Relationship Advice
Practical advice on saving relationships - articles that draw on over 35 years of couples counselling and offer a way forward
One of the most loving things you can do for your partner and one of the best investments you can make in your relationship is going onto a couple’s retreat together. So what are the advantages, and why is it so beneficial? There are seven reasons why I recommend booking a couple retreat.
Over the past years, I had been seeing fewer couples in my practice and my work had centred more and more on men who have felt lost and confused. I had questions of my own about what it meant to cross the threshold of being sixty. What could I learn for my clients and myself from a men’s retreat?
I have just come back from running a Men’s Retreat in the woods in Brandenburg near Berlin. It’s time to reflect, think about what I will take with me and put out the call for the next gathering. So what have I learned from the men who joined me?
While we still have meaningful rituals for other transitions – christening a baby to welcome it into the family, marriage ceremonies to celebrate the change from being single to a couple and funerals at the end of life – the journey from boy to man goes unmarked.
Men’s retreats have emerged as powerful spaces for personal growth and self-discovery. They offer a sanctuary for men to step away from the demands of daily life, reconnect with their inner selves, and explore their emotional and psychological landscapes.
Fathers are traditionally figures of guidance, protection, and affirmation. When these roles are unfulfilled, it can leave scars that shape behaviour and emotional patterns into adulthood.
There’s nothing worse than finding lovemaking is at the bottom of your partner’s list of priorities. It makes you feel undesirable, that your needs are not important and builds a wall between the two of you.
Arguing is extremely healthy in relationships, as long as you do it properly - by becoming good at rows your partnership can survive anything. Understand your fighting style and own up to your own bad arguing habits to transform your fights from negative to positive.
It looks alive and well but for one, or maybe both partners, something has died. Just like zombies in the movies, these marriages can stagger on forever but they are also incredibly vulnerable.
After having children it's easy to be overwhelmed with the serious business of bringing them up, running a house and paying the bills. However, you can still be lovers even when you're parents - here's two simple ideas (and five suggestions on how to put them into practice).
