Tag Archives: intimacy

How Some Impression Managers Gaslight

Many abusive relationship survivors are at their wits end trying to understand why others are still so positively swayed by the person who treated them so heartlessly. It’s a scenario that produces an intense gaslighting experience.

Mistaking Interest for Regard in Relationships

Mistaking interest for regard is all too common these days. It’s how folks with high hopes at the beginning of a relationship sadly later find themselves exploited and abused.

Recognizing and Overcoming Intimacy Barriers

Intimacy barriers are the biggest reason couples seek counseling. And when counseling fails it’s usually because the true impediments to intimacy weren’t properly identified or dealt with.

Intimacy Capacity Defines Character

As much as we crave naturally intimacy, many of us learn to fear it. We try to stay open. But painful experiences invite us to close. The hallmark of our character disturbed age is the lack of genuinely loving relationships.

Character Disturbance and Hardness of Heart

Hardness of Heart What do we mean when we talk about “hardness of heart”? Folks with hardened hearts have an impaired ability to empathize. They also have an impaired ability to truly connect. This makes healthy, intimate relationships virtually impossible. The harder one’s heart, the harder it is to achieve real intimacy and to truly … Continue reading Character Disturbance and Hardness of Heart

Fighting Dirty Destroys Relationships

Fighting dirty is fighting without principle-guided limits and boundaries. It’s placing winning over everything and using whatever tactics or psychological “weapons” you can think of to secure the dominant position. Such fighting is the destroyer of relationships.

Vulnerable Narcissists and Relationships

Relationships with any narcissist suffer because it’s always about them. They’re so wrapped up in themselves and their desires that there’s no room to consider others. And because they can’t really concern themselves with you or your needs, intimacy suffers.