10 Rules for Friendly Fighting for Couples

By Marie Hartwell-Walker, Ed.D.

For some people, this is a truly radical idea: There is no need to fight with your partner. Ever. Accusations, recriminations, character assassination, threats, name-calling, and cursing, whether delivered at top volume or with a quiet sarcastic sneer, damage a relationship, often irrevocably. Nobody needs to be a monster or to be treated monstrously. Nobody who yells will ever be heard. In the heat of a moment, it is always a choice whether to go for a run or run your partner down.

On the other hand, no two people in the world, no matter how made for each other they feel, will ever agree about everything at all times. (It would be quite boring if they did.) Couples do need to be able to negotiate differences. They do need to have room for constructive criticism. They do need a way to assert opinions and to disagree. And they do need to have a way to express intense feelings (that the other person may not understand or support) without feeling that they will be judged as lacking for doing so.

A healthy relationship requires knowing the skills necessary for “friendly fighting” — dealing with conflict respectfully and working together to find a workable solution. Friendly fighting means working out differences that matter. It means engaging passionately about things we feel passionate about, without resorting to hurting one another. It helps us let off steam without getting burned. Friendly fighting lets us “fight” and still stay friends.

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7 Signs of Unfriendly Fighting

By Marie Hartwell-Walker, Ed.D.

Roger and Robin have been married and fighting for 8 years. They both say they don’t like it. They both claim it’s the other’s fault. They both say they love each other but they can’t stand the fighting. On the brink of divorce, they’ve made the first agreement that either can remember, to come to therapy.

During the first session, they do me the favor of having a fight. It really is helpful. I get to see up close what it is that they do to make sure that a fight goes nowhere. Not surprisingly, there’s a pattern to it. Roger and Robin have become experts in the tactics of unfriendly fighting. Any conflict quickly spreads in all directions except the original one. Perhaps you recognize the signs.

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Red Flags: Dating with Caution and Your Intuition

Online dating is a reflection of the real word. While liars, cheaters and impostors certainly ply their craft on the Web, you’ll also find them in nightclubs, among the members of dating services, at cocktail parties and occasionally sitting across from you at the breakfast table. Regardless of where, or how, you meet someone, dating is always a gamble. A little caution will reduce your risk in these matters of the heart.

Be careful whom you trust and take your time getting to know someone:
In a perfect world we all want to believe that whoever we talk to is an honest and decent person.  But in today’s real and virtual and worlds, you must guard against trusting the untrustworthy and giving away your love under circumstances that could come back to haunt you. Exercise caution and proceed slowly. What do you really know about this person? How can you be sure? Any suitor must earn your trust gradually, through consistently honorable, forthright behavior. Don’t give it away for the asking — and you will be asked. As an added precaution, make sure you set up a secondary email account, to be used just for this relationship, which you can shut down should things seem not right.

Your instincts are right 99% of the time. Trust yourself. Go with your instincts, even when they can’t be logically explained. When something feels wrong, it generally is. When someone appears untrustworthy, they usually are. If you want to substantiate an intuitive hunch, hire a service to check on your suitor’s background (criminal records, home ownership, bankruptcy, divorce, etc.). These services can be found on the Web or in your Yellow Pages under Investigators. While background information may reassure you about someone’s history, it provides no guarantees about future behavior. Ask yourself why you are dating someone you feel the need to investigate.  Ask yourself: Is she who she says she is? Is he/she honest? A murderer? A rapist? A gold digger?

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Bipolars and Internet Romance: Online to Offline – Taking the Leap

By Paula

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at reasons why people with bipolar disorder may be particularly vulnerable to the hazards of online relationships, and Part 2 covered what to watch for when you meet someone, and ways to protect you online. Now suppose the person you have met has passed all the tests and you’ve decided to take the next step – a face-to-face meeting.

Don’t assume that because the object of your affections has not tripped any warning lights during your online relationship, it is perfectly safe to meet. Keep in mind that when chemistry is the strongest, you are the most vulnerable. Before you dismiss an online relationship as “harmless,” remember that the lack of accountability, the ease of deception, and the anonymity provided by the keyboard all make the online relationship a potential source of instability and even danger.

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Bipolars and Internet Romance: Warning Signals and Self-Protection

By Paula

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at reasons why people with bipolar disorder may be particularly vulnerable to the hazards of online relationships. Now suppose you have met someone via the internet who appeals to you. There are several precautions you can take and a number of warning signals to watch for – signals that can tell you the person on the other end of the chat, forum or email relationship is not what he or she appears to be.

