You Deplete Me: 5 Ways to Know Youâ€™re In a Toxic Relationship

Posted on April 25, 2014 by gpopcak

By: Gregory Popcak

There are some relationships we shouldn’t try to save. Oddly, sometimes the least healthy relationships are the ones we’re most anxious about letting go! This article can help you discern whether you’re in a toxic relationship with a poisonous person.

1. It seems like you can’t do anything right — The other person constantly puts you down as not good enough. They mock your personality, and you feel ashamed most of the time. You only feel pardoned when you take on the traits of the person doing the condemning or judging.

2. Everything is about them and never about you — You have feelings too, but the other person won’t hear them. You’re unable to have a two-sided conversation where your opinion is heard, considered, and respected. Instead of acknowledging your feelings, they battle with you until they get the last word.

3. You find yourself unable to enjoy good moments with this person — Every day brings another challenge. It seems as though they are always raising gripes about you. Their attempt to control your behavior is an attempt to control your happiness.

4. You’re uncomfortable being yourself around that person — You don’t feel free to speak your mind. You have to put on a different face just to be accepted by that person. You realize you don’t even recognize yourself anymore.

5. You’re not allowed to grow and change — Whenever you aim to grow and improve yourself, the other person responds with mockery and disbelief. There is no encouragement or support for your efforts. Instead, they keep you stuck in old judgments insisting that you will never be any different than you are now.

If you’re experiencing even just one of these signs, check in with yourself to see if the relationship is doing more damage than good. Click here for a good article on toxic relationships.

For more ideas on effectively dealing with the Toxic People in your life, check out God Help Me, These People are Driving Me Nuts! Making Peace with Difficult People

Women Want Romance and Men Want Sex, Right? Not So Fastâ€¦

Posted on April 25, 2014 by gpopcak

By: Gregory Popcak

It has been a truism in both secular and Christian culture that “women want romance and men want sex” or “women give sex to get love and men give love to get sex.” I have always HATED these sentiments because, although I know they ring true for many they have NEVER rung true for me. I am, personally, a big fan of love, romance, sex and everything that has to do with marriage and, frankly, I am more the man for it. Beyond my personal experience, however, this message has always seemed inconsistent to what Christian men and women are called to and, as I began learning in college, what the Theology of the Body asserts is true for both women and men.

We Are All Made in the Image & Likeness of God

The idea that men primarily want sex and women primarily want romance casts all men as predators and all women as frigid and suggests that there is something wrong with a woman who enjoys her sexuality or a man who has a romantic soul. This has always struck me as deeply offensive to the Christian anthropological view. God is a passionate God who seeks nuptial union with us. The Song of Songs demonstrates how God pursues us with an enviable passion. Our Christian mystical tradition sings of the romantic feelings God’s love inspires in both men and women. We are made in God’s image and likeness. It would only be fitting that Christian men and women would be able to respond to each other and to God’s invitation to union with as much joy and fervor as they are both capable of expressing. I have no doubt that men and women express their romantic and sexual love in different and complementary ways but it is difficult for me to imagine how a couple can achieve the heights to which they are called by the Sacrament of Matrimony if one partner is forced to drag the other along in sex, romance, or both. Why would God play such a cruel trick? The answer, of course, is that he wouldn’t. Catholic theology has argued this for quite some time now—especially as articulated through the Theology of the Body. Now science is giving greater weight to those claims.

What the Latest Research Says…

A recent study sought to overcome the difficulties that occur from self-report. When people respond to surveys, they often answer as they think they are supposed to as opposed to how they actually feel. The researchers thought that men and women would feel pressure to conform to the strong stereotyping that exists around male and female attitudes toward intimate relationships, so they developed a way to get past this bias to ascertain how men and women actually felt about sex and romance. They used a test that had participants make snap judgments regarding whether to assign various romantic or sexual words/images to the categories of “pleasant” or “unpleasant.” The design of the study required a quick response that made conscious decision-making difficult if not impossible. Presumably, this forced respondents to reveal their first responses before their judgment and bias could kick in.

What they Found

What they found was that while women did have a stronger reaction to romantic stimuli both men and women valued romance highly. As for preference for sex, the differences did not manifest between the sexes as much as they did between extraverts and introverts. In general, extroverted males and females have stronger sexual preferences and drives than introverted males or females. That makes sense, since extraverts are just more comfortable expressing themselves in every aspect of life and sexual attitudes and behavior merely represent a concentrated version of the person’s values, personality and behavior as a whole. See entire article here.

