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Your low self-esteem can creep into different aspects of your life and cause great trouble. It is especially problematic in a relationship. People with low self-esteem are prone to self-sabotaging their relationships simply because their lack of confidence begins impacting their ability to communicate with their partners.

Here’s how your low self-esteem is affecting your relationship:

1. You Find It Challenging To Express Yourself

When you’re unable to speak your mind and are walking on egg shells around your partner simply because you don’t want to start a conflict, it’s going to start to take a toll on your emotional health and your relationship.

Open communication is necessary for a healthy relationship. It’s crucial that you express your thoughts without any hesitancy. By not speaking your mind you may begin developing resentment toward your partner without realizing it.

Working on your self-esteem will help you build the confidence you need to express your emotions without fearing conflicts.

2. You’ll Be Taken For Granted

You don’t need to be in a relationship to know that poor self-esteem gives people the green light to walk all over you. People with low self-esteem have trouble standing up for themselves. They don’t know how to say “no” and struggle with setting boundaries.

People tend to mistreat other’s who can’t stand up for themselves so unless you’re willing to be more assertive in the relationship, don’t be surprised if you’re constantly taken advantage of.

3. You’ll Have Lackluster Relationship

People with low self-esteem have a tendency to play the victim. They feel like no matter what they do, their circumstances won’t change and as a result they don’t make an effort at all.

When you have low self-esteem, it may cause you to make mistakes in your relationships. One of these mistakes is not putting enough energy or effort into your relationship, because you feel like it doesn’t matter anyway.

4. It Causes Misunderstandings

Poor self-esteem and misunderstandings go hand in hand. People with low self-esteem don’t correct others and let them assume that everything is fine even when it isn’t. When you have low self-esteem you have a tendency to believe things that simply aren’t true; this, once again, causes resentment to build up over time.

Working on your self-esteem allows you to be more vocal so your partner knows exactly how you’re feeling. You can address misunderstanding before they start causing problems between the both of you.

A seasoned psychotherapist can help you address issues that may have caused your self-esteem to plummet over the years. They can suggest techniques and give you the tools to build your self-esteem over time so you can enjoy a healthy and fulfilling relationship.

Azizeh Rezaiyan is a therapist at Silicon Valley Marriage Counselling based in Palo Alto in the Bay Area. Azizeh has many years of experience under her belt and has a knack for handling complex cases with great sensitivity. She specializes in couple’s counselling, family meditation, anxiety treatments and other psychotherapy treatments.

Call (650) 206-9973 to book an appointment.

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Failing to provide the emotional support that is expected of you in a relationship is referred to as emotional neglect.

Some psychologists consider emotional neglect as a mild form of emotional abuse. Any sort of emotional pain triggered by the actions of a partner can be considered emotional abuse; therefore, emotional neglect is also abuse.

Consistent emotional neglect will create a wedge between partners overtime and may break their relationship.

Here are some telltale signs that you may be emotionally neglecting your partner:

Infrequent intimacy

Intimacy is a necessary component of a romantic relationship. If you’re no longer as intimate as you once were with your partner, it’s a red flag. Sure, life is stressful and you’re both busy but you should want to make time for each other. Intimacy is needed to connect with your partner at a physical and emotional level.

It’s one thing when both you and your partner are too caught up with other things and there’s a mutual understanding that you’re busy. But if your partner is sitting around waiting for you, it becomes a problem. They’re expecting intimacy and you’re letting them down.

Not Asking About Their Day

Your spouse’s life may not be that interesting but it’s important to ask about their day to show them that you care about what’s going on in their lives. When you don’t ask about their day, they’ll feel like you aren’t interested in what they do when you’re not around.

Make it a point to ask about their interests to remind them that you do care about what matters to them.

You’re Stuck in a Routine

Married couples often struggle with keeping things interesting. Having lived together for so many years, it’s only natural for people to fall into a routine. As great as the stability of marriage is, going through the same stuff day after day can get repetitive and dull.

At the beginning of a relationship you pull all stops to create amazing memories and make your partner feel special but after years of being together, you no longer feel the urge to be spontaneous and create new memories. The problem with this is that you and your partner will start looking for new things elsewhere.

Don’t be surprised if your partner seems drawn to someone else who brings back the element of novelty in their lives.

If you’re in the relationship for the long-run, be prepared to make the effort to keep things fresh and interesting; no one wants to feel like they’re wasting their life away by being stuck in a rut.

Is your relationship suffering from emotional neglect? You may benefit from couple’s counseling.

Azizeh Rezaiyan is a marriage counsellor at Silicon Valley Marriage Counselling based in Palo Alto in the Bay Area. She specializes in couple’s counselling, family meditation, anxiety treatments and other psychotherapy treatments.

Call (650) 206-9973 to book an appointment.

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New romances are exhilarating. When both partners click, the initial desire and passion convinces us that this person is for keeps.

All the feelings and special moments you share in the early stages of a relationship become reference points for the rest of your journey together. At the beginning of every relationship it feels like you have everything you need for it to work out. You stare longingly at your partner, you miss them when they aren’t around and everything about them makes you smile.

