Signs we have relationship problems…

June 14, 2012 By Stephen Hedger Leave a Comment

I love my partner, but it’s just not working anymore! Is this you? If you and your partner love each other, but are just not getting on there is good news for you.

With the right focus and understanding a very fast shift can put you both back on track. You see most couples come for help far too late and so it just takes longer to build up the trust, respect and rebuild that intimate connection again.

So if they leave it too long they will feel so numb that leaving the relationship now feels far less painful and so an attractive option so please don’t ignore problems and never assume they have gone away. Many men have sat in my sessions very upset to have been asked for a divorce when they never knew there was a problem.

The reality was they thought the problems had gone away months or years before, but within her the problems were getting bigger, but she had stopped communicating because she saw no point.

So if you are still in love with each other, but are struggling NOW is the time to deal with this. These are the key signs to look out for… [Read more...]

Filed Under: Communication Problems, Couples coaching, Passionless Relationships, Relationship Advice Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Have You Lost Sight of Your Future?

March 14, 2012 By Stephen Hedger Leave a Comment

Many people experience problems such as stress, depression, constant relationship challenges and over time stop seeing a future for themselves and can no longer see a future with their partner.

This lack of vision is created by years of feeling stuck and unhappy. They go through a process of having to change who they are to cope with their relationship problems and their partners behaviours. Some feel they have detached from their true self not liking  who they have become.

This process of constant problems is actually changing them, because they are entering into a state of fear that their life is not going to be safe if their partner continues to behave this way in their relationship. [Read more...]

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Is Changing Him a Good Idea?

February 4, 2012 By Stephen Hedger 2 Comments

Some women are asking their men to be more sensitive, to share their thoughts, emotions, worries and to become more vulnerable. They want this because they see this as the solution to their relationship problems.

The reason this desire for men to connect emotionally from women is because the women feel that their men are detached from their inner emotions. They know that their partners don’t understand them, because they struggle to be understood.

Women try so hard to be understood, but become frustrated when they know they are not. Not being understood from a female perspective can feel fearful and lonely. In this place her security that the relationship is going to be the way she wants, it is challenged.

Men at this point feel nagged, criticised, put down as she tries to get through to him… [Read more...]

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Behaviours Most Likely To Cause Relationship Problems

December 13, 2011 By Stephen Hedger Leave a Comment

I have put together a list of some of the behaviours I see and hear that are likely to cause relationship problems. Yes I did run this list yesterday, but it’s so important to understand. I know some of you missed it!

    1. Couples tell me that love is important all the time, yet when challenged their love is clearly conditional. “I won’t give love unless…they do, or I feel safe, or I feel important, or I feel respected… the list goes on!”
    2. If I give to my partner, what will I get in return? If anyone gives to get, they are trading for what they want and this is guaranteed to kill their sex life dead!
    3. Couples think punishing each other works? Yet it never occurs to them that whenever they are punished they don’t feel more love, so they are killing the relationship bit-by-bit.
    4. Couples don’t create a plan or a direction for their lives together past having children. They then become fearful because of the relationship because it’s going no-where. [Read more...]
Filed Under: Couples coaching, Relationship problems Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Interested Piece in the Guardian – “Therapy stole my boyfriend”

December 6, 2011 By Stephen Hedger 7 Comments

I get news from accross the globe on all issues news regarding relationships, counselling, therapy, coaching and the work carried out by those wanting to help with relationship problems.

I recieved an alert for me to read an article in the Guardian yesterday very interesting…

I would be interested in your thoughts please feel free to comment below.

To read it please  click here and come back to this page with your thoughts.

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How to quickly sort relationship problems

August 29, 2011 By Stephen Hedger 1 Comment

The challenge all couples face with relationship problems is they can’t see how to stop their problems. They use the same strategy over and over again with always the same results – destruction!

So if you are both doing the same thing and it’s not working then maybe it’s time to change that behaviour.

Understand what drives your partner

When couples are in crisis, what happens is they both revert to wanting whatever drives them the most.

