Blog | Tristonmorgan

Unfaithful: Saving Your Marriage After Marital Infidelity

Marriage is not just founded on love and intimacy – it is also based strongly on trust and commitment. Infidelity is like a wrecking ball that can demolish this foundation and leave the marriage in shambles. What is Infidelity? Infidelity can be manifested in various ways, depending on how an individual and couple see it. The bottom line is that there are strong feelings for someone else other than your spouse. These feelings of connection are usually surrounded by deceit and secrecy. This can be an outright sexual affair, an emotional affair, a fling or one-night stand, an online dalliance or even unrequited feelings by a spouse that does not involve any physical contact. Finding Out The discovery of your spouse’s infidelity can turn your world upside down – the emotional morass of denial, anger, bitterness, shame, fear and guilt can be overwhelming. The pain of finding out your spouse’s betrayal can make you ready to call it quits. But th...

Job Burnout and Counseling

The economic downturn has, more and more, produced a lot of victims. Today’s economic challenges do not only produce jobless workers, but workers who are scared of losing their jobs and will do anything to keep their job. Aside from those who are in fear for their livelihood, possible candidates for job burnout include those who have a high level of job dissatisfaction, who have a problematic family life, who have poor work prospects and those who feel unfairly treated and discriminated against. Reading through this list, can you consider yourself a candidate for job burnout? Burning both ends of the candle can result in serious consequences – not just physically but also psychologically and emotionally. While you can blaze hard and fast and gain a lot of headway in your career, if you’re not careful, the long days of work and the accompanying stress will take its toll on you eventually. Aside from its effects on your health and well-being, it can also have negative consequences ...

I Love Me! Improving Low Self Esteem with Counseling

As the late and celebrated Whitney Houston sang, “Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.” Out of one’s love and respect for himself arises other attitudes about love, life and friendship. If you love and like yourself, you expect others to treat you well. If you have a poor sense of self, you tend to treat yourself poorly and accept poor treatment as “something you deserve”. Based on statistics from the NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health), 25% of psychological disorders are inevitably founded on low self-esteem. That means those who suffer from depression, those with suicidal tendencies, trauma victims (victims of bullying, sexual abuse, physical abuse and so on), teen pregnancy and eating disorders have unhealthy self-images. Possessing low self-esteem can start from childhood and continue well into adulthood. Teens are especially vulnerable to developing low self-esteem, especially at a time when they feel the need to be accepted and to belong to...

Codependency and Therapy

Substance abuse does not only affect the addicted person. It’s like throwing a pebble on a calm lake – the ripples will be far-reaching. The first layer of those affected would be loved ones, particularly ones living with the addicted person. This includes his or her spouse, as well as children. Sometimes, the behaviors and reactions developed by those living with an addicted person can be so that it revolves around the problem and results in a dysfunctional way of life for the family involved. Without the help of family counseling in Utah, the codependency will perpetuate, to the detriment of the family. Problems are not properly threshed out and family members respond to the problem by developing risky attitudes of their own. What is Codependency? Here are some quotes from experts that give a picture of what codependency is like: “We begin tolerating abnormal, unhealthy, and inappropriate behaviors. Then we...

Time Out! How This can Work for Your Marriage

Time-outs are not just a useful tool in disciplining your kids. You can actually use this in your marriage as well. Time outs can give you and your spouse time to calm down before a disagreement makes a turn for the worse and goes out of hand. Couples fight – that’s a given. However, anger can make someone do crazy things, say things he or she would not normally say. During the heat of the argument, barbs may be thrown at each other way to a point where the wounds inflicted can cause permanent damage. Responding out of anger, annoyance or exasperation will not actually help resolve a problem. Anger can cause you to resort in name calling, making threats or throwing insults. According to Utah counselors, it will work best for the couple to take a breather rather than allow the argument to escalate. A time out can help: - Cool tempers down so as to be more able to communicate more effectively – to listen a...