There is obviously more work to be done on teasing out the real vs. false differences between man and woman, but I, for one, am excited about the new direction of the research in the field of sex and romance and I look forward to seeing whether or not the differences between men and women in these areas are dynamic and subtle as I believe they are. Early reports would suggest that the answer is “yes.”

6 Stages of Recovery for Partners of Sex Addicts

Posted on April 25, 2014 by gpopcak

By: Gregory Popcak

The Painful Truth of Addiction

Sex addiction statistics show that 25 million Americans visit cyber-sex sites between 1-10 hours per week. Another 4.7 million in excess of 11 hours per week. (MSNBC/Stanford/Duquesne Study, Washington Times, 1/26/2000). According to Datamonitor, over half of all time spent on the Internet is related to sexual activity, with 30 million people logging on to pornographic Web sites daily. According to some estimates, sex addiction affects about 3-5% of Americans, but that number is also considered to be hopelessly low because it is based upon the number of people who seek treatment, not the probable hundreds of thousands of people who never ever look for help. Of course, this is all terribly devastating to the spouse of the sex addict who is almost always completely surprised by the revelation of the addiction and goes through his or her own stages of healing. There is help though, for people who are ready to heal. Patrick Carnes, who spearheaded most of what we know today about defining and treating sexual addiction, has identified 6 stages of recovery for partners of sex addicts.

6 Stages of Recover

Developing/Pre-discovery—This is where the partner of the sex addict has a sense that something is not right, but she can’t quite put a finger on it. Things aren’t adding up, but she isn’t sure why.

Crisis/Decision/Information Gathering—The truth is out now. Phone records or credit card statements or internet histories or other signs have been discovered. There is no denying that there is a real problem here. The partner will respond by trying to micromanage the addict. It won’t work. This is a good time to involve programs like Sexaholics Anonymous.

Shock—A hopelessness can start to set in as the partner realizes that they have been living with a stranger.

Grief/Ambivalence— The partner begins to mourn the old relationship and the lost innocence. This leads to a new honesty and a new willingness to face what is still good and worth saving in the relationship combined with an honest assessment of the work that needs to be done. This can lead the partner to wonder if its worth going on in the relationship.

Repair—Now the partner commits to the work of healing themselves and the relationship. They are learning how to hold their mate accountable without getting sucked into the drama or the con games. The spouse is honestly seeking treatment and working a program. That makes it safe for the couple to begin working on making the marriage healthy.

Growth— A new honesty and authenticity is blooming in the relationship as the couple relates to each other on a level they never have before. There are still a lot of hard conversations ahead, but each talk brings out something new and good to work with. It can be devastating to find that one’s partner is struggling with their sexuality through porn, adultery or other sexual acting out. But there is hope and healing to be found. And it is worth hanging in there.

Resources

If you would like more information on working to heal a relationship damaged by sexual addictions, contact your PaxCare Tele-Coach today. Call us to get the support you need in this most difficult situation.

Yelling Makes Parenting Harder, Study Says. (+5 Things To Do Instead)

Posted on April 25, 2014 by gpopcak

By: Gregory Popcak

The University of Pittsburgh and the University of Michigan recently released the results of a study that showed that yelling at teens actually aggravated problematic behavior rather than extinguishing it. Likewise, teens who were consistently yelled at had higher incidences of depression, school problems, lying, stealing and fighting than kids who did not experience “harsh verbal punishment.” Researchers also found that the more parents yelled, the more they felt they needed to yell as the problem behaviors increased creating a vicious cycle of yelling begetting bad behavior which begat more yelling. Most interestingly, the researchers also found that a strong parent-child bond did not protect children or parents from the negative consequences of yelling that I listed above. In my experience, parents who yell often feel powerless. They tend to threaten and have a less effective approach to applying consequences. Often these parents will lift consequences once they no longer feel angry instead of letting the consequence stay in place until the child has demonstrated not just a change in immediate behavior, but a change of heart. Here are 5 things parents can do that are more effective than yelling.

