Free Relationship Advice Online

“Dr. Fiore,” my 42 year old married patient (Mary) began, “once again my family expects me to host Christmas dinner and I am simply too exhausted; what should I do?” “Why not tell them how you feel?” I asked. “Because I don’t want to hurt their feelings – I always feel guilty if I don’t [...]

If you believe problems and disillusionment are inevitable, you’re right. Curiously, it is not the problems that create so much distress. Your relationship satisfaction will actually depend on: How you think about your difficulties How you manage your feelings Where you focus your attention How you act and communicate under stress If you can change [...]

Nonstop talkers surround us. They appear to have no concept of time, as they ramble on endlessly–following their request to “talk to you for a minute.” You want to treat them courteously, yet demonstrate that you need privacy to finish your work. During my twenty-three years in management, I dealt with blabbermouths frequently, so for [...]

When people are told that they need to communicate more they often think that that is an open invitation to talk but there is a complete difference between talking and communicating. Communicating is an art, and art of combining the ability to express your opinions and feelings in such a way as to ensure that [...]

What have you struggled to forgive in your marriage? Do you wish you could forgive and move on, but you don’t know how? When two people live together in an intimate relationship, there are always going to be things that happen to cause hurt feelings and anger. These things may range from minor incidents involving [...]

Webster’s New World Dictionary definition of the word forgive is “to give up resentment against or the desire to punish; stop being angry with; pardon.” Most spouses, at some time or another, struggle with the issue of forgiveness as incidents happen in the marriage. There are very legitimate reasons for feeling hurt and wronged, such [...]

Being assertive is good. It allows you to get your point across in a way that is better remembered by the other party because of the intensity of the emotion that is associated with it. However, assertiveness can also be a pitfall when overdone. While it can seal deals, it also has the power to [...]

When I was twenty-two, I was befriended by a woman named Doris who was thirty years older than I was. Although Doris was then a fifty-two year old woman, she did not feel it was inappropriate to befriend me. She did not operate with the social belief that she should choose her friends only from [...]

“How come I don’t have any friends?” Has your child ever asked you that question? It’s not an easy one to answer. Children are often cruel to one another and their methods for choosing friends are often irrational to the adult mind. Unfortunately, there is no quick-fix answer to make a child instantly popular. As [...]

In the last few decades, partners have spent countless hours trying to “work out problems.” Yet over and over again they often come up against a major roadblock: they just don’t see things the same way. No matter how long they talk and how hard they try, neither ends up feeling really heard and understood. [...]