arguments Archives ⋆ Mike and Susan Dawson

What Lightning Bolts are you Ignoring in your Marriage?

We recently had the wonderful family cruise, in the Eastern Caribbean. There’s really nothing quite like spending quality time (with no electronics) with people you love. But there was one experience that caught me off guard and may have been one of my most important (enlightening) experiences on the trip. STRANGE NOISES The last night of the cruise, Mike and I had laid down to go to sleep, bags packed, next day clothes and toothbrushes ready for early morning departure. I was reading a bit before turning off the light and kept hearing this strange noise. I couldn’t identify it AND it just kept happening. There wasn’t really any rhythm [...]

Communication Transformation

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2017-04-20T18:13:43+00:00Communication, Emotion|

Frustrated by not being able to talk? Tired of finding that your attempts at problem solving just lead to negativity and high drama? Overwhelmed by conversations that always go south? We see this problem in both counseling sessions and in marriage groups. We hear all too often, “we just can’t talk without it becoming an argument or a fight.” Why do so many couples go down this road? Gary Smalley in The DNA of Relationships understands it exactly; and it’s exactly what we see with couples time and time again. He says there are four ways couples waste time and frustrate the process when it comes to having a conversation [...]