1. Collect the child

When your teen commits an offense, it is often because they have fallen out of rapport with you. The result is that they either stop caring about offending you or fail, for some reason, to seek your advice before acting. The first step in disciplining a child of any age—especially adolescence—is “collecting” him or her. That is, quietly saying, “Come here. Let’s talk.” Followed by some display of physical affection. Collecting the teen puts him or her in a place where he or she is now willing to hear what you are saying instead of simply reacting defensively to every word that comes out of your mouth. It can be hard to remember to collect your teen when you’re angry, but this simple step can spell the difference between a compliant cooperative teen and WWIII. Your choice.

2. Seek to Understand.

Now that you’ve collected your child and he or she is more receptive to your guidance, seek to understand what your son or daughter was thinking when he or she committed the offense. Don’t interrogate. Ask, honestly and gently, with a sincere desire to understand your son or daughter’s intention. Questions like, “What made you decide to do that?” “What did you hope would happen when you decided to X?” “What message were you trying to send?” “What were you trying to accomplish by choosing Y?” are good places to start. Don’t accept, “I don’t know” as an answer. Take a break if you need to, but let your child know that you deserve real answers that will enable you to help him or her do better next time. And don’t let your kid off the hook until you get those answers. (As an aside, if your teen consistently refuses to answer your questions or stalls interminably with “I don’t know.” That’s a clear sign counseling is probably indicated).

3. Brainstorm Solutions

Now that you know the intention behind your teen’s behavior, it’s time to come up with other ways your child could meet that need.

*Was the intention behind your teen’s disrespect a flawed attempt at telling you she was angry? What words should she use next time to convey her message?

*Did your son miss curfew because he lost track of time? Perhaps he needs to set his phone alarm in front of you before he goes out for the next few weeks to demonstrate that he will remember when he needs to go.

The goal of discipline is not so much punishment as it is to give the child the guidance, tools, and support he or she needs to succeed next time and the time after that. Whenever possible, treat misbehavior as a learning experience more than a failure of character. If you can go into disciplining your teen with the attitude that it is your job to figure out how to improve future compliance as opposed to merely demonstrating your frustration with them, you will be on the right track.

4. Apply Consequences Appropriately.

Additional consequences are not always necessary but when they are, make sure they are not time-limited but behavior-limited. For instance grounding a teen ”for a week” usually means that the teen will wait out his week and then return to business as usual—bad behavior included. That’s a waste of time and energy. Instead, tell your son, “Because you came home late again, even after we talked about setting your phone alarm, you are grounded for at least a week. During that time you will show me that you are able to remember what I ask of you by doing chores without being reminded. We will review your progress at the end of the week. If you have been consistently thoughtful and attentive to our expectations, you will be released from grounding. If not, you will be given another week of grounding to continue practicing being thoughtful and attentive. And so on, and so on, until I see that you are trustworthy.” See the difference? With the latter arrangement, the teen’s behavioral change and change of heart is the key to his freedom, not the mere passage of time.

5. Revisit and Revise the Plan as Necessary.

Adolescence is complicated. New situations arise all the time that make old solutions obsolete. If a plan you developed with your teen stops working, don’t get exasperated. Repeat the steps above and develop a new plan that take into account the changed circumstances. Teens will behave if they know that 1) you are committed to helping them succeed and 2) you are committed to helping them get whatever they think they need in the most godly and efficient way possible. By contrast teens will misbehave when they feel like they can’t win and/or if they see you as an obstacle to getting their needs met. Using the steps I’ve outlined here works better than yelling because it gets you and your kid on the same side of solving the problem and has you working together to develop a plan for future success instead of competing to see who can make the other more miserable.

For more ideas on how to raise godly teens, check out Parenting with Grace: A Catholic Parents’ Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids. (2nd Ed. revised and expanded) or, if you need some personal support to help you get your relationship with your teens in order, contact your PaxCare Tele-Coach today. If necessary, we can refer you to the a faithful Catholic therapist who can get your family life back on track. Call us to get the support and skills you need!

Marriage Enemy #1

Posted on April 25, 2014 by gpopcak

By: Gregory Popcak

When Comfort Eclipses Love

People often ask me what the biggest problem affecting marriages is. They usually expect me to say something like, “poor communication”, “infidelity”, “drugs and alcohol” and the like. All of these are important problems, of course and they are, unfortunately, common. But they are not the most common or even the most serious problem undermining marriages in my estimation. In fact, the real problem is what often causes all of these other issues. So, what is the most common marriage problem couples present with? Namely; it is that husbands and wives tend to love their own comfort zones and preferences more than they love each other. There isn’t anything wrong with having preferences and wants. In fact, respecting each other’s preferences and desires is key to a healthy relationship. The problem is a matter of degree. Inevitably, our desires and preferences conflict from time to time. The healthy couple learns a dance that enables them to be sufficiently generous and accommodating in their day to day interactions—even when they are being asked to step outside their comfort zones—that they each don’t mind when the other occasionally needs a break from the self-donation that represents the norm.

