Esther Benbihy

therapy

4 Ways to Rebuild Your Marriage

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couple-therapy-toronto

Your marriage has trust as its basis. However, broken trust can damage a marriage beyond repair without professional intervention and hard work. What can you do to restore your marriage? From going to couple therapy in Toronto to learning how to truly connect to your spouse, you can help mend your relationship.

1. Don’t Do It Alone

In today’s web-saturated society many couples feel that they just need to Google “how to fix my marriage” and find all the answers. The truth of the matter is that your relationship deserves the help of a professional who trained as a psychotherapy, sex therapy, and relationship therapy. You can find healing with couple therapy in Toronto. Your therapist will act as a mediator and guide to help you build trust, improve communication, and ultimately help address the issues that brought you to this point in your life.

2. Rekindle the Romance

Over time relationships suffer from a roller coaster of emotions. The fiery passions from early in our relationship may wax and wane as work, responsibilities, children, and bills take away our attention. Too often couples forget to prioritize each other. Instead work, stress, after-school activities, hobbies, and even exercise take the place of our spouse. This leaves room for emotional attachments with members of the opposite sex outside of your marriage or even affairs. How can you rekindle the romance? Try these simple date ideas:

  • Surprise your spouse with babysitting and night out on the town
  • Find a hobby you both enjoy together like the cinema or camping and make a point of engaging in the hobby once a week
  • If possible, be sure your bedroom is clutter free, kid-free, and private to help facilitate togetherness and connectivity
  • Plan a weekend getaway where you only focus on each other
  • Take weekly walks, just the two of you, and talk
  • On cold nights, cuddle together and enjoy a hot cup of cocoa. Just enjoy the physical closeness
  • Make a life list of goals for this year and the next five years to help focus
  • Encourage each other to compliment each other at least three times a day
  • Try something new and exciting together like salsa dancing classes
  • Cancel activities that take you away from each other like unnecessary after school activities, business meetings, and social gatherings. Instead, for the next few months, just focus on spending as much time together as possible doing things you both enjoy.
  • Don’t forget the importance of physical intimacy. Connect physically with each other regularly. If this is difficult, you may need to speak with our sex therapists about overcoming challenges in the bedroom

3. Reevaluate Your Social Circle

You might want to look at the makeup of your social circle. Are your friends or family recently divorced or single? Take the time to develop friendships with married couples in healthy relationships. Why? You can find that marriage is easier in community. Find an older couple for mentorship. By surrounding yourself with friends that have committed to marriage, no matter the difficulties, you can find help and hope for your own marriage.

4. Be Realistic and Honest

Many couples enter marriage believing they can change their spouse. However, that rarely happens. Instead, resentment builds over time, cracking the foundations of marriage. With the help of a marriage counselor, be honest and vulnerable with each other. Discuss your expectations for the marriage. Discuss the situations that led to the break in trust. Your therapist can help mediate strong feelings and make the experience positive and fruitful for both of you.

Follow these simple suggestions, along with professional marriage therapy, and you may find that you and your spouse can rekindle the romance. Enjoy the journey together.

3 Ideas To Help You Manage Stress

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3 ideas to help you manage stressStress is an evitable emotion and one that is healthy, too. Stress helps us cope with situations and work through problems. But too much stress can lead to distress. If stress rules your life, then it can become difficult to enjoy your life and your relationships. If you find yourself experiencing distress, these tips can help you manage stress.

Be mindful

When stress takes over our life it is hard to see what is around us. Thoughts are usually about the future and not the present. You can think in terms of action and not experience. Mindfulness can be the antidote to stress. Mindfulness seeks for us to live in the present and be aware of what we are experiencing.

If you are eating dinner, your focus is on dinner. Not on what needs to be done right after, certainly not on your phone, and not on all the other issues currently in your life. Instead, think about the taste and texture of what you are eating. Connect with how the food was prepared. If you are eating with someone else, focus on what they are saying and really listen. Try not to think about what you will say next, but be present and engaged.

Be active

Time after time the advice to be active is given as a way to manage stress. This advice is there because it works. You don’t need to hit the gym every night to be active. It can be as simple as taking a walk around the block. The fact is that the more active you are, the better your body functions. You are giving your mind the opportunity to focus solely on your body. You become aware of what you can accomplish.

Being active also allows your body to sort itself out. Digestion is improved and powerful chemicals are regulated. The hardest part of being active is often the initial part. But if you can get off the couch and put on some running shoes, the rest will be easier.

Seek help

Sometimes, no matter what we try, it’s too hard to manage stress on our own. And this is when it’s time to ask for help. There’s no shame in asking for help. It doesn’t mean that you can’t do something. On the contrary; it means that you know you can do something as long as you have the support of someone else.

We would never admonish a baby for needing help to eat. Instead, we gladly step in and help them until they are able to properly grasp a spoon. We teach children the skills they need to help themselves, and the same exists for adults. So when stress overtakes your life, remember that there are so many people ready to help you take control back. Seek support from a family member or friend and if necessary, schedule an appointment with a regulated mental health therapist.