Archive for May 2009
Finding a Good Marriage Counselor
A good marriage counselor can be very helpful. Working on the issues in your marriage may seem simple but sometimes it is helpful to have an objective marriage counselor to assist you. A good marriage counselor will give you tools and techniques to improve your communication and help you deal with your problems in a healthy way. Seeing a marriage counselor can make you feel like you have hope for a happy marriage. A marriage counselor knows how to help couples facing money issues, issues with their sex life and other issues that couples often face and can help you overcome your problems.
Top Three Reasons to Look for a Marriage Counselor:
1. To allow you to better deal with the strong emotions that are associated with problems in a marriage.
2. To help you find a path to a happy and satisfying marriage that you can be excited about.
3. To give you the tools you need to work on the problems in your marriage.
If you and your partner are able to cope with the emotions that problems in your marriage bring, to work towards a resolution to your problems and you have the tools to do this than you probably would not get a lot out of seeing a marriage counselor. Couples really need to try to work out their issues themselves first before seeing a marriage counselor. If you and your partner need help dealing with issues in your marriage, though, you should see a marriage counselor because the issues are not going to go away on their own.
What Should You Look for in a Marriage Counselor?
You can simply open up the phone book for your local area and choose a marriage counselor if you want to. You could also get a recommendation from a trusted religious leader or your doctor. The best way to find a marriage counselor is to talk to a friend or family member that has used a marriage counselor and has a much better relationship now. Not everyone is willing to talk about their experiences with a marriage counselor, though, so this is not always easy to do.
However you go about selecting a marriage counselor it is important to choose wisely so you get someone that can really help you. The marriage counselor needs to be someone who you and your partner can be comfortable with so you both need to have input into the choice of the marriage counselor.
It is important to make sure any marriage counselor you select has the right credentials including a license and certification in family and marriage counseling.
Your marriage counselor should have a current license in the mental health field. The majority of marriage counselors have a certificate and license in marriage and family therapy. Every state has their own rules for licensing therapists and counselors. Marriage counselors in most states have to have a Master or Doctorate degree of some sort, must have done training during graduate school in marriage and family therapy and must have worked under experienced therapists for the required amount of time. A marriage counselor has the option of becoming licensed with the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) which has its own specific requirements for membership.
A marriage counselor can set up their own office or they can operate out of a health clinic, hospital, or a government organization. Your doctor may be able to recommend a good marriage counselor for you to work with or you can ask people you know if they have any recommendations. Other sources for a marriage counselor recommendation include your insurance company, a religious leader or local government organizations. Or you can just open up the phone book and look there.
When you are looking for a marriage counselor you will want to be sure to ask potential therapists the right questions.
Here are some questions you should ask:
What licenses and certifications do you hold and what professional organizations are you affiliated with?
What degrees do you have and what training have you gone through?
How many couples have you counseled with our specific problems?
What are your fees?
Will our insurance cover any of the fees?
What is your office location and your hours of operation?
What is the length of the sessions you offer?
How often would we meet with you?
How long would we have to attend therapy sessions?
What do you do if we have to cancel a therapy session?
Are you available if we have an emergency?
How Much Does Marriage Counseling Cost?
In most cases, you and your partner will be responsible for part if not all of the cost of the marriage counselor. What types of rates can you expect from a marriage counselor? You can pay anything from $50 to $200 for a session with a marriage counselor but the average price per hour is close to $100. The average couple will spend about 3 months in therapy, meeting with their marriage counselor weekly so the process will probably end up costing close to $1200. This is the average cost of therapy for most couples. Depending on how severe your issues are, though, you could meet with your counselor weekly for as long as a year or two. This could mean spending as much as $10,000 on the therapy but it is a small price to pay if you avoid a divorce.
If you put the cost of a marriage counselor in perspective by looking at how important to you mentally and emotionally to have a happy marriage than it doesn’t seem so expensive after all. You will get more satisfaction from a happy marriage than you would with material goods you could buy with the same money. Actually, people often start working together better and improve their financial situation after they learn how to communicate by seeing a marriage counselor.Â
It will be up to you and your partner to determine when you are ready to stop seeing the marriage counselor.
Often, men are anxious to stop seeing the marriage counselor as soon as possible even if the therapy sessions were their idea. Sometimes men resent the fact that the marriage counselor is telling them what to do and making sure they are following through. Some men go along with the marriage counselor only as long as they have to to make their wives happy and after the therapy sessions are over they are back to behaving the way they were before the therapy.
If you think that your partner is likely to behave this way, you should not stop seeing the marriage counselor until both of you feel you have made significant progress. It may be a good idea to go see the marriage counselor less often but not stop all together. Seeing a marriage counselor can do wonders for your relationship!
