Don Hennessy is a therapist and domestic violence (DV) specialist, who has studied abusive men and their victims for almost forty years in Ireland, where 25% of romantic relationships involve DV. He is currently working on a new book based upon his years of research, which he spoke about on Kerry McAvoy’s Podcast: Breaking Free From Narcissistic Abuse.
In a lot of literature on narcissistic abusive men, there has been a primary focus on their narcissism being the driving force motivating their abuse. Hennessy explains that while these men are narcissistic, narcissism isn’t what drives the abuse — it’s their need to be sexually dominant.
They noticed that as the abusive men began to talk to one another, this made the study more dangerous for their female partners. The reason being, those men who physically abused their partners got in trouble with the law, which held them accountable. In speaking to the other abusers, they learned how to be controlling, manipulative, and bullying in ways that could evade the law. In addition, they noted that so long as the women submitted to them sexually, there was no problem. It was only when the women refused the men’s sexual interest that the abuse picked up.
Hennessy begins by explaining that the first two things abusive men look for in a victim is kindness and honesty. The kindness makes women more likely to give a man the benefit of the doubt, and their honesty makes them unlikely to see the abuse for what it is. They cited that 9 out of 10 autistic girls are sexually assaulted before the age of 18, which illustrates this concept, since many ASD women are both exceptionally kind, honest, and are already part of a vulnerable population.
Hennessy also found that abusive men in his study used the same tactics and showed the same kinds of thinking as pedophiles from an adjacent study out of the UK. Both prioritize sexual access and sexual dominance over their victims. Since pedophiles are all psychopaths, it makes me wonder if NPD abuse stems from psychopathy and sexual entitlement.
He also emphasized that victims in these cases never understood what happened to them, and always blamed themselves. Hennessy sought to answer the question as to how abusers gained intimate access to their victims; they did so by carefully studying what’s important to them, past hurts, and their underlying psychology. After the abusers gained their victims trust, they used their prior knowledge to make victims believe the abuse was their fault.
So, it turns out abusive men and pedophiles operate using the same play book; the only difference between them are the age of their victims.
Desire can be an illusive thing sometimes in a relationship/marriage. You may want to be intimate, but that doesn’t change things, if you’re just not feeling it.
One of the main issues that I see affect desire is poor communication. If a couple has been fighting , it creates a distance between the individuals that can make it hard to want to be intimate. If they haven’t learned how to repair after a rupture, resentment often builds up over time, to the point where most couples don’t know how to reach each other anymore.
Desire can often become an issue anytime a couple is unable to be intimate for a prolonged period of time, which could be a couple of weeks for some, or a few months for others. These breaks often throw a couple out of their routine. In addition, many people see their sexual appetite lessen the longer they abstain from intimacy. I see this during or after pregnancy, in the first few years of having a child, or after a prolonged illness. This can also occur when an elderly parent comes to stay in the home, or when an adult child moves back into the home.
Another common time I see desire drop away is when there’s been physical pain with sex. If something hurts, you’re not going to have much desire to do it again. Many will often push through the pain, which unfortunately has the tendency to make one’s lack of interest in sex worse, especially in women.
Sometimes when there is a desire discrepancy in the couple, the partner with the higher desire is always asking for their needs to be met, which makes the lower desire partner the gatekeeper. This is terrible for both partners, because the one always saying ’no’ often feels guilty and begins to push away from any form of affection, in order to avoid saying ‘no.’ As affection disappears, there becomes even less opportunity for the couple to be successful in intimacy, because affection is often what leads up to it.
For couples where one of them has had a prolonged illness, there can be a couple of factors getting in the way of intimacy. The partner who has been ill may feel betrayed by their body, so being intimate no longer feels safe. If there have been significant changes in the physical appearance of their body, they may no longer feel confident or safe enough to feel sexual. For the caretaker, it can be hard for them to move out of this role; they may also have fear around accidentally hurting their partner.
Financial struggles create another instance where intimacy can fall away in a relationship. Money represents safety and security for most, so when finances become strained, the fear often kills the libido.
The therapists at Austin Concierge Therapy understand how to work with all of these scenarios and more. Our goal is to help couples regain their intimacy, through rebuilding attachment, communication, and connection.
