non-threatening hobby. This is really important, no matter what, they have to feel they come first… [Read more...]

Filed Under: Marriage Coaching Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Infidelity, depression, suicidality

February 22, 2015 by

What do you do when a man enters your session telling you he’s afraid he will end up killing himself. He was breaking down and didn’t know how to stop it. 

So confused he came to me with a quest to save his relationship which was really dead for him and his partner. 

This gentleman is a well known professional in his field and has been kind enough to share his words after a few weeks of us working together. He has asked for his words below to remain anonymous.

A 20 year relationship ended by my infidelity, and a breakdown which came seemingly out of nowhere when I ended the affair were the just the start of my problems.

I approached Stephen because I felt I had never given my long term relationship with the mother of my children a fair chance.  I believed that my addictive reaction to my affair partner had doomed my attempts at rebuilding the relationship when it first fell apart. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Testimonials Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Couples dynamic: Does yours work?

March 26, 2014 by

How couples behave in their relationship will have a significant affect on how they feel about each other and themselves, so it’s important to get this right.

Couples can find that over time their dynamic can change and this has critical consequences for the couple leaving them with a hidden challenge and several presenting problems as a result.

These presenting problems could be arguments, depression, constant tiredness, loss of energy, loss of passion, desire to get out of the relationship. This means the couple will struggle and suffer as they try to cope with each other.

An example:

Lets imagine a couple are focused on love, passion and adventure, it’s an amazing start to the relationship. So good in fact they decide to get married and have children. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Marriage & Trust Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Do you have a success philosophy?

March 21, 2014 by

A secure prosperous life is dependant on understanding this key to success in any area of your life… Please don’t ignore this because it’s critical to understand and at the end of this post I will share one of the key philosophies that lead my clients to success that you can start taking action on today.

Every day millions of people are spending significant time and money on what will make little difference in terms of gaining them the lives they really want. These people are not horrible trouble makers, they are really nice hard working people, but they have unchallenged life philosophies that will actually lead them to disaster. Worse is when individuals feel their philosophies are secure even though their life is screaming at them that something is wrong.

So lets look at some examples: [Read more...]

Filed Under: Marriage Coaching Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Where do our emotions come from and can we control them?

June 24, 2013 by

The short answer to this question is we create our emotions and yes we can control them if you want to. I know many of the skeptics will now want proof, so I will do my best to explain in this post.

Whatever you feel, you are the creator of that feeling. No one (thankfully) has the power to get inside our heads and give us our feelings, although some may want to try. If you think people can make you feel certain things then this is for you.

Whatever is happening around us, or to us, does not create our feelings. We have to use our brain to translate what is happening in our world into something that makes sense to us. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Marriage Advice For Her, Marriage Advice For Men Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Relationships and Depression

January 24, 2013 by

Relationships and depression is a very challenging combination for any couple because depression creates the behaviors within the person that stops them giving the relationship the fuel it needs to survive.

One question we could ask is what caused the depression, and one of the answers of course could be the relationship is the problem. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Marriage & Depression Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Relationship Mastery

July 7, 2012 by

Give your love unconditionally, or it may cripple your relationship. Read on and I will share how this can happen. A few months back a couple came to see me she had decided the relationship was over, she felt he was no longer the man she married and she saw no future.

He was very keen to get her back. I was concerned because he was so fearful about losing her, he would do anything to get her back and be unsuccessful if his efforts felt weak and needy to her. She was very clear she would be open minded, but he has to do this for himself not for her, or just to get the relationship back. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Unconditional Love Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

How to Heal Broken Relationships

March 20, 2012 by

The most effective process for helping couples develop the skills to grow their relationship starts with their relationship with themselves. The couple are the foundations to the relationship and if the foundations are weak the relationship suffers.

You see if individual(s) are challenged by past events then that past will be used as one of their filters to make sense of their world. The meanings they give to their relationship will be based on that past combined with many other critical filters. Many people are not aware of these filters and how powerful they are.

Most individuals have some kind of misalignment without knowing. Society and parents teach people methods of how to destroy relationships without knowing. Individuals can come to sessions with no obvious past traumatic event, only to discover the way they experience the world is complex and unwinnable. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Couples coaching Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

She had an affair but years later it still tortures him… WHY!!?

March 7, 2012 by

“Why did she do it? I just don’t understand why and not knowing, it’s destroying us.” These are the words from a man broken by his wifes actions. Quietly she agrees they can’t go on this way…

It’s very easy to make instant judgments when you first hear these kinds of stories. Everyone will have different instant opinions, but as this story unfolds opinions can change. You see nothing is as black and white as it first seems.