Welcome the Dating Coach – the New Super Hero of 21st Century Online Dating
The Online Dating Industry is exploding with millions of new members joining every single day. It is estimated that within the next five years, almost 50% of all single adults will use Online Dating Services to meet other singles!
As more and more people use online dating services and dating agencies to help them find their Soulmates, a new specialty service has emerged in the form of an Online Dating Coach. While the online dating sites compile your personal information so they can do the matchmaking, a Dating Coach works directly with the clients to help them establish and develop the relationships which start within the agency. A Dating Coach has the responsibility of helping clients effectively market themselves on the dating site. Essentially, an Online Dating Coach provides personal coaching services to clients so they can put their best foot forward in making contact with the other dating site members.
An Online Dating Coach is a dating specialist who, after interviewing and working with a client and using special coaching assessment tools, will help the client put his or her thoughts, feelings, and values on paper (so to speak) and in doing so create the client’s Online Dating Profile which will be seen by the other members.
In addition to this, an Online Dating Coach will help his clients see how their thoughts and feelings are affecting their dating matches, and will offer guidance and feedback to enhance the client’s likelihood of success. In many cases, a Dating Coach’s clients have been away from the single marketplace for a good number of years. Therefore a bit of rehabilitation is helpful for some clients as a way to familiarize them with 21st century dating practices. A lot has changed in the world of dating in the past ten or twenty years – indeed, even in the past five years have dating rituals evolved!
A Dating Coach usually works by phone, and typically, weekly or twice-a-week telephone coaching sessions are scheduled at the convenience of the client, sometimes after work and occasionally on the weekends. At the beginning of the coaching process, a Dating Coach will do an initial assessment to get the larger picture of what’s occurred in the client’s personal life. During that assessment, the client’s personal values are mined through a series of open-ended questions. This interview sets the stage for the effective coaching sessions that follow.
Ongoing coaching sessions with a Dating Coach may be as simple as meeting by phone for an hour to discuss the men or women you’ve dated over the past week, or they may become as intricate as having your Dating Coach listen carefully while you practice flirting with strangers, or role playing to get ready for “the big night out.”
Perhaps the most important aspect of selecting a Dating Coach is investigating their professional academic credentials. You’ll want to make sure that your Dating Coach has been professionally trained of course. A Dating Coach who has a background in Psychology or Social Work (if not both) can be very helpful in drawing out the qualities of a client’s personality that he or she may not even be aware of themselves. The Dating Coach can then help the client express themselves so their dates have the benefit of their true feelings and personality. As a simplistic but illustrative example, shyness in a person is often mistaken for conceit. The person who seems unfriendly is often just bashful, but this quality may lead to a misunderstanding – especially on a first date. A properly trained Dating Coach can resolve this type of issue by helping the client compensate for his or her shyness and even make it work in their favor.
As with any form of counseling, when you seek the assistance of a Dating Coach, be objective but also look within so you choose someone who sincerely wants to help you. The more your Dating Coach is willing to work with you as his client, the more committed he is to providing the service he’s promised. At the very least, the service of a Dating Coach will help you learn more about yourself and make you more comfortable with the personality you express to the world. Since a large part of dating is your wish to feel good about yourself through the companionship of another, just feeling better about yourself overall will make your life richer for having had the experience of being coached. And feeling better about yourself can easily lead you to the relationship you’ve been dreaming about – and the reason you joined that dating service in the first place!
How To Have Good Communication In Friendship
Communication in friendship is very important. It determines the kind of relationship there is. Without communication, there is no friendship and this is best known to people who are in friendship relationships. It is very important to have friends who we can talk to. However, all friendships will face some form of problems in regard to communication. The problem is not the imperfection of relationships rather it is the willingness to make things right. It will all be determined by the kinds of friends you make in the first place. Before you become very close to somebody for friendship, it is necessary that you envision a future. There are people who just make life miserable while there are some who help us become better. The latter will always win when it comes to the choice of friendships. We all want a person or people who can help us achieve our goals through their words and encouragement. Communication in friendship is the only way that you can really know the thoughts and the heart of your friend. Therefore, it is a high time to invest in this. When you have a solid foundation, you can work thorough anything in this regard.
Communication in friendship will therefore be determined by the kind of foundation you have. If you have friends who are not mutually of your choice, there is no way that you can have the perfect relationship. Communication in friendship will help determine whether some friends are real and whether others are just playing with you. To have a solid foundation, it must all start with you. You must be lovable for others to trust you. Work on your weaknesses and provide a good environment where love for friends can really grow. Use traits in character to judge who good friends for you will be. This way, you will have better communication once you are in the relationship. When the foundation is right, you can resolve all your problems through proper communication. For example, there are times when you will hurt your friends and because you understand each other, you will find the heart to apologize and move on.