New research in the last six months disproves past assumptions that neurodiverse people have difficulty communicating. In fact, studies show neurodiverse people understand each other well, in the same way that neurotypical people understand each other.
This is why it is common for neurodiverse individuals to find one another, which is especially true in couples. The most common configuration that we see at Austin Concierge Therapy is the ADHD and ASD pairing. While both partners seem understand each other well most of the time, there are a couple of recuring arguments that I see the most that boil down to a misunderstanding of the other.
One thing I often see get misunderstood by the ADHD partner occurs when plans change, which acts as a trigger for their ASD partner. Usually, the ADHD partner doesn’t understand what the big deal is, and gets frustrated that their ASD partner is ruining the night over nothing. However, if the ADHD partner can begin to understand that their ASD partner just needs a little time and space to get used to the new plan, it can avoid it becoming personal and ruining the night.
Another common misunderstanding that I see in these couples occurs when the ADHD partner is beginning to daydream and imagine something they’re excited about in the future. For instance, the ADHD partner may begin talking about a trip they want to take, elaborating on all the places they want to go, the things they want to see, and restaurants where they want to eat. Meanwhile, their ASD partner is getting increasingly frustrated taking in so many details and eventually speaks up to let their ADHD partner know that they haven’t had a chance to think it through, so they’re not going to agree to any of that. Usually, I see this response frustrate and sometimes deflate the ADHD partner, who has a natural tendency to daydream, often explaining that they were just trying to have fun. However, once the ASD partner begins to understand that the ADHD partner is just imagining something, not committing to it, these conversations get a lot easier.
Other important aspects we talk about in neurodiverse couples is that both have experienced the same underlying trauma, which can be summed up in either feeling like too much or not enough. By understanding they share the same trauma, it can help them recognize when it shows up in each other.
Neurodiverse couples therapy is something we specialize in and are passionate about at Austin Concierge Therapy.
Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy: A Systematic Narrative Review of the Literature: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9207256/
The New Yorker: Ketamine therapy is going mainstream. Are we ready? https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/ketamine-therapy-is-going-mainstream-are-we-ready
The New York Times Podcast: “The Veterans Fighting to Legalize Psychedelics” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/22/podcasts/the-daily/veterans-psychedelics-legalization.html
The Harvard Gazette: “Ketamine found effective in treating severe depression” https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/05/ketamine-found-effective-in-treatment-resistant-depression/
Johns Hopkins Psychedelic Research https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/psychiatry/research/psychedelics-research
Michael Pollan “How to Change Your Mind” ( book and Netflix Series) https://michaelpollan.com/books/how-to-change-your-mind/
https://www.netflix.com/title/80229847
Gabor Mate “Psychedelics in the Treatment of Trauma” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOGTqVt0dlQ
Bessel van der Kolk “Childhood Trauma, Psychedelics & EMDR” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIH5taudtH0
Penn Medicine News “Penn Medicine Study Gives Peek of How Ketamine Acts as ‘Switch’ in the Brain” https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2022/december/a-peek-of-how-ketamine-acts-as-switch-in-the-brain
CNN “ How psilocybin, the psychedelic in mushrooms, may rewire the brain to ease depression, anxiety and more” https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/11/health/psilocybin-brain-changes-life-itself-wellness-scn/index.html
Stanford Medical School “Psychedelics” https://med.stanford.edu/spsg/about.html
Ketamine Research Institute “5 amazing things you need to know about ketamine infusion therapy” (anti-inflamatory, autoimmune treatment, reduce stress response and increase immune function, brain regeneration, Long haul COVID, addiction recovery) https://ketamineinstitute.com/ketamine-blog-news-and-recent-developments/5-amazing-things-you-need-to-know-about-ketamine-infusion-therapy/
Ketamine as a treatment for PTSD (Research article) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6457782/
MDMA for Couples Therapy (research article) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8631777/
Time Magazine “MDMA could Revolutionize Couples Therapy” https://time.com/6262291/psychedelics-mdma-couples-therapy/
Vice: “Couples Are Doing MDMA and Ketamine Therapy To Save Their Relationships”
https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d9yg5/ketamine-mdma-couples-therapy
Divorcing a narcissist is brutal, there’s really no way around it. Divorce often destabilizes the narcissist’s fragile sense of self, which can sometimes result in a narcissistic collapse, which is dangerous for their partner. If it’s possible, it can be good to see if you can get the narcissist’s buy in, so that eventually they may believe the divorce was their idea. Narcissists can’t handle the rejection, which will make you enemy number one. They often split on people, similar to borderline personality disorder, where the narcissist turns their partner from all good to all bad. In other words, you’re either for them or against them, they can’t tolerate anything in the middle.
