Couples and Family Therapy of Jacksonville, LLC

11/01/2025

You can’t control how your partner shows up, but you can control how you do. When you stop trying to manage their behavior and start focusing on your own emotional responses, everything shifts. Responding instead of reacting is an act of emotional accountability. It creates safety, not defensiveness. Connection, not distance. This is how secure relationships grow: two people taking ownership of their part and meeting each other from a grounded, self-aware place.

10/09/2025

09/02/2025

Do you ever worry about your worry or get angry at your anger?

If so, try your best Spock impression. Seriously—you can often cut an emotional downward spiral short if you learn to observe your thoughts and emotions with a gently removed Spock-like objectivity.

Instead of "I can't believe my teenager just said that...they don’t respect me...our relationship is so fraught..." and so on and so forth, try:

"It appears that my teenager has been rude to me. This is uncomfortable. I am feeling upset. It seems I really value being a patient parent and mutual respect, and those values are being challenged right now."

Even the subtlest shift in internal language can sometimes mean the difference between an impulsive reaction and a carefully meditated response.

09/02/2025

Our emotions point to what we care about most. We tend not to feel as strongly about things that aren’t meaningful to us.

What is your anger trying to tell you? What steps can you take to support the value that’s being threatened?

09/02/2025

Save these phrases for when you need them ❤️

08/04/2025

If you hurt your partner, it doesn’t matter if you think what you did was perfectly acceptable. All that matters is they are hurt. Let go of your pride and make amends.

A failure to quickly repair injuries, misunderstandings, or perceptions of insensitivity will gradually catch up to you and harm your relationship.

08/03/2025

08/01/2025

This is great advise!

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