For example: If a female is worried about the relationship she may want to feel secure again. If the man is worried he might feel that the relationship will never work and so he might feel insignificant as a man. He can’t make her happy and can’t fix the problems in the relationship.

To feel significant again, he may become frustrated/angry and either give up in some way, threaten to leave, or get very loud.

If she is driven by security or certainty, his frustrated behaviour will fuel her lack of certainty and she will pull her love away spend more time with friends or family. This fuels his fear that he will never be enough for her.

These are not the only patterns that happen in relationships, but you can be sure that there will be one you are both fueling.

I recently saw a couple with this pattern, at the start of the session you could see that for both of them the end was not far away. He could not see a future with her and told her and she had lost all trust that he would keep her safe. They looked doomed, but with a young child I knew they both wanted help fast!

By using their core driving forces I was able help them both understand how they could meet their own core need and meet their partners at the same time. When they both realised they could do this and feel good they embraced a new behaviour that meant the relationship could grow.

He then could see a future with her, she felt safe again and they left smiling and hand-in-hand – the trust was rebuilt and the needs were met.

All this happened in one session.

Change does NOT have to take along time it happens very fast, but only when they both feel safe to change. So it’s the feeling safe to change that takes the time. My job is to help them feel safe fast by helping them understand that not changing was not going to meet their primary needs. Once they understood that the change was easy.

Will it last?

This is a question I always get asked. If the couple keep focused on meeting each others primary needs especially when further challenges hit they will be successful.

This couple learnt how to do this in detail and why it’s important, we covered many areas of human behaviour and differences between men and women. So the couple always goes away with tools to help both themselves and each other without me there.

Filed Under: Relationship problems Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Why is it so difficult for couples to fix their relationship problems?

May 24, 2011 By Stephen Hedger Leave a Comment

What I’m going to share today is critical to understand if you want to make lasting changes in your relationship. I have not spoken about this before on this blog so it’s important to understand.

Very few couples do this automatically and this is one of the major factors to why there are so many single parents, broken families, affairs, separations and divorces.

By understanding and helping couples understand what is important to know in their relationship  is one of the key factors to the success in all my relationship clinics.

If you have been following my posts you will have learnt that couples “presenting problems” such as arguments, loss of passion, lack of trust, etc, are not the real problems in a couples relationship. Although with no other logical knowledge this will be their incorrect assumption. [Read more...]

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Shocking Discovery

May 11, 2011 By Stephen Hedger Leave a Comment

When in sessions there is one part of what I teach that has the most shocking response from all my clients. I have had people display tears, anger, disbelief, frustration, confusion all at the same thing.

They cannot believe what has been happening in their lives without them knowing. Some have lived their whole lives this way, some have lost relationships, hurt loved ones, hurt themselves…

Some clients, senior people with significant responsibility drop their head, speechless.

What is this one thing that has such a big impact, what is it that causes so much emotion.

You see the most intelligent people start to understand with me how their life has been set up to be a life they can’t win in.

They discover that even if they are successful they will feel, unfulfilled or unhappy [Read more...]

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Relationship Coaching Sessions: Why Is Love The Answer?

April 18, 2011 By Stephen Hedger Leave a Comment

One of the first things a couple has to understand, is that the answer to their relationship problems is in the love they have to give each other.

What couples usually do is pull their love away when their partner does something wrong.

So in the relationship sessions the couple go through a process of understanding the importance of living by what they believe is important. Not only does pulling love away not create love, but it also creates a destructive conflict within the individual who is pulling away.

The result is a double hit of internal problems for the individual pulling away. They experince a lack of love from their partner and the inability to trust themselves to live by their own values and beliefs. This serves to further create feelings of a heightened lack of security, this feels worse and so the result is usually more punishment all round as their state deteriorates.

The sessions are designed to help the couple understand how to create the right versions of themselves. The version they will have created is one of fear that life was not going to be the way it should be for them. This is the version that is designed for destruction, and is very different from the version they used to attract each other. [Read more...]

