Terry Real - Relational Life Institute

Terry Real - Relational Life Institute Terry Real has been a practicing family therapist for more than 25 years. He also regularly appears on Good Morning America.

He is a bestselling author and has been featured on NBC Nightly News, Today, The CBS Early Show and Oprah.

07/22/2025

Needing space is one thing. Using it to punish your partner is another.

Stewing in resentment for days doesn't create resolution. It creates distance.

If you need a time-out to self-regulate, take it — but learn to do it in a way that allows your partner to stay connected to you.

Don't go behind a wall. Roll up your sleeves, and fix it.

There’s a kind of fear that becomes so normal, you stop noticing it.That was my childhood.The fear of setting my father ...
07/21/2025

There’s a kind of fear that becomes so normal, you stop noticing it.

That was my childhood.

The fear of setting my father off. The pressure on my mother to keep everything perfect. The way we all learned to tiptoe.

We called it keeping the peace.

But it wasn’t peace. It was management.

And here’s the tragedy — when that’s what you grow up with, it starts to feel like love.

If that’s the air you breathed, I want to understand this:

You don’t have to live like that now.

And you sure as hell don’t have to pass it down.

07/20/2025

If you were the scapegoat child, you were tasked with holding the emotional burdens no one else could face. Healing starts with your relationship with yourself, and learning to let love in.

When we fall in love, we all carry a quiet hope: that our partner will finally give us what we never got. That they’ll c...
07/19/2025

When we fall in love, we all carry a quiet hope: that our partner will finally give us what we never got. That they’ll complete us, heal us.

But eventually, every partner disappoints us. They trigger us, frustrate us, and hurt us — often in the very ways we thought they would protect us.

This isn’t a failure of your relationship. It’s the work of it.

After 40 years of marriage, here’s what I’ve learned:

Love that lasts isn’t built on never facing conflict. It’s built on how you come back from it.

Repair. Accountability. Humility. The courage to grow — together.

If you want real tools to support that work, download my 20 Essential Practices for Loving & Lasting Relationships.

Link’s in the first comment.

A good relationship is the relationship that survives the whole pattern.A good relationship is a relationship that moves...
07/17/2025

A good relationship is the relationship that survives the whole pattern.

A good relationship is a relationship that moves from harmony through disharmony and doesn't get stuck there. One that moves from disharmony back into repair and closeness again.

That's where the skills come in.

07/16/2025

"Our relationships can heal us, but not in the ways we commonly think - not by controlling our partners or getting from them what we lacked as children.

Rather, we heal by coming to terms with the ignored parts of ourselves. We acknowledge our wounded, triggered responses and shift into something wiser, more mature.

Everyone hears that relationships take work, but few of us have heard what the nature of that work entails. The real work of relationships is not occasional or even daily: it is minute-to-minute. In this triggered moment right now, which path will I take? Rather than being overridden by your history, you can stop, pause, and choose."

Intimacy demands honesty.You want to keep your s*x life alive in your relationship? Then you have to start being truthfu...
07/15/2025

Intimacy demands honesty.

You want to keep your s*x life alive in your relationship? Then you have to start being truthful.

You have to stop withholding, walking on eggshells, and swallowing your needs because you “don’t want to rock the boat.”

Let me be clear: that boat needs rocking.

When you stop taking each other on, you tell yourself you’re compromising. But really, what you’re doing is settling.

That’s what causes resentment to build, generosity to dry up, and intimacy to fade.

That’s the cost.

You have to learn to lean in and deal with each other. Not blame or attack, but courageous and loving truth-telling.

That’s how you keep passion alive.

07/14/2025

It is relational wisdom that if one of you wins and the other one loses, you both lose. You may get your way in the short run, but the loser will make the winner pay for it in the long run.

Do you work overtime to be helpful and liked by everybody — even if it means saying “yes” when your heart is shouting “n...
07/14/2025

Do you work overtime to be helpful and liked by everybody — even if it means saying “yes” when your heart is shouting “no”?

People-pleasing may feel like you’re doing the right thing… but it’s not serving you, your partner, or your relationship.

When you stop over-accommodating and step into Loving Power, something shifts.

You get more of what you need, your connection deepens, and your relationships become alive again.

You can be assertive and connected. Loving and boundaried.

You didn’t learn these skills as a kid, but you can learn them now.

Download my 20 Essential Practices For Loving & Lasting Relationships. Link in the 1st comment. 👇

07/13/2025

Whether it’s turned outward as grandiosity or inward as shame, contempt is the same emotion in two directions.

Most people don’t change because they want to.They change because they have to.Because the relationship is falling apart...
07/12/2025

Most people don’t change because they want to.

They change because they have to.

Because the relationship is falling apart.

Because the pain finally catches up.

Because the old way stops working.

If you’re at that edge, stay there.

That’s where something better becomes possible.

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Arlington, MA

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