This couple have it all, great business wonderful home beautiful children. So with so much going for them why did their relationship get to the point where an affair was possible for her? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Affairs Women, Testimonials Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Is it right to expect what you can’t give?

February 25, 2012 by

For example: I remember a man complaining that his partner was not respectful in the way she treated him and spoke to him. For him to feel respected he had to feel loved. This means love was more important to him than respect.

We now know love is an important value to him, so unless he felt important he wouldn’t give his love to her as a punishment. He didn’t want to reward her behaviour.

Of course this scared her and so she became more anxious resulting in her communicating her fear which is translated by him as not being respectful and unloving. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Life Lessons Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

What Has to Happen for YOU to Love YOU?

February 5, 2012 by

Is loving YOU something you find easy, or is it selfish and self-indulgent? What is the real cost of getting this wrong?

One of these answers causes people real problems for themselves, their relationships and their children. As you skip through this post you will start to understand why!

In fact one of these answers actually expands further than just love it expands to the way they meet their core values. In other words they don’t see the value in themselves.

The only way they feel they create the value in themselves is through giving to others.

Only when they get a reaction from others will they feel their value in this world, as you read on you’ll notice this causes a them an inner conflict because this behaviour is a contradiction of their beliefs.

If they ever feel they are not valued from anyone this will hit them hard because they already feel that’s true!

They find it hard to have a good time on their own and so keep busy, or spend time with others. They are on a constant search to feel good through the validation of others. [Read more...]

Filed Under: LOVE Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Relationship Advice For Women

January 23, 2012 by

For many women in relationships getting through to their partner can feel like really hard work. They can’t believe he can be so ignorant to her needs and feelings. To her his lack of care can start to become proof of a lack of love….

Communication is usually a struggle and getting him to understand you can feel impossible. You may have talked when you first met, but today getting him to open up feels impossible…

The challenge for women is as soon as they feel they can’t communicate effectively with their partners they can feel lonely, isolated and very low. Some can feel disconnected with who they want to be and start to dislike who they are becoming. Depression is very possible in this place if this goes on for long enough.

To deal with her feelings in this place she has to get strong inside to cope with his lack of understanding of her emotional needs. This means for many she has to create a more masculine version of herself.

She does this to keep safe, she knows she can’t rely on him to meet her needs and keep her safe, so she takes on this masculine role of protector of herself.

She doesn’t want to be in this place for many reasons. The emotional protection she creates results in her no longer finding her partner sexually attractive. So she will block any desire for intimacy.

So as she pulls away from him to protect herself, he in response will be doing the same.

This can cause real problems for the couple.

He can start to feel that he cannot make her happy. Many men feel they cannot ever please their partners and when they try to fix her problems she become angrier. This stops him trying to fix her problems.

This cycle can get worse the more men feel they can’t win the more women pull away.

Can you relate to this situation? Do you feel out of control of your relationship?

If so get in touch now…

Important: Men and women speak a very different language and this will and does create confusion, it’s not that he doesn’t care it simply that he doesn’t understand how you feel because he is not female.

Soon as he knows what to do to become successful again he will want to grasp the opportunity with both hands.

  • If you are in this place PLEASE TAKE ACTION IT WILL NOT GO AWAY!
Filed Under: relationship advice for women Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Problem Solving Skills – Creative Problem Solving For Life Challenges

January 3, 2012 by

Wouldn’t it be great, if we never had any problems again?

The reality is not all problems are bad, we need problems to motivate us to action, what’s bad is the way in which we view our problems that keep us stuck, for some they remain stuck for years sometimes for life. What’s needed is effective problem solving skills.

My problem seems impossibe to solve…

You see when individuals come to me for help usually what happened is they have been seeing their problems from only one perspective. That perspective is usually one which makes solving the problem impossible.

For example: Many people are trying to control their outside world so they can feel ok, but the more they try this, the more out of control they feel, because people either reject them, or move away from them. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Life Coaching Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Human Behaviour Secrets: The Pattern Interrupt!

December 21, 2011 by

As she walked into the room I could see the deep sadness on her face, she sat down and started to cry instantly, looking for the tissues I noticed that the box was empty.

“I’m sorry the session has not started yet!” I said standing up!

She instantly stopped crying! What I did was to interrupt her pattern of focus on her sadness, in a fraction of a second switched her focus from her internal sadness to me in her external world and her crying stopped!

Pattern interrupts are powerful!

