Therapy with Joanne

Become your best friend. ❤️

Email or DM me to be put on the next class’s wait list.

I am so excited to teach again.

This class is called
The Relationship Roadmap:
10 Essential Skills for a Healthy Relationship.

It is a 5 week class meeting once a week, on Sundays, from 6-7pm.

It will run from Sunday, October 1st to Sunday October 29th.

I will be teaching on connection, communication, healthy fighting, repair, attachment, and s*xual intimacy.

The class will be held in Henderson NV.

If you are interested in attending this class or in learning of upcoming classes, send me an email at [email protected]

Therapy with Joanne Marriage and Family Therapist

You have the right to work.

If you are working or want to work but your partner doesn’t want you to leave the house, to be around people besides them, to have how your time is spent determined by anyone except them, this is control.

Even when it is packaged with a bow, and presented as a gift. “I just want to take care of you. I want you around all the time because I love you. I’ll give you whatever you need, you just have to ask.”

If you feel that you can’t work because it makes your partner moody, or they tell you no, you may be dealing with abuse.

There is a mistaken belief I often hear in therapy.

It is that once you are married, your body belongs to your spouse.

This is not true. Your body always belongs to you.

If your partner is grabbing your b***s or putting their hands down your pants without your enthusiastic consent, it is wrong. Research shows about 10% of people find this fun and flirtatious, 90% find it annoying and a turn off.

Your body is not theirs to grope as they want.

You always have the right to decide if you are interesting in participating in s*x each time. If you are not interested, and your partner pouts, puts you down, is in a bad mood, or is angry with the children until you do have s*x, this is coercion and this is abuse.

Sometimes when fights are getting too heated, the best thing to do is to leave the room or the house and cool down.

Sometimes one of the partners doesn’t want to take a break and wants to continue the argument.

They will follow their partner into the next room instead of letting them cool off alone.

When the partner attempts to leave the house to cool off, the partner blocks the door, or will take or hide their keys so they can’t leave.

This is abuse.

All couples disagree. Heathy couples are able to take a time-out before things get too heated, and return to the discussion when emotions are calmer.

It is ok for your partner to leave during an argument to prevent escalation.

It is not ok for your partner to leave for longer than 24 hrs without letting you know they are safe and cooling off.

If you are wondering if they are dead or alive, wondering if they are involved in a dangerous situation, and they are purposefully punishing you by letting you wonder, this is abuse.

Reckless, angry, aggressive driving with passengers who are scared is abuse.
I hear this story in 3 different ways.

1. Partner gets angry, begins driving recklessly. Passenger (partner) and children are afraid, begin to cry, yell for them to stop. The driver ignores them all and continues to drive in way that is scary and dangerous.
2. Partner isn’t angry. Drives recklessly in a way to make partner/passengers feel afraid. Does this to show power over others.
3. When walking out to the car during a fight, or after dropping you off, swerves the car to “barely miss” hitting you. Or drives away while you are still getting out the car causing you to fall.

All of these are abusive.

This is financial abuse. In a healthy relationship, both people should have access to money.

There is a difference between living on a budget and having to ask permission for money to buy groceries, get gas, run a household, provide for a child’s needs, etc.

A couple can come up with a household budget that they both have access to.

If you are anxious to ask your partner for money for groceries, not due to budget but due to control, you are dealing with financial abuse.

I hear stories of partner abuse daily in my office. Often times, although the couple or partner is extremely unhappy, they assume these behaviors are a normal part of a relationship.

I am going to explain six situations, that I see often, that are not “normal” but are abusive behaviors.

Lesson 7: Have a move out timeline with dates.

We talked about move out dates with our couple before they moved in and then revisited it several times as circumstances changed.

One of the patterns we had observed was with open ended invitations, people often overstayed their welcome.

Rather than say:
“Of course you can live here, we’re family, stay as long as you want.”

We said:
“We think it’s healthiest for you to live on your own. However, let’s talk about your purpose in living here, and how long you plan to be here.”

We set up an initial plan, then we continued to meet about the move out timeline. It was never open ended.

