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Criticism Is the Toxic Habit that Can Slowly Ruin Your Relationship

By Kelsey Borresen — 2019

Experts say this common communication issue can push couples apart.

Read on www.huffpost.com

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The best apologies are short, and don’t go on to include explanations that run the risk of undoing them. An apology isn’t the only chance you ever get to address the underlying issue. The apology is the chance you get to establish the ground for future communication.

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Harriet Lerner
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We cannot make another person change his or her steps to an old dance, but if we change our own steps, the dance no longer can continue in the same predictable pattern.

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Harriet Lerner
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01:06:30

112: How and Why to Apologize Effectively with Harriet Lerner

Have you ever received an apology that didn’t quite cut it? That made things even worse? Plus, let’s face it - life can be messy. Despite your best intentions, it is nearly impossible to avoid causing harm or hurt every so often.

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Harriet Lerner
2017
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Marriage Rules: A Manual for the Married and the Coupled Up

This marriage book provides couple’s therapy in a unique format perfect for today’s world. The renowned author of The Dance of Anger gives readers more than one hundred rules that cover all the hot spots in long-term relationships.

Book
Harriet Lerner
2012
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If only our passion to understand others were as great as our passion to be understood. Were this so, all our apologies would be truly meaningful and healing.

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Harriet Lerner
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When forgiveness experts talk in binary language (’You either forgive the wrongdoer or you are a prisoner of your own anger and hate’), they are collapsing the messy complexity of human emotions into a simplistic dichotomous equation.

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Harriet Lerner
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People’s sense of self-worth is pivotal to their ability to look clearly at the hurt they’ve caused. The more solid one’s sense of self regard, the more likely that that person can feel empathy and compassion for the hurt party, and apologize from an authentic center.

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Harriet Lerner
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When we take rejection as proof of our inadequacies, it’s hard to allow ourselves to risk being truly seen again. . . . The problem arises when shame kicks in and we aren’t able to view our flaws, limitations, and vulnerabilities in a patient, self-loving way.

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Harriet Lerner
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Intimate relationships cannot substitute for a life plan. But to have any meaning or viability at all, a life plan must include intimate relationships.

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Harriet Lerner
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Anger is inevitable when our lives consist of giving in and going along; when we assume responsibility for other people’s feelings and reactions; when we relinquish our primary responsibility to proceed with our own growth and ensure the quality of our own lives; when we behave as if having a...

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Harriet Lerner
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EXPLORE TOPIC

Criticism and Rejection