Teens and Alcohol: How Family Therapy Can Help

Beware: Alcoholism and substance abuse is not an adult problem. Teens can also fall victim to the lure of alcohol. In fact, teens may be particularly vulnerable, since the teenage years is a trying and confusing time. There is the added pressure from peers and the need to be accepted and to “look cool”. Alcohol is a teenager’s substance of choice. Teenagers often have the misconception that being able to handle one’s alcohol makes one more “grown up”. Alcohol is also attractive since teens like the way alcohol makes them feel – invincible, fearless and happy. According to statistics, 14% of teenagers have experienced being drunk at least once in a given year. In addition, around 8% of adolescents have tried binge drinking, or drinking five or more alcoholic drinks in a row. Parents should not disregard signs of alcohol abuse, thinking that this is just a phase where the teenage child is experimenting. Rather, there are strong indications that early experimentation of alcohol can ...

Raising Confident Children with Praise

The right kind of praise can help build up a child’s sense of self and confidence. However, the wrong kind of praise will actually be detrimental to the development of a child. The words, “Good boy!” “Great job!” or “That was wonderful!” does not provide constructive praise. This kind of praise is “lazy praise” since it really does not give the child any value. There is one school of thought that encourages the giving out of praise. There is also another that fears that too much praise can spoil a child. So, how much and what kind of praise can help build confident individuals without necessarily building kids that are spoiled with praise? One important thing is that praise should not be manipulative – given only when a child makes us feel good of gives us what we want. Rather, praise should be given to highlight a child’s good behavior and to encourage that behavior. Here are some ways to give “proper” praise: Focus on the process and the effort, rather than the ou...

Parenting Styles and How they Influence Children

How you parent reflects your unique personality. Your parenting style is formed by many factors and is based on an overall pattern of your actions, reactions and interactions between you and your child. Diana Baumrind and her fellow researchers have outlined various parenting styles based on the characteristics that particular style fosters in a child. A parenting style may encourage openness, self-sufficiency, self-discipline, achievement, friendliness or maturity. Parenting Styles Your parenting style will be characterized by four dimensions: communication styles, nurture and warmth, discipline style and expectations of maturity and control. Based on these, how you parent will predominantly fall under one of the four: - Authoritarian. “Because I said so” is the theme of this style. Under this parenting style, a parent provides the rules and expects the child to follow without question; otherwise, a child can face...

Making Mountains Out of Molehills? Minimizing Behaviors and Your Marriage

“So I made a mistake. Pooh, pooh. I already said I’m sorry. Why can’t we not make a big deal out of this?” “It wasn’t that serious. Let’s forget about it and move on.” We go into marriage recognizing that our significant other is not perfect – nor are we. We are bound to make mistakes – and some mistakes may have more serious consequences than others. Our mistakes (willful or otherwise) will have negative consequences on our union. When one strays and commits adultery, it will hurt the other spouse. When a wife is addicted to shopping and spending, it will not only strain the family’s finances but the couple’s relationship as well. We sometimes have negative behaviors. What is important is learning how to deal with mistakes from both sides of the coin. For the person who was offended to be able to deal with it and forgive the erring spouse, as well as for the offending party to take responsibility for the consequences and to recognize and validate the other spouse’s hurt feeling...

Getting Help for Binge Eating Disorder

For some, food is a good source of comfort. We each have a go-to food for when we feel depressed or stressed out. We also have times when we help ourselves to more of our fair share of food – when we go out on a buffet, or during special occasions such as Christmas or Thanksgiving. However, for binge eaters, the compulsion to overeat is something that happens regularly. What is Binge Eating? Binge eating or compulsive overeating is when a person regularly gorges himself with food. Even as he does, he feels that he is powerless to resist the compulsion and cannot stop even when he is already full or already feels sick because of all the food ingested. There may be feelings of stress or disgust during the eating binge. By binge, it usually means eating rapidly without enjoying or tasting the food. Binge eating is often a response to the pressure caused by going on a major diet. This disorder usually begins during one’s late teens or early adulthood. The binge ep...

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