By contrast, the less happy couple tends to double-down when one perceives that his or her comfort zone is being threatened. Instead of looking for ways to take care of each other, they get selfish and try to push what they want without regard for how it makes the other feel. Dr Scott Stanley has a great example of this in his description of a couple’s conversation he witnessed:

Long-term love and commitment–and definitely marriage–require long-term, consistent sacrifices one for another. Sure, there are times when we don’t sacrifice (too many of them in most marriages). But I wondered if this incident was part of a pattern. I hope not. If it is a pattern, and they stay together, she’s in for more cold times ahead.

He also describes the antidote to the problem. You can find his entire article here.

Resources

For more ideas to make your marriage great, check out For Better…FOREVER! A Catholic Guide to Lifelong Marriage. To find get immediate help with any issues regarding your marriage, call your PaxCare Tele-Coach today and get the skills you need to succeed!

Research Validates Parent-Directed Treatments For Kidsâ€™ Anxiety

Posted on April 25, 2014 by gpopcak

By: Gregory Popcak

Parents often contact the me for help in addressing their children’s anxiety. Whether phobias, separation anxiety, school related social anxiety or other anxiety related problems of childhood, our first approach is to work with the parents to teach them to help their children directly. I and my therapists teach parents techniques to use with their children. The parents report the results and we teach them the next steps. We have two reasons for taking that approach. First, we take seriously the Church’s assertion that parents are their children’s primary educators. We think that, whenever possible, children should be able to turn to their parents for whatever help they need. Our role as counselors should be to empower parents not replace them.

Let Yourself Help Them

Second, children, generally speaking find therapy to be stigmatizing. My whole background is in family therapy. So many kids come to therapy feeling like their being punished for something or afraid that seeing a counselor means they are “crazy.” A good therapist can get through this but, I think, the best therapists can avoid it altogether whenever possible. If the parent-directed approach doesn’t work, sometimes we have to step in and work more directly with the child. But we find that this is not the norm. When we initially explain our approach, many parents worry that it won’t work. That perhaps they aren’t up to what we’re asking them to do. What if they do it wrong? We assure them that the vast majority of parents are more than able to help their children—with appropriate support—through most anxiety issues. Our experience bears this out, but now, parents don’t have to take our word for it. (Note: Cognitive behavioral therapy [CBT] “is a form of treatment that focuses on examining the relationships between thoughts, feelings and behaviors.” Source: www.NAMI.org)

Children with an anxiety disorder who receive cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) via their parents are three times more likely to recover from their anxiety, compared to children who received no treatment, according to a new study by the University of Reading.

The study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, focused on 64 families with children, between the ages of 7 and 12, who suffer from an anxiety disorder.

For eight weeks, parents were given brief weekly sessions on how to use CBT with their child.

Mental disorders are becoming increasingly common among children, with approximately 20 percent of children suffering from significant symptoms of anxiety and between 5 percent and 10 percent of children meeting diagnostic criteria for an anxiety disorder.

Children with anxiety disorders may have problems socializing with their peers, lack confidence in trying new things, and may underachieve at school and risk social exclusion. Childhood anxiety is also known to be a risk for development of future problems, including depression, substance and alcohol abuse, and poorer physical health.

“We studied 194 children who had a variety of diagnoses, including generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, separation anxiety disorder, panic disorder/agoraphobia and specific phobia,” said lead study author Dr. Kerstin Thirlwall.

The researchers found that the children who received cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) via their parents are three times more likely to recover from their anxiety, compared to children who received no treatment.

Read more here.

Let Us Help You

For more information on effective parenting and Christian approaches to dealing with anxiety, check out Parenting with Grace (see the chapter titled, “Boo! Dealing with Childhood Fears”) and God Help Me, This Stress is Driving Me Crazy! For further assistance, call your PaxCare Tele-Coach today for more information on working with a faithful, professional, Catholic counselor in getting your child the help he or she needs.