Relationships tend to be the most balanced when the foundation is strong. If you can get the basics down, you’re much more likely to have a long-lasting and happy marriage.

Here are nine steps to a happy marriage (or non-married relationship):

1. Worry about your own relationship. Couples can make the mistake of paying too much attention to what’s going on in the relationships around them, and making comparisons to how other people’s relationships function. What works for their relationship may not work for yours, and vice versa. Stick to what works for you and your partner, even if it seems to go against the grain of others.

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Many individuals and couples come into therapy with a similar relationship complaint: being married isn’t what they expected. More specifically, the reality of marriage is not aligned with their fantasies of marriage.

It’s nice to have fantasies. They give us goals, the drive to achieve, hope, desire, and more. However, when we expect that reality is going to match our fantasies, disappointment results when the picture we painted in our minds doesn’t come true. If our fantasies are unrealistic, even good, positively-functioning relationships can be experienced as bad, negative, and disappointing.

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Restaurant settings can set up a nerve-racking experience for first dates, whether it’s for lunch, a snack, coffee, dinner, or dessert. Especially for people who struggle with social anxiety, eating, or merely sitting face-to-face while meeting someone for the first time sets the environment for significant vulnerability. Add to this the issues of who orders, who pays, do I have food in my teeth, etc…a lot of potential awkwardness, unless you’re skilled and seasoned at dating.

Sitting at a table is basically the setup for a meeting or an interview. This nearly automatically signals a person to be on their best behavior, which is already a first-date issue without it being amplified by this setup. The anxiety is also magnified if you grew up in a home where meals were filled with manner criticism: “Chew with your mouth closed”, “Get your elbows off the table”, etc. Then there’s the problem of  how much eye contact is enough or too much? For the dating expert, these may not be issues, but for the novice or the socially anxious, sitting in a restaurant with a first date presents many possible difficulties to overcome.

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How many times have we heard the cliche, “The grass is always greener on the other side?” While the overuse of this phrase has mostly dulled its impact, people who experience the “grass is greener syndrome” endure a significant struggle with commitment.

What causes this issue?

The hallmark of the “grass is greener syndrome” is the idea that there is always something better that we are missing. So rather than experiencing stability, security, and satisfaction in the present environment, the feeling is there is more and better elsewhere, and anything less than ideal won’t do. Whether it’s with relationships, careers, or where you live, there is always one foot out the door.

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Once upon a time, there was this decade known as the 1950′s. In this time, women were mostly viewed as housewives. Husbands went to work, and wives stayed at home, raised the children, and kept the house up — laundry, cleaning, cooking, running the necessary errands, etc.

The clear gender roles were that the man works at a paying job and provides financially for the family, and the woman stays at home and makes sure everything in the home and with the children is taken care of. This was the “societal norm” at the time. However this setup tended to devalue the capabilities of women, and empower men, which set up a power hierarchy in the family (based on income).

Fast-forward to the present, and we have a world where a one-income family is rare, both parents generally work, the children are commonly cared for by nannies or other forms of child care, and the home is kept whenever there is time to make it happen, or by hiring outside help.

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Everybody in a relationship has moments of feeling frustrated, aggravated, or angry at their partner. While this is common, unleashing emotions towards our partners is not a healthy behavior, and repeated arguments can be corrosive for a relationship.

When you feel angry at your partner, here are some ways to calm yourself before it gets out of hand:

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Over the years, there’s become increasing awareness about how movies impact the expectations people have for their relationships. While our real life experiences as children set the stage psychologically (subconsciously) for future relationships, movies have a way of portraying and reinforcing society’s “standards” for what a relationship “should” look like. Unfortunately, movies generally paint a picture of relationships that is viewed as consciously ideal and is mostly unrealistic, leaving people frustrated that they’re not in a relationship like the ones they see on the big screen.

Here are some differences between relationships in the movies, and real life relationships:

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Stress is rarely something experienced as enjoyable, even if some people thrive on it. Unfortunately, stress is nearly inevitable, especially in today’s world. What people often don’t realize is that we have all the resources we need to be able to reduce stress. The challenge is to learn how to identify and use these resources.

Before being able to implement stress reduction techniques, we have to be able to recognize signs of stress. Some symptoms are more obvious than others. The more specifically we can understand our triggers — for example, not just knowing that work causes stress, but knowing what specifically in our work causes stress — the more we can do to prepare for stress, and ultimately reduce or prevent it altogether.

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Creating motivation when feeling depressed can be one of the most difficult things a person can do. An episode of depression can be physically and emotionally draining. The simplest of tasks seem to take maximum effort, and sometimes even beyond maximum. Some may feel lethargic. It may be tough make meals, or clean up at home, or take showers, or even get out of bed.

Navigating motivation when depressed can be tough because the instinct is to wait for the energy to return. People who are depressed often fall into the trap of trying to wait it out — that if you give in to the urge to stay in bed for a few days, that you’ll be re-energized and recharged, believing you’ll have exorcised the depression demons by just “going with it”.

Unfortunately, it’s not usually as simple as this. If everybody tried to wait out their depressive episodes, some people would be in bed for 20 years, realizing somewhere along the way that depression actually tends to breed depression if it’s not actively confronted. That’s right, catering to our depressive urges actually reinforces them.

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It’s incredible how much access we have right in the palm of our hands today. The options are almost endless. However, along with the pros of this, there are also cons. Our computers and smartphones haven’t only brought us endless avenues of being constantly in touch with our friends and families, and having shopping, music, games, and much more right in the palm of our hands. Unfortunately, this type of access can also contribute to increased anxiety and mental stress.

I hear many people talk about how much “the world has changed” over the past ten years, or so. But I’ll raise a question, just for consideration: Has the world really changed, or has our awareness, perspective, and access to the world changed?

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