- I'm Stephanie Yates-Anyabwile,
a licensed marriage and family therapist,
I'm here to answer your questions from Twitter,
this is Relationship Support.
[upbeat music]
From _jessybeauty, how do I tell my closest friend
her boyfriend begged me for sex?
Okay, so I think the best thing you can do
in a situation like that is find an opportunity
when your friend is already disarmed,
you never wanna pull something like this out
when you all are already in the course of an argument
for example, I would go ahead and let her know
that this is something that's going on.
Will she get mad at you?
There is a possibility that she will,
but what she's upset about is the information itself
and she's probably very embarrassed, humiliated,
but if you keep this information to yourself
what does that say about your friendship with her?
That's going to call into question
the relationship itself between you and her,
and so you try your best to be as humble as possible
and let her know the reasons why you've chosen
to share this with her and let the chips fall
where they may.
Hopefully she can be mature and understand
that you have her best interest at heart,
but if she's at a place where she's not ready
to accept the truth, and she wants to be upset with you,
then you kinda have an eye-opening experience
about the person that you're considering to be your friend.
From Lingzi_W, is it ever okay to ghost someone?
I would say if you feel like you're unsafe,
if you're dealing with someone who might be stalking you
or has anger issues, and you feel like you can't trust
this person can handle the information
that you're not interested anymore,
that is the only time that I would say
that it's okay to ghost but what we see most often
is that people have a hard time
trying to have difficult conversations with people,
with this opportunity, a person that you clearly
don't care that much about to where you'd be fine
to never talk to them again,
this is actually a great time to practice
having difficult conversations, sharing your feelings,
and dealing with the person who you may be making upset.
So that way when you are with the person that you love
and care about and you need to have
a difficult conversation, you're a little bit
more prepared to do that
because you've got some practice in.
Michaeltheboy, how do I tell my partners
some of his friends are losers?
[laughing]
So if you feel like your partner is surrounding themselves
with people that you don't think are investing
in your partner's success,
definitely find a way to have that conversation with them.
But what you don't wanna do is establish yourself
as the enemy.
You never know the conversations that your partner
is having with their friends behind closed doors,
and there could be times where those people
are standing up for you in a way that you didn't know
was actually sustaining your relationship.
So be very careful when you establish yourself
as the enemy between your partner and their closest friends
because you might not win that battle.
And if at the end they choose their friends over you,
you're the one who started the war.
From KeybladeKate, can I ask you you guys a question?
If you guys are in a relationship
and your partner is flirting with other people,
would you consider that cheating or disloyal?
Within one relationship, you might be in a position
where flirting is actually expected.
I know some couples that find flirting
to actually be ego boosting and they like to see
that their partner can still pull someone
if they want it to.
But in other relationships, it can be a major hit
on your partner's self-esteem to see that you're interested
in someone else, attracted to someone else,
and then going to the next step and actually acting
on those feelings.
You definitely don't wanna have one person
who is okay with it, and another person who is not.
So make sure you're having those conversations
very early on in the dating process
about what defines cheating and disloyalty
within your relationship,
so that you're not moving forward with someone
who has very different ideals than you do.
From bollyholicc, serious question,
how do I know if I'm a narcissist?
If you are even looking at yourself
in such an introspective way, most of the time
you're not a narcissist.
Because the thing about narcissistic personality disorder,
is that one of the requirements is a very limited self view.
You don't see the pain you cause the people around you,
as a matter of fact, you're looking at everyone else
like why are they causing me all of this distress?
From JayGaddis, opposites do attract,
and that even applies to your attachment styles.
But does having different attachment styles
mean you're with the wrong person?
One of the main things that we're talking about
when we're talking about attachment styles,
which for anyone who's unfamiliar with attachment styles
means that a lot of us have a bit of a predisposition
for how much intimacy we're comfortable with
in relationship.
If you're anxiously attached, for example,
you're probably gonna want a lot of validation
from your partner.
You'll want somebody who is telling you
they want to be with you, who's comfortable holding hands,
who can help you know that they are committed
to this relationship maybe more often
than another person would.
