Posts by Francine & Byron Pirola
Criticism Cancer
Criticism Can Kill Criticism kills not only the self-esteem of the one criticized, it also kills the spirit of optimism in the criticizer. In marriage it is a deadly cancer, eroding our trust and destroying confidence in our relationship. Criticism damages our sense of worthiness. When we are criticized, our doubts about ourselves are confirmed.…
Read MoreOn a Mission to Love
Invest in Love Our ten year old son is a great rugby player. He spends hours in the backyard kicking the ball around, usually over the neighbours’ fence! He eats, sleeps and talks rugby. And if he’s not playing rugby, he’s watching it on TV or ‘playing’ it on the X-Box. It’s not surprising that…
Read MoreMarried Singles Unhappily Ever After
We all start out in marriage with a dream; a dream of a life-long, love affair. But after a year or two, disillusionment sets in and the unreserved trust and intimacy we enjoyed becomes tentative and fragile. We join the army of other ‘married singles’ living our parallel lives and wishing that the other sex…
Read MoreWedding Stress: Dealing with In-laws
When you marry, you marry into a family. And your fiancé gets more than just a new spouse, he/she gets another branch of the family – your family! Read on for tips on handling tension with in-laws. This is how it has always been, but in recent decades, the reality of extended family has come…
Read MoreFinding Reverse
Stuck in drive When visiting Rome recently, we borrowed a friend’s car to drive out of the city for a day. Everything was going fine (despite the fact that Roman drivers ignore the lane markings!), until we turned down a one way street the wrong way. Another car, traveling in the right direction, stopped, waiting…
Read MoreStop the Train…I Want to Get Off!
How the divorce superhighway fails couples. Speaking recently with one of America’s foremost family therapists, Dr Bill Doherty, we had a lively discussion on the divorce process. He noted that there are a significant proportion of couples who are ambivalent about their divorce, but once they file, it’s like they are on a superhighway with no…
Read MoreMid-Life Madness and other Stressors
As mid-lifers in the midst of working through some of our ‘issues’, we are acutely aware of how easy it would be to let our individual stuff derail our marriage. It’s normal for a person in midlife to be irritable and volatile. Some react with depressive symptoms, others get angry and aggressive, others withdraw or…
Read MoreThe Language of Love
A sacrament makes visible in a human way something that is invisible or spiritual. In other words, a sacrament images and reveals the mystery of God. Every sacrament has two key aspects which make the sacrament visible: words and gesture. In marriage, the sacramental words are the wedding vows, in effect “I freely give myself…
Read MoreThe Pill and Partner Choice
It has long been known that hormonal contraceptives diminish a woman’s natural sexual drive (also called ‘libido’). Now there is real life evidence that the Pill also affects a woman’s partner choice. In a study published in Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, the authors speculate that hormonal contraceptive use before marriage could have a long lasting impact…
Read MoreGetting Help
If your marriage is in strife and you need some help, it’s important to make sure you get the right help. Unfortunately, many counsellors and therapists will accept couples for couples counselling without having any specific training. Couples therapy is a unique and one of the most difficult counselling tasks and you deserve a therapist…
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