Our timeline was:
3 months to get jobs and money to move out

Principles of Chores, Privacy, Boundaries and Move out date introduced

Revisited:
3 months of changing jobs and job searches
Principles of Work and Rent introduced

Revisited:
10 months to build a house
Principle of Savings introduced

Each time we revisited the timeline, we set up more structure. It was during the last 10 months where we all hit our groove with rent, working,
saving, privacy, chores, and a specific move out date. That was when we did our best!

Lesson 6: hierarchy and boundaries

It is hard to re-enter your childhood family system as an adult.

We set up a hierarchy. This was our house. They were guests who were lucky to have an opportunity to save money. This was not a time to air grievances about the things we have done wrong.

We were not hosts, expected to entertain or feed them.

We were not equals. We were not open to hearing any advice about parenting, about our lives and our choices, or having them attempt to co-parent with us.

In return, we didn’t treat them as our children but as married adults who could manage their own marriage relationship. We did not comment on their relationship. Even as a therapist, I gave no marriage advice.

The rule was: No Unsolicited Advice. Unless someone specifically asked for guidance, we all kept our mouths shut.

I have seen this situation end many many times with such resentment that there was estrangement or cut off after it ended.

We were polite and respectful and friendly with each other, but enforced strong boundaries that kept us as two separate family units. We had a good experience and now that it is complete we are very close.

Lesson 5: charge the highest rent possible

The purpose of our daughter and her husband living with us was to save money. In order to help ensure this was happening, we charged a high rent with the intention of returning it to them when they moved out.

When we set up rent, our daughter was working. She calculated her paycheck, minus bills, minus $200 for spending and what was left was $2500. We then charged $2500 in rent each month. We did this with the intention of returning the lump sum to them when they moved out.

We did not need to money to pay our household bills (some families do and could choose to return only a portion of the money collected). I would still advice to charge more than you need to help them save and live frugally.

It helps so much because it enforced our belief that they should live frugally. It also helped them to save money quickly. Rather than hope and wish, we set up parameters for them to succeed in this area by charging a high rent.

Ten months before they moved out, they found a house they wanted to build. In order to close on the house they needed $50,000. During the last 10 months, they paid $25,000 in rent and saved $25,000 from the son in laws income with ease.

We also knew they would easily be able to pay their mortgage and bills because they were so used to living frugally and paying rent.

Both couples agree that this was one of the best things we did.

Lesson 4: Live frugally

One of the common problems we saw when other married couples moved home was spending.
Living without the bills of maintaining a household increases discretionary money available for spending.

Living with your parents is a stressful situation. Sometimes people spend money to “get away” from the home.

Couples sometimes instead of saving money, spend the money frivolously (trips, clothes, eating out, unneeded shopping, events, etc)

The couple is suddenly living paycheck to paycheck and now can not conceive being able to ever afford moving out.

The couple whose home they live at feels resentment at the spending.

The solution we found was to talk about this explicitly. “We expect you to live frugally and save as much as possible while you live here. How much are your bills? What is your income? What is the smallest amount you can spend?”

Our couple decided they could spend $15 a week on a date night to frozen yogurt, $20 a week on a double date to Chipotle/Chick-fil-A, and $15 misc. They spent about $200 a month in discretionary spending. They worked hard to save as much as possible and live frugally and it really made a difference.

Lesson 3: Work

My daughter and her husband’s purpose of living with us was to save money. They moved here from out of state and knew they had to
1. get jobs
2. save enough for a first and last months rent and deposit
3. have their jobs for three months, in or to qualify to an apartment.
Our original agreement was based on this three month timeline.

They had both graduated from college and were looking for careers and those are more difficult to find than jobs. It was a frustrating process.

If I could go back in time and do it again, I would say that everyone had to have a full-time job. If you don’t like the one you have, you need to have another one set up before you leave it. You need to be working, even if is at Target.

When everyone was working, things went very smoothly. When everyone was not, there was a lot of tension and frustration. It was more than not working, it was being home too much.

The lesson we learned is if you are living at home while married, you both need to be working, somewhere, full time, the whole time.