I have used them to help clients who are planning suicide to connect with resources within themselves they will not be aware of in their moments of deep despair.

As I watch the person go into deep misery, I use shocking language to break their habitual pattern of misery and replace it with a smile. Their smile is unexpected and so they learn that their pattern can be changed very quickly.

What are patterns?

Our patterns of behaviour are what we habitually do! So if a person has learnt how to focus on sadness or depression over the years then interrupting that pattern for them would be useful to aid their recovery.

Patterns can be learnt at any time in a persons’ life many patterns have come from childhood. For example when adults become angry you can almost see them acting like a child. In fact this is true their anger pattern was created when they were a child and is being triggered by an event.

This is why whatever we have experienced in the past will have a significant bearing on the persons future.

So how can we use pattern interrupts to help our relationships?

The most obvious one is humour, in essence creating an unexpected change of focus to engage positive resources to the benefit to the person whose destructive pattern you wish to change.

I use pattern interrupts all the time in sessions to help individuals with the thought patterns they have use for years that hurt them without knowing leading them to…

  • Stress
  • Depression
  • Anger
  • Frustration
  • Sadness
  • Self Pity

Can you see patterns in your family, how could you help them break their patterns?

Filed Under: Pattern Interrupts Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Depression: Is Your Relationship The Cause?

December 10, 2011 by

You and your partner are designed by nature to act and work together in a certain way hence the term chemistry usually associated with the automatic feelings a couple experiences when they first meet.

When you first met this is likely to be the reactions you had to each other. You both felt great, and it took little effort, those amazing feelings were automatic. When you were with your partner you felt great about you.

These automatic feelings are proof of natures’ power of attraction in action. It created chemical reactions in you both to feel an intense attraction to each other.

When you feel this way, the drive towards intimacy is very powerful. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Couples coaching, Depression Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Couples With Problems Want Fast Results Help And Direction!

November 16, 2011 by

What’s interesting about the couples I see is they really only have to do a few key things to make a massive difference with each other combined with a little nudge from me…

These few key things make up about 80% of what’s really important/critical.

I wonder how your relationship would be different if you knew about these few key things and applied them?

This couple did and this is their result…

…We couldn’t believe that in one two hour session so much could change. My husband learnt what to do when I became upset, he felt important in our relationship for the first time in years and I felt so much safer with him. Stephen also worked on my depression of 9 years in that same session and it just went. I even had a little panic when I tried to get my depression back and couldn’t.

We are so excited about each other and our lives again!

There were a few things that were amazing about this couple. Firstly despite their frustration with each other they were eager to learn. They wanted to fix this but were clear very frustrated with each other.

He had no idea how to make her happy and was giving up, and she was too depressed to respond to any good deed which further renforced to him she could never change and he could never make her happy.

She also repeated the same message to him over and over hoping in vain he would understand her and of course he didn’t.

Now I had a big challenge. I could see they were on the edge and I knew her depression of 9+ years was going to hamper our effort to rebuild the trust in the relationship and with no trust their wasn’t going to be growth.

Of their first two hour session, I had to understand their story and teach them how to understand why it had gone wrong and give them the plan rebuild the trust, understand the importance of meeting each others needs  before igniting the passion and then create goals for the future.

He couldn’t be succesful whilst she was this depressed…

So I had 40 minutes left to rid her of this depression. I told her this was my plan and she agreed to go for it.

After 40 minutes of very fast intensive work she stood standing facing me after a rollercoaster of emotions, tears, shock, laughter, she went through it all. Her pale worried face had now been replaced with a healthy glow and a confident smile.

Seeing the massive change in her I asked her to turn to face her husband, as she turned and look straight at him, in an instant he broke down. I rushed across the room just to check his tears were relief, they were!

The following week

I had a good feeling her change was going to stay by the way she responded to the session however I waited to see them a week later.

They walked in to my session all smiles and upbeat, always a good sign in my world.

She told me that after the session she had experienced minor panic attacks. What was interesting is her attacks were because she was so used to being depressed, when she couldn’t get depressed she felt lost, amazing! Of course this desire to become depressed was short lived and she embraced the new calmer her and so did her husband.

What he did was grab the opportunity to give her what she needed,  through his strength he met his own core needs and hers. She explained how through the changes we had put in place he was becoming far more attractive to her and he felt in a position of power in a caring loving way.

The attraction was returning and the trust had been rebuilt.

  • If this has stuck a cord with you and you would like to find
    out how Stephen can help you please get in touch today.
Filed Under: Couples coaching Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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