So, before letting the narcissist know your plans, it’s best to get ahead of things. It’s important to make sure you have the money ready for first and last months rent way before you need it, as well as money to retain a good divorce attorney that is well versed in narcissism, as well as any incidentals, until you can get temporary orders in place.
If you own property/a home together, do not be the first one to move out, otherwise many states may consider that abandonment, which could cost you in the long run. If you need to move out due to domestic violence (DV), make sure you log any past DV with a family doctor or law enforcement. This evidence will be important to you, especially if you go to court.
Take care of any family heirlooms or other sentimental pieces. Move them out of the home and into a safe place, so the narcissist can’t retaliate by destroying them. It’s not uncommon in divorcing a narcissist, for them to try to take or destroy anything you care about, simply so you don’t get to have it.
If you have children, make sure you find a good family therapist that is familiar with narcissism and isn’t afraid to take sides in court. Many therapists refuse to take sides, which allows the court to assume both sides are equal, which down plays the reality of the situation. Unfortunately, many therapists fear a narcissist’s retaliation, which is not unfounded.
A good rule of thumb is to delete anything on your phone or any other electronic device that you don’t want being read aloud in court, because once you’ve filed for divorce, deleting information after filing can get you in trouble with the judge.
It’s important that you get copies of your past tax returns and any other financial information before you file, so that money doesn’t disappear without a history to track it.
If you suspect your narcissistic partner is cheating, or if they’ve accused you of cheating, it’s worth checking your bank statements for evidence. It’s incredibly common for narcissistic men to go to strip clubs, massage parlors with happy endings, sugar babies and sex workers in general. To catch this, look for sums of $200, $1000, and $2000, usually pulled from an ATM usually after midnight or 2:00am. Then, call the number attached to find the location of the ATM, which will often be at the establishment in question (strip club, massage parlor, hotel). If you can prove that the funds were used for one of these purposes, the money spent will go into your financial column at the end of the divorce.
Make sure that if you have to cohabitate for any period of time after deciding to divorce, sleep with a good lock on your door. Domestic violence is most likely to happen during this period, before you’ve fully separated. It’s not worth the risk. If the narcissist tries to break down the door, immediately call 911, so there will be a record of this behavior. A witness is necessary. Otherwise, if there isn’t concrete evidence (like a recording, an email, or a third party reference), it didn’t happen according to family court.
Sara Sloan, LMFT, CST, IRT contributed to Mind Body Green’s article, “How to Deal with the Narcissist in your Life, According to Experts,” originally published on October 20th, 2024. Below is Sloan’s content and article summary.
Narcissistic relationships in the devaluation phase can end at any moment. So, the best thing you can do is to begin to create a safety net for yourself for when the end occurs. The more you can educate yourself on narcissism, the easier it will be to understand what will come next, as well as what you’ve been through.
Unfortunately, the narcissist often has a sixth sense for when you’re done. Sometimes they will lean back into the love bombing stage in order to pull you back into the relationship. So, if you’d been begging them to take a trip, they’ll book a romantic vacation to Tahiti. If you’ve been begging them for intimacy, you’ll suddenly be having sex again every night. If they catch on that you’re out, they’ll do anything to reel you back in.
Once they feel unstable, though, many narcissists will begin to plan their exit at your expense. Narcissists are unable to be alone, so they will get on the dating apps without telling you. Sometimes you’ll learn that the narcissist has been cheating throughout the entire relationship, which is often the case, even though they will tell you otherwise. Narcissists need supply and you will never be enough, because no one will be enough to fill the empty hole inside them.
Usually, the narcissist will begin a smear campaign against you, before you know what’s happening. They will employ people close to you to keep tabs on what you’re doing, which we often refer to as “Flying Monkeys.” They will talk to your friends, their friends, anyone they worry about their opinion, to make sure their story is the dominant one. Many will cry crocodile tears to others and blame their behavior on you. So if they were the one that cheated, they will accuse you of being the cheater.
