listen Archives ⋆ Mike and Susan Dawson

Doing the ‘little things’ to express your love really adds up

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:14:48+00:00Appreciation, Generosity|

When you first get married, you shower your spouse with expensive gifts. Sure, doing the little things to express your love is good, too, but you focus more on cruises, buying jewelry, and even doing a weekend getaway twice a month. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long to realize how expensive everything is getting, right? So you stop — or at least slow down a lot. The question now becomes, “what have you been doing instead to express your love? If your answer is nothing or not a lot, you’re overlooking all those little things that make us feel loved every day. Admit it … it’s the little things that make [...]

Focus in the Right Direction for Relationship Influence

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:17:38+00:00Relationships|

Remember Lucy in the cartoon “Peanuts” by Charles Schultz? She would always ‘tee up’ the football for Charlie Brown, convince him to try to kick it, and then pull it out before he did. Charlie Brown always ended up flat on his back. For all the times Lucy convinced him to try again, she always turned the blame back on Charlie Brown. It is often this way with couples and their relationship, the focus for change is in the wrong direction. Cade and Bea had difficulty talking, and when they did it would escalate and get negative quickly. They each had a laundry list of things the other did, didn’t [...]

Respond and Validate FIRST!

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:17:48+00:00Communication|

Ever start a good conversation with your partner, then out of nowhere it seems like it goes bad? Guess what? You are not alone. What is almost certainly missing is a simple respond and validate. There are very simple keys to having great conversations that do not escalate, go negative, or just go nowhere. Most couples who have not deliberately worked on their communication styles together get into (at least one of) the traps of MIS-communication: • They talk about the event or the “what happened.” In other words, they talk about who did what, who said what, and the “thing” that happened. This often leads to a lot of [...]