Proper communication in friendship will ensure that you forgive each other where you go wrong. In many friendships, friends stay quiet and they are not able to identify the problem let alone forgive each other. It is vital for all friends to know that friendships are about choices and when you make the right choice to extend an olive branch, you will have saved a lot of heart ache in your relationship. Do not take issues lightly in friendships because you can pay dearly. Remember, friends are there to help us through dark times and, to celebrate with us when times are good. Life is never complete without good friends and friendships are worth saving. Make sure to spend a lot of time together learning what your friends like and what they do not like. These will open doors to communication and your relationships will be enhanced.
Having your Wedding Sponsored Can Save you Thousands of Dollars
A sponsored wedding is not a new concept but a practical one. As the cost of weddings increase so does the realization of sponsorship. What does sponsorship actually mean? It can be as simple as getting a 70% discount on the purchase of invitations or as involved as a large cash injection of $10,000. So why would someone discount or for that matter give cash when they don’t even know the wedding couple. It is commonly referred to as “cross promotion” where you bring on common interest partners that tastefully share in the success of your wedding day or event.
Most sponsors are looking to somehow tie their products or services in with the event itself. Like any advertiser the end product must be to heighten the awareness of the Sponsor and their level of participation in the event. Such as, if a Sponsor gave you 70% off of a service that would have cost you $1900 , the level of participation for that Sponsor is $1330 ( which is your net savings). Now the question is, how do you give that value back to the Sponsor ? This can be done in many different ways but the main objective to remember is the level of awareness the Sponsor has traded in services. Such as offering the Sponsor advertising opportunities on a web site specifically set up for the event, a combination of print and web, tie in to a press junket ( a theme pre-event gathering where press are invited ), or many other combinations. For more information on wedding sponsorship visit www.sponsoryourwedding.com
The Online Dating Coach Offers Easy Guidelines to Make Online Dating a Success
National studies show that 25% of all single adults have paid for the use of Online Dating Services – and – that number is expected to increase to 50% over the next five to seven years!
Will you be one of those who come aboard?
Because of the explosive growth of Online Dating – and especially if you yourself are single and looking for a partner online – it may be helpful to learn the best ways to use Online Dating Sites before actually joining one of them! As an Online Dating Coach, I want to help you make the best use of your time and money in your quest to find your Soulmate.
First and foremost, as in any relationship, honesty will be the most important factor in your finding a partner who shares your values and personal interests.
What type of relationship are you looking for? If you’d like to find someone who’s fun to be with so you can have some play time on the weekends, by stating your goal honestly right at the beginning, there will be a much greater likelihood of meeting someone who has the same vision.
One of the obvious side-benefits of this is your avoiding a series of uncomfortable conversations later about why you won’t commit to the relationship, or why you’re not willing to spend more time together, etc.
Another useful tip when entering the world of Online Dating is to match your choice of dating sites with the type of relationship you’re seeking. If you’re looking for a weekend companion “without any strings attached,” there are dating sites you can join whose members feel the same way. On the other hand, if your goal is to meet someone for marriage, you’d be better off starting with an online dating site whose members have the same intentions. As a Dating Coach, one of the first steps in working with new clients is my assessing their innermost values. By starting with this step, I can better recommend the dating sites that will deliver appropriate matches.
If you’re tired of random dating and not finding someone compatible, then my advice is to join the better known online dating sites which charge for their matchmaking services. Most of these companies use sophisticated compatibility software which match the subtleties of your unique personality. They will also match the basics like your marital status, religion, and education. By asking in-depth questions, and having you rate their importance, many online dating sites produce high success rates for meetings between the same clients. In other words, the match made through the dating service was pleasant enough so both parties wanted to see each other again after their first date.
Finally, to be safe in your quest to find your Soulmate, consider using an anonymous email address (through Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, or something similar) without assigning your true name (and certainly not your last name) to your account, nor should you include your home telephone number. It’s best to get to know someone through the dating site first, before providing this information.
After your initial online email exchange and perhaps one or two IM chat sessions, you should be ready (assuming all goes well) to make plans for a telephone conversation. The proper online dating etiquette would be for the woman to call the man first, blocking her telephone number from Caller ID. Only after one or two successful telephone calls should a face-to-face meeting at a coffee shop be scheduled.
In the interest of safety, always plan your first couple dates in a public place, and even better if it’s during the day. Do not pick up or ask to be picked up for the date. Meet each other at a mutually agreed upon location, and also agree ahead of time to leave each other from a public place so you can drive home in your own cars. If your potential date balks at the suggestion to not be in a vehicle together, look elsewhere for sure. It’s not worth your safety to try to figure out if the person you met online may just be over-sensitive or unaware of the “rules.”
By following these simple guidelines, you can make online dating a success. By the second date, if all goes well, trust should be established and you’ll be on your way to building your next relationship!