Once they begin their attack, the best thing you can do is grey rock. Grey rocking means going flat, showing no emotion, saying as few words as possible. The feed on the emotions they create, so don’t give it to them. Remember, never feed the emotional vampires!
If you have shared housing with the narcissist, make sure you have a place to stay and escape to, if things get bad. Once things are over, you’ll often see a side of the narcissist that you’ve never encountered. That alone can be so startling, it often makes you question yourself, which is exactly what they want.
If you’ve been sharing a bank account, make sure you open one in your name, and get a credit card of your own. It’s also important to run a credit check, because oftentimes narcissists may have opened cards in your name.
Make sure you explain to your friends and family what’s been going on. Don’t feel ashamed, narcissists can trick even the best therapists when they put on their charm. You were chosen by the narcissist because of how amazing you are, so don’t allow the narcissist to make you question your value.
The best thing you can do once you realize you’re with a narcissist is to prepare to leave by gettin your finances in order, letting your support circle know what’s going on, and finding a therapist skilled in narcissistic abuse recovery.
Sara Sloan, LMFT, CST, IRT contributed to Mind Body Green’s article, “How to Deal with the Narcissist in your Life, According to Experts,” originally published on October 20th, 2024. Below is Sloan’s content and article summary.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder often follows a predictable trajectory in relationships. However, if you’re in a relationship with a narcissist, the experience can feel a lot like emotional vertigo due to their always pulling you into their delusion or point of view. Narcissists generally view their partner as their thing, something to be used for their benefit. Love often gets exchanged with power and control, when you’re in a narcissistic relationship; this is why over time, the narcissistic partner begins to isolate you from your friends and family. The narcissist wants to be the only influence in your life.
In the very beginning of a narcissistic relationship, it often feels like a dream come true. Many people believe they’ve met their soul mate. Oftentimes, this is because the narcissist believes it with such conviction, you begin to believe it, too. This initial stage in the relationship is referred to as the “love bombing” stage. Here, the narcissist often reflects your image back to you, allowing you to essentially fall in love with the qualities you care most about your self.
Once you’ve fallen in love with the narcissist, that’s when things begin to change. Narcissists aren’t able to keep up with the demands of a real relationship, so that’s usually when the devaluation process begins. Narcissists often pick partners who have everything they don’t. Usually their partners are hyper-empathetic, intelligent, fun, and well loved by others. Subconsciously, the narcissist hopes to gain these qualities through partnership for themselves; so when that doesn’t occur, they begin to pick apart the very qualities they loved in the beginning. For instance, if you were the life of the party, the narcissist might begin to complain that you’re “too loud,” or they might turn a compliment into an insult, “you have too many friends.”
During the devaluation stage, the narcissist will try to destroy the qualities that most define you. They’ll play games, often refusing intimacy when you want it, or demanding it when you don’t. They will begin to ruin important events where they aren’t the center of attention. For instance, they might call off Christmas due to a petty argument they initiated, or they might intentionally sabotage your birthday. Narcissists are incapable of allowing anyone else to share the spot light.
Narcissists often end up creating trauma around the holidays for their spouse and family members, as well as any other important day that doesn’t center around the narcissist. They take pleasure in destroying things that matter to others, because it makes the narcissist feel powerful and in control.
Narcissists are sadists. An obvious tell of the narcissist’s sadism can be seen in their facial expressions when they’re hurting others. Oftentimes, narcissists can’t help but grin, when they’re cutting you down, or breaking up with you. They often become cruel when feeling challenged. One example of this could be you getting a raise, which gives you a higher salary than the narcissist, which hurts their ego; so to punish you, the narcissist will pick a fight about how you work too much at your celebratory dinner.
Overtime, you’ll see the abuse cycle begin. Narcissists often pull from the various abuses found in the Wheel of Power and Control. If you recognize any of these behaviors in your relationship, it is abusive and you should leave, because it always gets worse. Domestic violence never moves backwards, it only becomes more extreme and dangerous.
If you continue to stay with the narcissist, they will cause you brain damage. The constant gaslighting, lying, and DARVO-ing, and their unpredictability causes narcissistic abuse victims’ brains to look similar to someone with borderline personality disorder; this is because narcissistic abuse makes the amygdala (fight, flight or freeze) becomes over reactive, while the hippocampus (logical and reasoning center) begins to atrophy the longer you stay in the relationship.
