#89 - Parenting Without Losing Your Mind... or Your Marriage

Are there emotional vampires lurking all around you?  Unfortunately, this isn’t a problem you can solve with a garlic necklace or some holy water. An “emotional vampire” (or “energy vampire”) is a very unscientific term for a person who stirs up strong emotional reactions in others — like anger, pity, discomfort, or annoyance. Not only do they not take accountability for this, they seem to feed off of it. They drain your time, energy, and emotional wherewithal, and give you little in exchange.  If a relationship is feeling bad, it could be that you’re dealing with one of these exhausting personality types. But sometimes, it’s more about the ingredients that you’re bringing to the table (or not bringing to the table). Many people need some help telling the difference, and I created this episode about “warding off emotional vampires” to make it a little easier. You’ll learn why certain people trigger you (while other people get along with them just fine), and how you can prevent emotional vampires from bleeding you dry.  Happy Halloween,  Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby GrowingSelf.com

31 Loka 20221h 12min

Learning how to face your fears productively can give you clarity, direction, and — ironically — peace of mind. No one likes to feel afraid, but fear can be a powerful tool for living the life you want to live. Fear will alert you when you’re not living in alignment with your goals and your values. If you can face your fear and take wisdom from it, you can open doors that you wouldn’t otherwise have the clarity or the motivation to open.  Today’s podcast is all about facing your fears. I’m talking about why we feel fear, how fear can illuminate what’s most important to us, and how you can take guidance from your fear to live more fully and more in alignment with your values.  With love,  Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby GrowingSelf.com

24 Loka 20221h 7min

Red flags in relationships aren’t always easy to spot. Even when we do pick up on them, they can be easy to dismiss. If you’re a hopeful, optimistic, generous person, you’re probably pretty good at making excuses for questionable behavior from others, and at thinking of opportunities to improve difficult situations when it would really be in your best interest to walk away.  Furthermore, you may have a hard time spotting red flags in relationships because of your own personal history. Sometimes, our past experiences can distort our natural sense of what’s good for us and what’s not, which is a problem that working with a good therapist or a qualified life coach can help you resolve. By learning to trust your own instincts and recognize red flags, you can choose healthy relationships that add joy and love to your life.  Tune into this episode to hear actionable advice on red flags in relationships, and how you can navigate them when they do arise. My guest is Dr. Paige M., a couples counselor and individual therapist on the team at Growing Self. Dr. Paige is sharing some insightful tips that can save you a lot of stress and heartache — you don’t want to miss this one.  With love,    Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby www.growingself.com

17 Loka 20221h 5min

Over the past few decades, we’ve made some huge strides toward building equality in our relationships. It’s no longer rare for a woman to be her family’s primary breadwinner, or to see a dad perusing the produce aisle with a Baby Bjorn strapped to his chest.  Yet, for many couples who arrive in couples counseling or relationship coaching, the division of household labor is still a perennial source of conflict and resentment. Many couples still fall into traditional gender roles when it comes to who’s doing the cleaning, the cooking, and the shopping, even though it’s now the norm for both partners to work full-time.  Furthermore, tasks or roles associated with “women’s work” are often viewed as being less valuable and important than activities associated with traditional male roles. Even relationships between career-focused women and stay-at-home dads can have issues with power imbalances and inequality because we value these types of work differently based on our attitudes about gender. Relationships that feel imbalanced and unfair are not only bad for the partner who’s doing most of the daily household tasks. They’re bad for the relationship itself, and for both partners inside of it. Becoming truly equal partners is often the path to creating a happier, more connected, and more fulfilling relationship (and, interestingly, a better sex life), and that’s what we’re discussing on today’s episode of the podcast.  My guest is Kate Mangino, a gender expert, speaker, and the author of “Equal Partners: Improving Gender Equality at Home.” Kate is sharing wisdom from her extensive social science research, her two decades of work within the international development sector, as well her own life and relationship, to help you find more balance and create a truly equal partnership that feels fair and fulfilling.  I hope you’ll tune in to this important conversation on equality in relationships, which not only applies to heterosexual couples, but to anyone who has some internalized gender scripts to interrogate (in other words, everyone!)   With love,  Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby www.GrowingSelf.com