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How to remain positive when you just want to give up

January 19, 2011 By Stephen Hedger Leave a Comment

Do you have some days when you just want to give up. Relationship is up and down, work is getting more demanding, keeping up with all the things you know you should do seems impossible, you can’t remember the last time you had sex and you’re so fed up it doesn’t seem to matter, life is just a bit #@$>!

We all have those days, weeks, months, when the world seems to be against us. It’s not that we’re lazy, it’s like there is an overwhelming feeling of what’s it all for? You feel somewhat helpless…

I expect you look at relationship coaches and counsellors and psychologists and make the assumption that their lives are some how perfect. Rest assured we all face relationship challenges just like everyone else.

No matter how good you are at understanding human behaviour even the very best cannot help themselves or their partners to feel good in the moment all the time.

I remember before I really understood how relationships work and why they don’t, how out of control things can feel. Of course today for me is very different as 95% of what happens is much easier to deal with the other 5% needing some thought.

I have no doubt that sometimes you just want to scream as yet more relationship problems land at your feet. So I expect when you read this blog that explains how to deal with your partner or you read about how happy couples are after working with me your natural reaction could be jealousy, anger, hurt, frustration.

If you experience a negative force within you understand this: Your mind can be a force that can work with you, or against you and you have the power to choose.

One of the reason why couples are so successful with me is not because they are any better than other couples. The reason is they never gave up. They never gave up, no matter how tough the sessions became, or how much they felt they hated their partners for what they had done.

They kept going even when they didn’t want to. They believed they could make things right even when they didn’t know how.

Even when I gave them things to do that didn’t work at that moment, they kept going. The biggest killer is when individuals doubt themselves, doubt that they are enough for the relationship, not attractive enough, not lovable, not a good enough mother or father.

Even when friends and family jump to their defence telling them, their partner is not good enough for them and share their version of what they should do based on what their life experience tell them they should do, they never listen and never give up.

The answers are within you and your relationship. But as you know there are many different versions of you and some will hurt you and some will give you happiness.

Know which one is making decisions before you press the button on your relationship.

Turn your focus to where you want to go and not where you have been. Your past is simply a series of memories based on the state you are in at any given time and the meanings you gave it from that state.

Your history is not the fact you think it is there is much you do not understand or may have missed.

Remember your life is a series of perceptions. When you learn how you can create the ones that enable you to be the emotional state that will support your personal and relationship growth only then will you accept tough days and put actions in place to experience the world just the way you want to.

Your future is really down to you, if you want to understand your relationship and life then the biggest hurdle is to understand and conquer you.

Then being positive when life gets challenging is never as hard again.

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What “change” will positively impact your relationship

January 17, 2011 By Stephen Hedger Leave a Comment

When we experience relationship problems the natural response is to focus on what is happening in the moment. So what we do is focus on the problem.

The problem is usually just a symptom of the real issue and so whilst the couple may put lots of effort into trying to sort out what they think is the problem, their problem keeps coming back, frustrating the couple to assume that they could be incompatible.

Understanding what is at the root of couples problems is harder for couples to understand. All they know is they are becoming increasingly frustrated that their relationship is not working.

So what can couples do to sort things out. To start with do not focus on your problems, because all you will get is more problems.

The solutions are not in your problems they are likely to be in your past. The combination of your pasts will be creating behaviours that equal the relationship you have today.

Do not underestimate how powerful the past can be on the meanings you are giving your relationship today. After all, our survival is all about learning what equals danger and if in the past you have been hurt in someway then that will affect you moving forward and especially if the life condition feels similar.

Relationships are complex and so treating them as if they are simple might be easy to manage, but the results could end up hurting you more.

The biggest change you can make is to get educated on how your relationship functions, and what will give you all you want and what will destroy it.

Call me today and get the answers you’ve been looking for.

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Depression: Relationship Problems

January 9, 2011 By Stephen Hedger 2 Comments

Depression is affecting my relationship: Which came first the chicken or the egg. Relationships problems can cause depression, or relationship problems can be a result of depression.

Having a depression in a relationship can put significant strain on any couple.