Few people think about what will happen when the spark fizzles out and whether they’ll still be able to make it work. When the relationship loses its newness and becomes mundane, it’s natural for people to begin noticing others and even feel attracted to them.

Extramarital attraction is common, but if you want to maintain your relationship, it’s important to know how to manage it. People usually trust the commitments made to their partners but without realizing it they expose themselves to situations where they are vulnerable.

If you want to strengthen your marriage and eliminate the threat of extramarital affairs, use the following tips:

Know What Attracts You

As a self-aware adult, you’ll know exactly what it makes you tick, you know your needs and the expectations you have from your spouse. When our needs aren’t met, we tend to look elsewhere to have them fulfilled, which makes us vulnerable to other’s advances.

In healthy marriages, spouses communicate openly without any hesitancy. When their needs aren’t being met, they tell their spouses and work together on solutions. By telling their spouse, they take up responsibility and show awareness that their marriage can be in danger; they’re being proactive.

Don’t Put Your Spouse On A Pedestal

It’s nice that you support, compliment and celebrate your spouse; however, it’s just as important to recognize their flaws and shortcomings. No one’s perfect; not even you. Your spouse’s flaws make them human.

Don’t set yourself up for disappointment by putting your spouse on a pedestal; instead, embrace their flaws; it’s just another part of loving them.

Set Boundaries

Recognizing that someone is attractive isn’t a problem—acting upon it is. If you find yourself intentionally looking to gain someone’s attention, you’re in the wrong. You lack discipline and are putting your marriage at risk.

Setting boundaries prevents you from being in situations where you may be tempted to make a move. For example, if you find yourself attracted to someone at work, don’t have lunch alone with them and keep your conversation to the minimum.

Don’t Fan The Flames

Attraction is human, there’s no way to stop yourself from feeling it. However, if you feel like it’s becoming too difficult for you to not act on it, be open with your spouse about it. In a strange way this takes away power from the attraction. Instead of keeping the attraction to yourself and fantasizing about the individual, you put your relationship at the forefront and do what is right for your marriage.

Now that everything is out in the open, you and your spouse can take steps to address the problems in your marriage.

Azizeh Rezaiyan is a marriage counsellor at Silicon Valley Marriage Counselling based in Palo Alto in the Bay Area. She specializes in couple’s counselling, family meditation, anxiety treatments and other psychotherapy treatments.

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Finding out that your partner has cheated on you is perhaps one of the most traumatic experiences anyone can go through. I believe that loving someone is a choice and when you’re emotionally invested in another person, in many ways it’s a process where you attach a certain amount of meaning to them. In a loving relationship, people attach value judgments to their significant others that have the same significance as the very ground beneath them.

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It’s not easy to find true love and your odds are further severed if you’re navigating a new relationship as a single parent who lost a partner to death.

Between mending your broken heart to protecting your child’s emotional health, there’s a lot at stake here. So how do you let someone in, at a time when you’ve shut yourself out?

Don’t Hide Anything

Whether you’re heading for drinks with friends, to find new people or signing up for a dating website, never conceal your truth. Come clear from the get-go. It might seem scary and might narrow down your prospects, but it’ll also save you time beating around the bush, attracting people who can’t handle the pressure of being with someone who has a kid or ‘baggage’.

Being open about your situation will also help you filter out people who’re just in it for a ‘good’ time and save you from the paradox of choice. As a single parent you know your child is fragile and therefore you can’t jump into relationships with people who’ll leave once the weekend is over. Your child needs someone who’ll stay and that can only happen if you say that upfront to potential love interests.

Don’t Call it Baggage

Your previous relationship and the loss your endured from it are not baggage and neither are your kids. Your partner, may their soul rest in peace, was a huge part of your life. They gave you love, laughter and a lifetime to cherish. Calling it baggage would be nothing short of insulting their memory.

The same goes for your kids. They aren’t baggage. If anything, they’re the bonus that you bring to any relationship. Remember, even when you unconsciously regard your kids as baggage it automatically causes potential love interests to view them in a negative light. Moreover, it might make your child feel unwanted, which is the last thing you want, given they have already lost one parent.

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Take Time Before You Introduce Your New Partner To Your Child

The death of your partner has already shaken your child to the core. Therefore, it’ll take them time to heal from the grave loss. Inflicting them with the knowledge that you’ve already moved on can be met with resentment and loss of trust. As a result, your child might develop abandonment issues and feel alien in their own skin. So, don’t rush into introducing your new partner to your child.

However, hiding the fact that you’ve started dating won’t help either. You must carefully navigate your way and only introduce your partner to your child when you’re sure they’re in it for the long haul.

However, if you still find it difficult to work your way through don’t hesitate to get in touch with Azizeh Rezaiyan at Silicon Valley Marriage Counseling in Palo Alto and Bay area to seek help!

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Though most relationships start with a lot of positivity, joy and expectation, they do not always roll out in that manner. Where there are certain qualities that make a healthy relationship, not all intimate engagements possess these.

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Couples who fight together, stay together; or at least that’s what research says. That’s right! According to a survey of 1000 people, couples who argued effectively lived happier lives than those who didn’t.

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