Doug Burford 1/16/25 Doug Burford 1/16/25

Are We Responsible for Others’ Feelings? Are They Responsible for Our’s?

We’re not responsible for others’ feelings, and they’re not responsible for our’s, but we’re both responsible for how we influence each other.

Doug Burford 1/16/25 Doug Burford 1/16/25

A Few Relationship Essentials

There are some things no relationship—certainly no marriage—can do without.

Doug Burford 12/8/24 Doug Burford 12/8/24

How to Ensure that the Blessing of Children is also a Blessing to your Marriage

A baby changes a marriage. Every parent knows this. But what does the research say about these changes? And most importantly, what does it tell us about how to protect the health of the marriage while we tend to the well-being of the children? Answers from The Gottman Institute and its Bringing Baby Home® curriculum inform this article.

Doug Burford 10/29/24 Doug Burford 10/29/24

What is a Narcissist? A Sociopath? A Psychopath?

What distinguishes a narcissist from a sociopath from a psychopath?

Doug Burford 6/9/24 Doug Burford 6/9/24

Abuse, Narcissism, Borderline and Individual Therapy: Uses and misuses for addressing couple dynamics

Abuse, Narcissism, Borderline, and individual therapy all provide insights into understanding relationships dysfunction. And from all of those insights, necessary self-protective boundaries might be drawn. However, there are limits to each for properly identifying and effectively changing unhealthy relationship dynamics into healthy ones.

Doug Burford 4/1/24 Doug Burford 4/1/24

Better Alternatives to Unhealthy Relating

If your relationship is unhealthy, look to excise these and replace them with better alternatives.

Doug Burford 1/30/24 Doug Burford 1/30/24

Relationships live in this Dynamic Tension

Have you ever wondered why interdependent relationships are so hard? This is why…

Doug Burford 1/25/24 Doug Burford 1/25/24

Contempt: The doorway to divorce

Contempt is the greatest predictor of divorce. Do you know what it is how it’s formed, and how it is overcome?

Doug Burford 12/21/23 Doug Burford 12/21/23

Essential Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): If you’re not in jail, it’s because you’ve used DBT

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), despite it’s clinical and mysterious sound, it quite familiar and absolutely essential to functioning well in life and in relationships.

Doug Burford 10/4/23 Doug Burford 10/4/23

Marital Stages

The stages of marriage are here compared to marriage (or long-term relationship) stages when affected by addiction, by personality disorders (specifically borderline and narcissism) and by other mental health conditions.

Doug Burford 7/13/23 Doug Burford 7/13/23

Commitment is Intentional

Commitment is commitment when it intentionally applies what is purposeful to marital success.

Doug Burford 5/23/23 Doug Burford 5/23/23

Other-Protection as the Universal Antidote to Destructive Patterns

Research has given us words for behaviors and patterns that destroy marriages. The good news is that there is one word that counters them all.

Doug Burford 4/22/23 Doug Burford 4/22/23

There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk: The Romance of Self-Discovery

Doug Burford 4/14/23 Doug Burford 4/14/23

How being right can cost you your relationship

As relationship expert, Terry Real, has said, “You can be right, or you can be in relationship.” Research by The Gottman Institute supports this notion.