So getting help to deal with it is critical: There are many forms of help, but my favorite is to work with the individual and help them understand what they are doing to make depression a possibility.

Plus I help them understand if they are caught in a cycle where they are choosing depression without knowing. This can happen because they are getting something they believe they are missing from their lives, E.G. Attention: Depression can in some cases help them to get significance in the form of sympathy, caring and love which they don’t get when they are well.

How do people do depression?

Sounds like a strange question I know, but the reality is many people suffering from depression are creating behaviours that if those that were not depressed did every day, they would become depressed too.

For example: If anyone practiced all three of these activities they too would become depressed.

  • If you focused on all the problems in your life.
  • If you spoke to yourself in a non caring way. I.E. “I am a awful mother” or “I’m a rubbish husband”.
  • If you spoke slowly, head down, shoulder hunched, arms folded.

If anyone did that for week-after-week they would become depressed too.

Of course depression and the causes can be very complicated, because there are many reason why life might not be the way it should be for the individual suffering. Plus we are chemical beings and so our chemical make up also comes into play.

The bottom line is the more you can do to help yourself through understanding how you work and how the meanings you are giving to your life is creating how you feel. The better armed you are to put depression in reverse.

If you would like more information on how I can help please contact me NOW!.

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“I love you, but I’m not in love with you…”

January 8, 2011 By Stephen Hedger Leave a Comment

Many couples that come to me with relationship problems usually have one person who is more shut down than the other.

This person is usually in a state of confusion, not sure if they want the relationship or not. They have feelings of love from the past, but right now they are confused because they resent their partner for helping them to feel so miserable.

They have plenty of evidence that on some level their partner cannot be trusted.

Right now all they want to do is escape the pain they feel.

To them breaking up seems like the only option.

No matter what has happen between this couple this relationship can be saved with the right approach.

The hurdles to get over are firstly that what they believe about the relationship and themselves.

Many of them are waiting to feel feelings of love for their partner, but they don’t and so they assume the relationship for them is dead. They feel emotionally shut down at this point.

We have all experienced things that we did not want to do and then afterwards we discovered we actually really enjoyed it.

The gym is a prime example, sex is another, we all put off doing things because we want to feel great about doing them before we do it.

Relationships are no different. The problems is when we first met our partners we did not have to do anything to feel amazing and the explosion of chemicals we felt was automatic.

Nature designed us that way, but even nature can’t keep that intensity going and so the relationship changes and we have to do things to feel great again.

So waiting to feel love after months of battling is unlikely, but if one of you got sane fast and became the best partner you could be first, before you felt what you think you should feel, you just maybe surprised what happens next.

Too many couples use taking love away as a weapon to teach their partner a lesson and all this does is to trigger fear states in each other, the future does not feel secure at all when couple do this.

The faster couples learn that the answers are in giving love, and not in punishment the faster they will receive the love they crave.

Is this you, or do you know a couple that are doing this if so, take action fast.

Your mind is complicated and believing all you think is sometimes dangerous.

What do you have to lose? After all you think the relationship is dead so you can’t lose that, so all you could lose is time.

It’s better to lose a little time than spend a life time regretting what you did from a place of fear which is likely to be where you are.

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

Are we compatible?

December 15, 2010 By Stephen Hedger 3 Comments

When a couple comes to me for help, the question I have to understand is does the couple have genuine core compatibility problems, or do the individuals in the couple have a relationship problem with themselves which in turn is causing relationship problems.

The latter is usually the case.

If you have been following this blog you will have read the last few posts which have helped you to understand that what you focus on is what you will get.

So if you believe your partner is the problem then firstly you will look for all the ways that they are the problem (If what you have just read now automatically directs you to what your partner has been doing rather than what you have been doing, then as you can see, you are a big part of creating your problems).

Finding problems is far too easy and so you will consider your discoveries as proof, but you will be setting both you and your partner up to fail, this will be your focus and so in your quest to change them they will resist, you will see this resistance as further proof, that they are the problem.

Your focus needs to change for your relationship to succeed.

