Articles

The Center for Family Enrichment is Transforming Intimate Relationships

by Frances Bernfeld, M.Ed., LMFT

We have come to expect satisfaction and happiness in marriage and other close and intimate relationships. People no longer want or need to endure miserable marriages or remain in unhappy relationships. Certainly we are all entitled to “the pursuit of happiness”. Many relationships may end needlessly because people do not have the tools and skills with which to make these connections not only survive but truly thrive.

The Center for Family Enrichment (CFE) has developed live internet courses that offer professionally-guided training in how to develop and sustain intimacy in relationships. CFE’s courses are presented in an innovative educational format which has an effectiveness that often goes beyond what can be achieved in traditional marriage therapy. CFE is a comprehensive program in which couples and singles learn the necessary skills to maintain satisfying healthy relationships.

As adults today, we are without role models for our intimate relationships. The marriages of our parents and grandparents bear little resemblance to our own. We are all pathfinders because most of us have never had the opportunity to learn the skills needed to maintain an intimate relationship. Couples and singles can take CFE’s courses no matter what stage of a relationship they are in: dating, engaged, married, separated or divorced. Although many of these courses focus on intimate relationships, the skills taught are basic and can be applied to all facets of life, including professional careers.

We aren’t always ready for the dreams we have. Many of our deepest and most intangible desires, some of them not even full formed thoughts, are wrapped up in our dream of an ideal relationship. We hope for an end to loneliness. We fantasize about having our sexual needs fully met. We seek an end to acrimony and discord. We envision lives without masks, of being seen and appreciated for simply being who we are. We dream of feeling whole.

The Center for Family Enrichment courses are so effective in teaching us how to develop and sustain satisfying intimate relationships in our lives because they cover all aspects of relationships. There are seven areas of focus:

1. Communication
2. Self awareness
3. Self esteem
4. Couples awareness
5. Understanding our personal history
6. Fair fighting
7. Negotiating for change

Communication

In order to improve communication we need to learn to express our feelings so that they can be heard without causing the other person to feel:

1. Resentful
2. Smothered
3. Burdened
4. Manipulated
5. Inadequate

The Center for Family Enrichment’ communication courses teach how to recognize when our communication style is more of a problem than the actual problem we are communicating. Participants learn to clear the air of fear, pain and anger between themselves and their partners before trying to resolve conflicts. The ability to feel real empathy for each other is developed, instead of continuing to secretly resent traditional roles such as the nurturer or provider.

Self Awareness

In the CFE courses that cover self awareness there is the opportunity to know and appreciate the rich complexity of each person’s unique personality. People are encouraged to trace their emotional history. This can uncover hidden expectations and communication styles which may be influencing relationships.

Self Esteem

Jealousy, lack of confidence and poor self esteem are all related and can produce devastating effects on relationships. Everyone has the right to receive positive regard from others. We need to get our needs met and to feel good enough without having to prove anything. Yet so many people grow up seeking perfectionism or giving up because they know it really cannot be reached. CFE courses on this topic will allow the students to explore and expand their own feelings of value and self worth.

Couples Awareness

In exploring couples awareness people can learn to acknowledge and enjoy the differences between themselves and their partners rather than see the other as a threat. Methods are taught in CFE courses to help couples recognize:

1. The different roles each partner plays
2. The masks each one takes on
3. The behavior each one assumes when in different moods or circumstances
4. To find out how they work or don't work together

Couples also learn to avoid the mind reading that so often leads to misunderstandings between partners. Most people make assumptions and expect that “if you loved me, you would know.”

Understanding Personal History

In a sense, all of our present actions are a result of everything that has happened to us in the past. Our experiences and the decisions and choices that we made at an earlier time affect our thinking, behavior and emotional responses now. From the time we were born and throughout our early development we had experiences, both good and bad, that helped form who we are today. Through the courses that CFE brings to you on this subject, there will be the opportunity to examine, understand and redefine the past in order to make new and healthy decisions freely, without having to be so strongly affected by our history.

Fair Fighting

Healthy relationships require that the participants learn to communicate and resolve anger constructively. CFE students in these courses work with each other in a live, online format to master the techniques and sensitivities of the “Fair Fight for Change” (developed by George Bach, Ph.D.). “The Relationship” must be the winner in any fight between caring couples. We can learn to:

• Express anger without destroying love
• Accept anger comfortably and non-destructively
• Recognize covert indirect expressions of anger

Methods for coping with either a fight-phobic or aggressive, hostile partner are taught. We can learn to fight in such a way that we actually resolve the issues at hand. This especially applies to problems relating to money, children, use of time, in-laws, ex-spouses, housework, sex, fidelity and jealousy.

Negotiating

Course participants learn how to negotiate understandings that allow for greater joy, pleasure and happiness in their relationships. We can learn to use a negotiating style in which each partner feels heard, respected and considered. This will avoid the use of power or control that can contribute to emotional withdrawal and feelings of retaliation. One of CFE’s goals is to give you the tools to enable you to arrive at a mutually agreeable, behavioral contract concerning what each partner offers and expects of the other. A relationship in which both people can live joyfully can be negotiated successfully.

Summary

Traditionally, marriages were based on “security, stability and raising children.” Today’s relationships have the added expectation for “love and intimacy.” Yet many of us grew up without appropriate examples of how to build, nurture and sustain loving intimate relationships with our spouses and family members. CFE teaches the skills, personal tools and understandings needed to build healthy relationships that last. The relationship can then provide both partners with the love, pleasure and happiness that they expect and deserve.

Register for a course now, or for further information, please contact us.