Lesson 2: Privacy

One of the hardest parts of having a married couple live at home, was the loss of privacy for them and for us.

All couples need the privacy of having conversations, moods, debates, and a s*x life not overheard or commented on. This is especially important with new married couples.

Living together in multigenerational household limited both couples and was difficult.

The best way we came up with to address this was to make bedrooms completely off limits at all times. No one could ever enter the other couples bedroom or knock on the bedroom door.

Previously when my daughter was single, we would hang out in my room, or knock on the door to talk, or run in a room to grab something. This setup did not work in this new situation.

We made bedrooms off limits at all times. This was a place for private conversations, bad moods, arguments, s*x, or just alone time.

However, it was difficult and one of the biggest reasons I encourage couples not to live with others. Having a home alone (as a couple) where you can create your life together unobserved and unedited is the best way to develop as a couple and be in tune with each other.

Lesson 1: Household chores

We divided all the household chores equally. There had previously been three of us living in our home, when our daughter and her husband moved in, we split the chores by five people.

We were each responsible for our own bedroom, bathrooms, and laundry. Then, the household chores such as dishes, trash, yard, pool cleaning, dog care, mail, etc were divided so we were each doing an equal share of the household labor.

This was not done generally “everyone pitch in”. This was done specifically by listing out all the household chores, assigning each chore to a person, and having the list hanging on the fridge.

I have seen people be unsuccessful by going too far in either direction.

Having people earn their rent by doing all the household chores leads to resentment.

Having the married couple only responsible for their individual area without contributing to the household chores leads to resentment.

We just completed a season (a year and a half) of having our married adult daughter and her husband live with us. We had heard many horror stories from people on both sides of this type of living arrangement who experienced a lot of resentment.

We decided to consciously engage in having this living arrangement go well.

We looked for resources to help guide us but didn’t find any.

These are the top lessons we learned that helped our situation be successful. I hope that this information will be helpful to others.

I will post an explanation of each of the lessons in the following days.

Family members are often very predictable. Many times we go into a family holiday g*thering expecting people to have miraculously changed for the better and then are extremely disappointed when they are the same.

Although I do believe people can change, I also believe in having realistic expectations about our family interactions.

Holidays not only don’t change people, they are a stressful time.

Self care includes having realistic expectations for family interactions and taking time to regulate ourselves.

Sometimes the hardest part of therapy is facing the brutal facts about your situation.

However, once this step is done, planning and healing can begin.

You want a partner, not a project. You want a friend, not a babysitting job.

If I could only make one cultural word change related to divorce, it would be never saying "they decided to divorce."

It's almost always one spouse making the decision;
rarely do both people equally decide at the same time to end the marriage.

We need to honor the different places and pain both people experience on a divorce journey.

Bill Doherty

Wishing and waiting are not solutions to relationship problems. Speaking up, setting boundaries, agreeing to and actively working on goals are the solutions. Don’t let years pass wishing.

I love teaching parents emotion regulation skills so they can better respond when their child is upset.

“If you can accomplish this, you have accomplished more than most parents. If you can keep the upset in the hands of your child then you have done your job.

Their meltdown is not an opportunity for us to become upset. It is an opportunity for us to witness and be present without making the upset about us.

Easy, right? Not so much! But we can try.”

When telling someone you’d like to meet or talk with them, please:

Give some context about subject matter.
•This will help minimize worry and prevent overthinking.
•Minimize the wait time between when you inform them and when you have the discussion.

Reassure them where possible.
•This will prevent catastrophising and assuming the worst case scenario.

Make yourself available.
•Someone may want to have the conversation as soon as possible to prevent their anxiety from spiraling out of control.

The Real Depression Project

I love teaching about boundaries. It is so freeing to be able to say “no” to things that are unacceptable, even if other people are disappointed.

This is the cycle of people-pleasing. You feel anxious you won’t be liked ➡️ you want to reduce that anxiety ➡️you people-please➡️you don’t learn that you would still be liked by the right people if you don’t people please.

You can break free from this cycle by learning to tolerate anxiety and practicing being genuine.

There is hope! Therapy can help. Make an appointment today.