If you want your partner to change, the first thing you have to do is to change yourself first.

Focus your mind towards to how you can be more of the person/partner you want to be and turn your focus away from the problems you both seem to face.

If your partner needs more of something then ask them what it is and give it to them it’s your responsibility.

You are 100% responsible for the success or failure of your relationship.

If you pull love away or look for ways to punish them expect more problems or pain to hit you fast.

Is today the day to be honest with yourself, do you like who you are and how you are behaving? Are you always focused on what you want or is your focus on what you don’t?

A distorted you will be a focus on all that’s wrong in your life, and as if by magic will give you everything you don’t want in buckets.

So if you are unhappy, find out where your thoughts are focused most of the time in the context of what is wrong for you.

Remember if you have problems it’s very likely you are the cause on some level.

Become part of the solution not part of the problem and start it today!

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Relationship Questions

October 12, 2010 By Stephen Hedger Leave a Comment

Every day I write about relationship problems that apply to many people, but I know you have your own issues and questions about your own relationship.

Very often we feel that our problems are unique to us and so we feel isolated and so we suffer in silence.

This is you chance to ask your question and help others know they are not alone.

I will do my best to answer all the questions I receive in my daily posts.

I look forward to your questions.

Kind regards

Stephen Hedger
Relationship Coach

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Save Your Marriage or Relationship Step-By-Step

October 10, 2010 By Stephen Hedger Leave a Comment

If your relationship is in trouble and you have tried everything to fix it yourself and nothing is working then these are the simple steps that will have a massive impact on your relationship.

These are some of the key steps I use when working with couples in crisis.

Step 1 – Get leverage

I help people understand the true cost of not fixing their relationship problems. When people decide to split-up they don’t think about the true cost both emotionally and financially. The cost is always much bigger than they thought, it’s far more expensive, the emotional fall out goes on for years and massively effects their future relationships, plus their children are affected for life sometimes hating their parents. [Read more...]

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Invisible Relationship Problems

October 10, 2010 By Stephen Hedger Leave a Comment

Is your partner saying they want your relationship to work, and yet their behaviours suggest the reverse. Now you find yourself on red alert, constantly ready for trouble.

If this is happening to you, your natural response will be to mistrust your partners intentions, and react as if they are trying to hurt you on purpose.

As difficult as this may sound your partner maybe be stuck and in need of your help. Helping someone who seems to be choosing to hurt you, goes against everything you have been taught.

The rules for creating successful relationships are not the same as how we deal with people in the rest of our lives.

For example if someone does something wrong we punish them so they won’t do it again and that is the pattern we have all been taught that gets results… but does it?

In relationships punishment never works. That’s because you are making an assumption that you know what your partner is thinking and you understand why they are behaving in a way that hurts you.

Very often people that are down, depressed, or fearful have no idea why they are reacting or behaving the way they are. So if they don’t know what’s going on with them then you have no chance of understanding them either, so making them wrong or judging them is totally unfair and will get you nowhere.

Just because you can’t see a broken limb or an open wound it does not mean they are not suffering and are as confused as you are with them. So when they are placed under pressure either real or created by themselves, they will react or complain seemingly unreasonably.

Just like the person with a broken limb would complain.

It is very likely that if two people are reacting negatively to each other and have been for sometime then the chance is they are both to a greater or lesser degree in the same distorted place both stuck on red alert looking for problems.

  • If this is where you are, one of you has to get sane first and help your partner get back to the true version of them.

Punishment never works so understand that your partner is complaining, because they are in pain. Rather than punishing them and making things worse, help them with the love you say you have for them.

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Are You A Victim Of Mind Tricks In Your Relationship

September 25, 2010 By Stephen Hedger Leave a Comment

Beware because you might be a victim of mind tricks in your relationship created by YOU.

Yes your mind can play tricks on you and this can be destructive to your relationship. I’ll give you an example…

…when we experience something in our lives we convert that event into a meaning. The meaning we give that event is based on our unique and personal life experiences up to that moment, our values, our state at that moment in time and many other filters.