10 Loka 20221h 10min

When you become a step-parent, you’re walking into a tricky situation. You may have the warmest feelings for your step-kids and a heartfelt desire to be a positive figure in their lives, and still find yourself thrust into the role of “wicked step-mother” (or step-father), with the pain of their parents’ broken marriage heaped onto your back… while your partner stands by helplessly. As a longtime marriage counselor, I know blended family problems like these are common, and incredibly challenging to overcome. It’s one of the reasons I advise couples to seek blended family counseling as a preventative measure, before problems arise. I also advise taking a very thoughtful approach to blending your families, and examining your expectations for what the role of step-parent will look and feel like.    Listen to “the dos and don’ts of step-parenting” to get real-deal advice on how to avoid the most common step parenting mistakes, and learn an approach to step-parenting that helps you release unhelpful expectations so you can create a happy, harmonious blended family.   With love,  Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby GrowingSelf.com

3 Loka 20221h 23min

What is your apology language? And, more importantly… what’s your partner’s?  As an experienced marriage counselor and couples therapist, I know that apologizing is an essential skill for healthy relationships.  But not all apologies are created equal. Just as partners must learn to speak each other’s love languages to help each other feel cared for, they must also learn to apologize in ways that feel meaningful to their partner and pave the way to genuine forgiveness. Tune in to learn all about apology languages, the anatomy of a good apology, and how you can repair “relationship injuries” and get things back on track with the people you love the most.  Xoxo,  Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby

26 Syys 202247min

On today’s episode of the podcast, we’re covering a topic that doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves: the unique challenges of maintaining a relationship when you or your partner are members of the military, and how you can keep your military relationship healthy and strong.  If you or your partner (or both of you!) are service members, you know that the military can feel like a mistress, always meddling on the edges of your relationship… and sometimes high-jacking it completely. No matter how in love with each other you are, or how committed to your partnership you feel, it’s hard to be moved from place to place because of distant orders that you had little or no say in. It’s hard to have a career that takes you away from your partner and your children for extended periods of time. It’s hard to take care of everything on the home front by yourself, especially if you’re stationed far away from family and friends.  And it can be especially hard to find a marriage counselor or a long-distance relationship counselor who understands these unique challenges, and how to help military couples overcome them. Luckily, we have just such an expert joining us on this episode of the podcast. Jesse S., M.S, LMFT, is a marriage counselor and relationship coach here at Growing Self. He’s also a member of the military with over two decades of service, currently serving in the Connecticut National Guard as a First Sergeant in the 141st Ground Ambulance Unit. In addition to treating bodily wounds, he’s passionate about helping other service members heal and grow as individuals, and within their relationships. Today, he’s sharing his insight and guidance with you. I hope you’ll join us! With love,  Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby

19 Syys 20221h 4min

When you’re crushing on somebody, you’re not dreaming about how supportive they’d be if your mother was in the hospital, or how adept they’ll be at receiving your feedback in the midst of a furious argument. No — you’re much too focused on how cute their eyes look when they smile, or how nice they smell.    That’s because we’re attracted to people based on their physical appearance, and their personalities (insofar as we can know someone’s personality within a few months of dating).   This isn’t because we’re all shallow jerks — it’s just that we’re biologically primed to hone in on the qualities that make for an excellent short-term mate (short-term as in, long enough to make a baby and keep it alive until it can walk), rather than the deep personal qualities that actually make for a good life partner.    Whether you’re dating or in a relationship, it’s to your benefit to learn about these deeper qualities, so that you can recognize them in others and cultivate them in yourself. If you can focus on character over chemistry in your relationships, you can create a partnership that’s healthy, strong, and truly built to last.    On this episode of the podcast, I’m going to tell you how. Using insight I’ve gained through working with countless couples over the years in marriage counseling and relationship coaching, I’m going to tell you what actually makes a good life partner — and how you can develop your own “good partner” skills to create better relationships.    With Love,  Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby GrowingSelf.com

5 Syys 202259min