This is a dead giveaway things are no longer ideal. If you feel like you have to tip toe around your partner, just to keep the peace, then you are no longer able to really be yourself. So, it’s only a matter of time before you start building up resentment towards them, if you haven’t started already.
Sometimes we give so much priority to our marriage; it slowly creeps up to 100% of our time. We no longer think we have room for friends and family. Then as the marriage deteriorates, we tend to isolate even further because we don’t want to negatively impact the friends and family we love.
I call this an energetic break. It’s a time when you needed them most and they let you down or even worse, abandoned you. Most people experience a break in the love flow or an energetic break during or shortly after this event, where they no longer feel connected to their partner. Until this feeling of betrayal is released or healed, it will continue to participate in your daily life and the intimate interactions in your marriage.
Some people may say, “come on – this is just marriage,” but really it’s a sign that you are no longer in the love flow. You are no longer each other’s biggest fans and supporters. And over time as you continue to consistently upset each other and trigger each other’s wounds and baggage, THEY will eventually become associated with your biggest hurts and pains. People who eventually divorce just call this “growing apart.
This is a sign that you may have been deeply wounded by your partner. If you can’t FEEL the love anymore, it’s likely you have a protective wall around your heart blocking it. Although the wall is meant to protect you from further pain, it also blocks the true flow of love both with your partner and others. Most people experience this as feeling numb. You can no longer feel your partner’s pain.
This is a dead giveaway that there’s been a significant energetic break and you can expect resentment and blaming to escalate. Some couples still have sex with each other. They just don’t enjoy it! This can also show up in more subtle ways, such as having a sole focus on the kids and/or making money and completely back-burnering your relationship. Marriages in this stage are truly in jeopardy.
Many women in struggling marriages often report that their husband is no longer the man they married. They wonder which one he REALLY is? This is a significant sign that the relationship is no longer in harmony or flow. It’s now in it’s opposite phase of struggle, triggering and upset.
AND THE BIG ONE…
This is the big one because it’s so insidious and over time sabotages the entire relationship. Some couples experience it more like they have become secret enemies. This is more of a gut feeling for most people. Your body wants to keep you at a distance and you even start to fear your partner at a deep level. You may feel like adversaries on a daily basis, always in conflict as if they have some sort of control over you. The crazy thing is that most couples never even talk about it!
If you choose to stay together, how do you recover and come out stronger?
The Gottman Method, a popular research-based approach to couples therapy, breaks down the process of how to reconnect after an affair into three main steps: atonement, attunement, and attachment.
First and foremost, the cheater must express regret and remorse. According to the Gottman Method, it’s necessary for the cheater accept the blame. “Atonement cannot occur if the cheater insists that the victim take partial blame for the affair,” writes John Gottman, psychologist and co-founder of the Gottman Institute, in his book What Makes Love Last?
During this same process, the cheater needs to become more aware of their needs and vulnerabilities. Oftentimes the affair occurs as a way for the cheater to meet their unrecognized needs.
In the book, Gottman also recommends that those desiring to continue in a monogamous relationship establish the “no second chance” rule, which creates a huge disincentive for cheating again. This helps to give the victim back some of their power.
It’s important to decide what you’re comfortable with going forward and to establish firm boundaries that make your relationship a safe place for both partners.
In the second phase, partners begin to make each other a priority again. At this point, both partners can look at reestablishing what they want in a relationship and in each other.
Relationship expert Rachel Madorsky, LCSW, explains that once you’ve decided to move forward together, “it’s important that both people begin to look at how they co-created the relationship and subsequently the affair. Once you’ve done this, miracles begin to take place.”
The idea isn’t to blame the person who experienced the betrayal but rather to examine the problems that happened between the two people in the relationship that preceded the affair since it’s easy to allow the affair to eclipse all else that happened prior to it.
“Cheaters are not necessarily looking for someone else; they are looking to become someone else,” Dr. Tammy Nelson, psychotherapist, board-certified sexologist, and author of When You’re the One Who Cheats, writes at mbg. “A person may be cheating because they like who they are when they’re with their affair partner. They might feel sexier, smarter, more charming, and more alive when they cheat. With their spouse at home, they might feel invisible, dull, boring, or old. An affair can counteract a person’s negative self-talk, through no fault of their partner.”