So when an event happens, the meaning we give to any situation is 100% unique to us. No one else will ever have the same experience. This means that an experience and the meaning we give it is purely a perception from one perspective.

The meaning we give an event is therefore not a fact, it is not true, it is not real, it’s simply a perspective. The problem is what we believe in the moment feels very real and so we react to an experience as if the meaning we give the experience is 100% real and true and therefore a fact.

How this works to hurt a relationship

Lets say you have a value such as RESPECT. If you get respect from others then you feel good, if you don’t you’ll feel bad.

The problem happens when you don’t show yourself RESPECT and you don’t give respect to others. We have to give ourselves what we value before we can give to to others if happiness is our goal. When we give ourselves our core values and we then give those things we value to others then we feel great inside, about ourselves.

  • If we don’t do this we automatically feel bad inside about ourselves and this is what creates problems.

A couple in conflict will have their internal filters set to always look for problems. So what happens is they are in states that will not allow them to make decisions and create behaviours that support themselves, or their relationship.

  • They end up disrespecting themselves and their partner. This makes them feel terrible inside, but because it happens so fast, they don’t understand why they feel bad and so they make their partner responsible for the bad feelings that they just created.

Now imagine if both people in a relationship are practising doing this and with critical foundation values such as TRUST, HONESTY, SECURITY and many, many more.

  • What happens is the couple and the relationship deteriorate and so they blame each other.

The longer the individuals in the relationship have this distorted view of their relationship, the more stuck they both feel so they can conclude the relationship is over.

If the couple can be shifted to a new state of mind and given a fresh perspective on their experiences then this challenges their belief system and so the relationship no longer feels so desperate.

The fact that others have the power to make us feel things is an illusion that creates fear within us

The truth is no one makes us feel anything, we create our own emotions. If we believe others have power over us to control us this alone can create a state of fear. So knowing you are in control, actually puts you back in control of YOU.

The goal is then to understand you and how you work so you can always be happy no matter what.

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Is Your Past Affecting Your Relationship Today?

August 11, 2010 By Stephen Hedger 1 Comment

Past relationship problems can have a profound affect on your relationship today, so much so they can change your future and the partners you choose.

  • A simple example we can all spot: A victim of an affair could develop a problem with trusting future partners. These kind of past issues are easy to spot and with the right help can be changed.

What about past experiences we are not aware of..?

The real struggle happens is when complex past experiences have an effect on your relationships today. For example if a woman today is very masculine in her approach to relationships and her life. What kind of man do you think she would attract.

What kind of relationship would she have and how would this dynamic in her affect her children?

This is an example of the past affecting her future that’s powerful enough for her to change her personality from female to male dominated, but how does this happen?

She made a decision…

At some point in her life she made a decision to become more masculine subconsciously, she may have decided to do this because she was under threat, or she needed to get strong, but some life event created that version of her, she was not born with it.

When she made a decision to live her life in this way, what she did was to shut down many others parts of her true self, because if she allowed these feminine parts out she maybe under threat again.

The world has moved on, but she is stuck

The problem she now faces is her life circumstances have changed since she made that decision, and she no longer needs to protect herself in the same way. Her protection pattern is outdated and no longer needed, but she runs it as if she is still under threat.

Living in this version of herself  could create signs of unhappiness or depression with her because her true values are not being met buy this distorted version of her.

Is there an outdated version of you running your life? Do you live in fear? Are you exhausted?

  • One of the session I run is called a Journey of Self-Discovery and it is designed to uncover these choices we may have set-up without knowing.
    It is designed to align you with your true-self so your decisions are no longer made from a perspective of fear, but from the clear knowledge that your choice will create a future of happiness.

If you are interested please let me know… Contact me

Filed Under: Relationship Advice, Relationship Help Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Steps To Fixing A Passionless Relationship

July 8, 2010 By Stephen Hedger Leave a Comment

If there is no passion in your relationship there is going to be a reason and it is not going to be because your partner does not like, or want sex.

Many couples have one partner who wants the passion in their relationship to reignite, but they don

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