humor

Is it possible to get through the holidays without losing your mind, and stability in your marriage?

Around the holidays, like Thanksgiving and Christmas or Hanukkah, couples and families tend to feel additional stress because of all the added pressures and expectations that surround the season. Pesky things like extra work hours, long shopping lists, children out of school and extended family coming to visit can sometimes add worry to what’s supposed to be a joyous time.

During the holiday season, it’s very easy for schedules to become hectic and for every day situations to get chaotic. A time that should be happy and blissful often becomes confusing, and can leave couples feeling overwhelmed and helpless. But there is hope. It can be possible for couples and families to get on the path to enjoying each other and time together during the most stressful of times.

Our guest today, Dr. Michael Howard of Healing Solutions Counseling Center in Charlotte, NC, says the holidays don’t have to be stressful. Along with a few tips and pieces of advice, Michael explains the common triggers of holiday stress and discusses how to mellow them.

To find out more about Michael and his practice, visit his website or call (704) 944-5530 to make an appointment.

Do you have the tools to build a successful marriage?

We’ve all heard the old saying “marriage takes work.” But exactly how much work does it take? Do we all possess the skills that it takes to harbor a successful marriage or are we setting ourselves up for failure?

If you look around at the couples you know, some seem to have a better emotional connection than others. You can tell by their interactions, their body language and even by how they behave apart from their spouses.Do the differences that we see between ourselves and other couples mean that some partners are just luckier than others, or are they on to something that the rest of us don’t know about?

Dr. Bob Dick has been helping couples tap into the skills they need to make a marriage work for more than four decades. In addition to working with couples, individuals and kids at CenterPoint Psychotherapy Associates in Raleigh, NC and Haven Medical Center in Chapel Hill, NC, he trains other psychotherapists. He’s also a 2-term former president of the North Carolina Society of Clinical Hypnosis and an Approved Consultant with The American Society of Clinical Hypnosis.

To find out more about Dr. Bob Dick and his practice, CenterPoint Psychotherapy Associates, you can visit his website or call 919-215-4703 for an appointment.

If there was an instruction book for a happy marriage, would you use it?

No one makes such a great commitment, like marriage, with the assumption that they will one day end up as anything other than happy. So what is the key to a happy marriage when small squabbles and large debates muddy the waters of your love? We often don’t consider these issues unless they’re directly affecting our own marriages. Is it possible to turn a bad situation around when we’re being reactive to a situation rather than being proactive?

In a lot of cases, many little issues add up to become one big issue. If you can identify what some of those “little things” are, you can make any necessary adjustments in your marriage that can help you stay happy as a couple. But how exactly do you work to discover what these problem triggers could be?

Dr. Tina Lepage shares 10 of the humorous secrets to staying happily married from a marriage counselor’s perspective. Tina is founder of Lepage Associates in Durham, North Carolina, where she specializes in couples and marriage therapy. To find out more about Tina Lepage and her practice in Durham, NC,  Lepage Associates, you can visit their website or call (919)572-0000 for an appointment.