The events and context that led up to an affair don’t excuse the cheating, but they do offer clarity as to why it happened—and a path forward toward healing for both parties.
With that in mind, an important part of the attunement phase is each person regaining trust and unconditional positive regard for the other. Harville Hendrix, relationship psychologist and creator of Imago Relationships Therapy (another popular couples therapy method), recommends one great exercise for rebuilding trust in his book Getting the Love You Want: Each person writes down 20 small acts of kindness they would like their partner to do for them. These can include giving small gifts such as flowers, writing love notes, spending quality time together making breakfast, trying a new restaurant, or cuddling in bed on a Sunday. Once each person has their wish list, they exchange them and attempt to perform one of these acts a day for their partner. Over time, these acts of kindness help couples to rebuild rapport and trust. Slowly they can begin to appreciate and enjoy each other again, even it feels forced in the beginning.
For the person who was cheated on, Madorsky says that learning to trust your partner again can be difficult, but it can also be empowering: “When you don’t own how much power you have in your life, you’re left to feel like a victim. It actually feels better to trust than not to trust. So as long each partner is committed and taking positive action, consider giving yourself the gift of trusting again.”
As you begin rebuilding your relationship during this phase, David Ley, Ph.D., psychologist and author of Insatiable Wives: Women Who Cheat and the Men Who Love Them, stresses the importance of avoiding online discussion groups about cheating. “Like the rest of the Internet, they tend to be filled with angry, toxic people who are gleeful when your relationship ends in the same flames of rage that torched their own,” he writes.
He also warns against lie detector tests: “There is unfortunately a steady business out there that promotes the idea that ‘this is only way you’ll ever really be able to trust your partner again.’ Those tests are invalid and merely breed greater antagonism and one-sided coercion.”
Rather than focusing on the negative aspects of the affair, Ley says it’s better to shift your focus onto the good times you’ve shared in the past and all the new ones you’ll find together in the future.
NOTE: Sara originally wrote this article for Mind Body Green. You can see it here.
Once you’ve begun to feel positive toward your partner again, you can begin to work toward the future and regaining your intimate connection. Because healthy sex is based on a strong emotional connection, you want to get to know your partner again only after attunement has taken place.
“It’s important to remember that recovering from infidelity requires us to be able to understand and recognize our own sexual and intimacy needs, and to communicate them to our partner, listening to them, and respecting them as they do the same to us,” Dr. Ley writes.
One exercise that works to help develop and deepen emotional intimacy involves answering that popular series of questions developed by Dr. Arthur Aron and prominently featured in the New York Times‘ Modern Love section. By taking a romantic evening and answering these questions together, you reacquaint yourself with who your partner has become. This exercise can be particularly powerful for couples that have been together for many years.
(If you want more ideas, here are five other ways to connect with your partner again.)
While working through these steps of recovery, it’s also important to continue having fun. “It’s OK to compartmentalize the affair during this process and have fun together, as long as you’re committed to handling the issues,” Madorsky says. “In fact, by having fun together, you can begin to heal more quickly.”
Once you’ve achieved the three steps of atonement, attunement, and attachment, you can begin moving forward on looking toward your future.
In his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, Gottman outlines the Sound Relationship House theory, which features seven relationship “levels.” The top two layers, accessible only after moving through and managing conflicts like affairs, are “making life dreams come true” and “creating shared meaning.” During this period of meaning-making, couples can begin to determine what they want to be important to them as a couple moving forward. For instance, your shared goals might include international travel, creating a business together, or starting a family. You might want to begin by planning a vacation, giving yourselves something to look forward to and enjoy, and continue building from there.
For couples who’ve suffered from an affair, making plans for a future together is the ultimate marker of reconnection. It takes time to get to that place, but if you slowly and intentionally move through each stage of the recovery process, you can access this place of union and commitment once again.
Don Hennessy is a therapist and domestic violence (DV) specialist, who has studied abusive men and their victims for almost …
Desire can be an illusive thing sometimes in a relationship/marriage. You may want to be intimate, but that doesn’t …
New research in the last six months disproves past assumptions that neurodiverse people have difficulty communicating. …
