Can You Really "Work" on a Relationship?

In my practice, many couples come to me - their relationship is not good and they want it to be better. And as many of you may or may not know, I do not see couples together - except for the first time and then to bring them back together intermittently for check-ins. And that's because there's really no such thing as working on a relationship - the only thing you can ever really work on is yourself.

A relationship is nothing more than the dynamic that exists between two people - if both people are healthy, the relationship is healthy, and if both people are dysfunctional, the relationship is dysfunctional.

I am less concerned about preserving the actual relationship at hand - my focus is always on the relationship you have with your Self. I tell couples when they come to me - I have no agenda as to whether you will be together or apart - the only thing I care about is that you feel good about yourself - because unless you like yourself, unless you have self-respect and self-esteem, you cannot have good relationships, plain and simple.

The key - with relationships - liking someone else and yourself at the same time.
Friends - What's it all About?

I've had one friend for forty years, several for thirty years and a few for 20 years. I gave up acquaintances a long time ago. It's not really that I gave them up, it's just that I don't plan to get together with them anytime soon. If I'm out and about and I run into them, I enjoy the interaction, but that's about it.

I guess that's because connecting is what it's all about for me. I enjoy hanging out with people who really like themselves and feel comfortable in their own skin. This means I get to be totally myself. I delight in my friends' quirkiness and I guess they delight in mine.

Healthy people enjoy the differences and connect beneath the surface. The connection creates a safe place to grow and flourish and make mistakes. It is a place where you can be silly, loose your self-consciousness, take down the boundaries that separate you from another. Good connections make you feel loving and that love is good for the world.

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