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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

What is your New Year’s resolution?

This is one of the fun points of turning the calendar — reflecting on the past year and considering our goals for the next 365 (or 366) days. I have heard many well-intentioned resolutions for healthy personal improvements: make new friends, eat less dessert foods, quit smoking, conquer a phobia, pay more attention to partners and loved ones, spend more time with children, go to the gym, increase dating life, save more money, spend money (for chronic savers), balance personal vs. career life, improve stress management, etc.

How many times have you heard someone refer to a person’s personality or character, saying, “He’s a strong man”, or , “She’s a strong woman”? In managing our relationship with ourselves and interpersonal relationships, it is important to understand emotions, associated behaviors, and overall character traits that hurt us more than they help us. These traits we carry or see in others impact how we view and treat ourselves, how we present ourselves to others, and how we view and regard others.

One problematic stereotype is what people generally regard as a “strong” person. It’s problematic because there is often an inaccuracy of how people label “strength” — which impacts the qualities we admire or idealize in others, as well the traits that we want to develop and emphasize in ourselves. When people refer to a “strong” person, the traits that are being pointed to as “strong” are often closer to grandiosity, contempt, rigidity, stubbornness, aggressiveness, and desire to control others. All of these traits hold similarities to bullying.

It can be very hard to say “no” to people. It seems like it should be an easy thing to do; someone asks a question, we want to say “no,” but something stops us from actually letting the word out, or even speaking a comparable, more gentle variation. In many cases, we end up either saying “yes” when we don’t really want to, or we outright lie. But saying “no” is a necessary skill to have in our relationships with friends, family, and significant others.

What makes this so difficult?

Depression can be a tough topic to fully grasp without going through it, or at least have a loved one who’s been strongly afflicted by depression. People who haven’t been through depression have sometimes questioned depression as a state of laziness, while a person suffering from depression is going through a deep emotional struggle with their existence. Depression can be triggered from life events, and it can also have a biochemical component, or both. Whatever the trigger for depression (and whether acute or chronic), it’s never easy for the person struggling. Most times, a person suffering from depressive symptoms wants to improve and feel well, but the nature of the struggle makes it difficult to be motivated to take the necessary steps.