How do you protect yourself?

1. Be aware of the red flags listed below.
2. Run your relationship past an unafflicted family member or friend for a second opinion. Listen to his or her responses. Tell your online partner up front that you will be doing this. If the online person insists that you keep the relationship a secret, it’s a sure bet that there are troubled waters ahead.
3. If at any time your instinct tells you that something is wrong … it probably is. Run, do not walk, to the nearest exit.

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Bipolars and Internet Romance: What Makes Internet Relationships So Desirable?

By Paula

People are drawn to cyber-romances for the same reasons they are drawn to face-to-face romances – either they don’t have a “real-life” love relationship, or there is something missing in their “real-life” love relationship. On the internet, they may indeed find what they are missing. Or, because of the partial anonymity of cyberspace – which allows lots of room for fantasy and imagination – they may only THINK they have found what they are missing.

The “exotic” and/or “magical” quality of cyber-romances might be one factor that attracts some people. The lover’s presence enters your home (or office) without the person physically being there, which feels very magical. People also enjoy the secrecy that an internet romance provides. An internet romance can be carried out from home or office without the knowledge of others around us.

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10 Ways to Support Your Bipolar Mate

By G.J. Gregory (Expert Bipolar)

So your spouse or loved one has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and you are wondering how to handle it. Like many, you may run to the library and return with an armful of books that will take six months to read. Or you may jump on the Internet and try to wade through a thousand pages of useless information for one page of relevance. Or you may reach out to others that have similar afflictions.

Here is a quick top ten list of suggestions and things to remember if your loved one is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Keep in mind this is written from the point of view of the bipolar disorder “sufferer”. In the near future, we’ll revisit this topic from my wife’s point of view.

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Bipolar Relationships

by Michele Soloway

Bipolar relationships are difficult to maintain, but they can work, if you work at them. No different from a non-bipolar relationship, if you love each other, you will do whatever it takes to make the relationship work. And there are three things that every relationship takes to work: communication, trust, and honesty.

Mood swings are a major characteristic of Bipolar Disorder, and you will find that even with medication to control the moods, you will still struggle with low moods here and there, and find that these low moods will have an influence on your relationship, especially if your partner does not have Bipolar Disorder him/herself, which is usually the case. So you will need an extra amount of understanding and compassion to make your relationship work.

In addition to communication, trust, and honesty, bipolar relationships depend on two things:

1. The degree of control that the partner with bipolar disorder has upon his/her moods.
2. The degree of understanding and patience that the non-bipolar partner has of the bipolar partner’s moods.
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Humor: Top 10 Signs Your Girlfriend May be Bipolar

This isn’t to be used as a diagnostic tool. It is purely comedic.

10. She is blonde AND still has an IQ of 140.

9. She thinks PMS is for wimps.

8. There are times in the year were she STOPS talking.

7. She is the one in the Club dancing with glow sticks for hours without taking a break.

6. She takes drugs to have a normal state instead of freaking out.

5. One word – EXTREME
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How to Know if You’re Really in Love

by Mike Hardcastle

The question, “How can I tell I’m in love?”, is very common, but it is not  easy to answer. What feels like love to one person may be nothing more than attraction to another. Some people fall in and out of love quickly and often while others are never really in love as much as they are in lust. This can get confusing when you are a teen because romantic love is a relatively new concept for you and you don’t know what to expect. You are overwhelmed with all sorts of new feelings and social pressures. They are confusing. What is love? What makes you want a romantic relationship with one person and not another? How does your heart choose a partner? Why does love end? These questions can’t be easily answered.

One of the most confusing quasi-love feelings is lust. Lust is a very powerful, very intense feeling of physical attraction toward another person. Lust is mainly sexual in nature – the attraction is superficial based on instant chemistry rather than genuine caring. Usually we lust after people we do not know well, people we still feel comfortable fantasizing about. It is very common for people to confuse lust for love. But why? What is it about lust and love that make them so easy to mix up? If lust is all about sex, how can a relationship without sex be about lust? Teens struggle with this because they see lust in the Biblical sense, but lust isn’t that sinister. Lust is about physical attraction and acting ONLY on physical attraction. Love is about much more than that. Yet many teens (and to be fair, many adults) confuse an intense attraction for some sort if divine love. For teens, since feelings of attraction are still new and since pop-culture sells sex and love as one package, it is very easy to get the two mixed up.

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