If you have a secure attachment, that means that
you don't need a ton of validation from your partner,
and you also don't need a ton of space from your partner.
But if you have an avoidant attachment style,
you tend to value your independence and autonomy,
and you need a lot of space.
It's not that you're not interested in having intimacy
within your relationship, but you might not be
the type of person that's interested in spending 24/7
with your partner as a person who's anxiously attached
might be more interested in doing.
So you can be with someone
with a different attachment style,
but you do want to pay close attention
to what that different attachment style is.
From TherealJDior, timelines too peaceful,
who do y'all think should pay on the first date?
Okay, I'm gonna get canceled here,
this is the thing that I'm gonna say
that people are not gonna agree with me about,
but I truly believe that if you are interested
in pursuing a long-term relationship with someone,
you should look at that as a partnership from the outset.
So I'm big ongoing Dutch, you know,
so that way if this is a person that you're interested
in spending more time with, both of you have more funds
to make that a reality.
Now, I do understand that for some people
it's important to know a person's intentions
from the beginning.
And paying for a meal or an activity
is a way that that person can prove to you
that they are really interested in you.
Is that really telling you if that person
is interested in you because they could be paying
for your meal and five other people's meals,
and it doesn't even matter.
From PulseNigeria247,
how do you know that someone is gaslighting you,
especially those you are in a relationship with?
Gaslighting is another one that we're hearing a lot more
about these days.
When I think of gaslighting, I think of someone
who might be intentionally or even sometimes unintentionally
making you second guess yourself,
making you second guess your feelings.
You know, maybe you saw something happen
and they say something like that didn't happen.
So sometimes it could be outright lies,
and sometimes it's something like,
oh you really don't feel like that, right?
They might be telling you, you're just acting,
you really don't feel that way,
stop trying to make a scene.
They don't validate or value your perspective
on how you're feeling or what you're seeing
and most of the time they're trying to convince you
to see or feel things a different way.
From moonareas,
should I leave my girlfriend who doesn't trust me
and is very insecure, or work it out?
When we're talking about a relationship
where you have one partner who is very insecure,
that is actually language that we still use
when we talk about attachment styles,
secure versus insecure attachment.
Sometimes when you have a partner
who is acting very insecure, they probably have
an anxious attachment style and what that means is that
they're going to require a lot of validation from you.
Now, for you, if you're the person that's gotta provide that
and that is your limit, you're like I cannot
constantly make this person feel at ease
in our relationship,
it's not my job to try to heal them
from previous relationship wounds,
I fully respect that.
In that case, absolutely end things.
From Lindy_R,
can a relationship recover from cheating?
A relationship absolutely can recover from cheating
if both people are committed to making
that relationship work.
So if you're dealing with the relationship
after there's been a betrayal in trust,
it's not going to just go back to what it looked like
before you had that betrayal and trust.
If you were with a person who no longer believes you
when you say that you're at a certain location for example,
and they would feel more comfortable
if you would share locations,
you have to be open to hearing their request
if you're looking to have that relationship
continue forward.
And if you're the person who got cheated on,
you have to humble yourself, and be open
to having a conversation about the gaps in the relationship
that could have led to that cheating.
So after cheating, it's extremely important
that you both focus in on what's going to be required
to rebuild the trust and it could take years
for that to happen.
From Adrienluvsgg,
do open relationships really work?
Asking for a friend.
and this is another one where it's gonna be highly dependent
on the people who are within the relationship.
You have to know what people are needing.
So if we go back to attachment styles, for example,
if you've got two people who have
an avoidant attachment style,
they both need a lot of space, independence, autonomy,
and open relationship might be perfect for them
because they don't have to feel trapped or imprisoned
in a relationship that's very limiting,
and they do still have the stability and consistency
of having that one partner that they will achieve
their long-term goals with.
From aroojwaheed3,
what causes a marriage of 10, 15 years to fail?
What changes or does not change?
I always thought the respect and understanding
gets better with time, but the cases around me
are showing otherwise.
What we often see is that as relationships
progress through really critical milestones,
it requires a reconfiguring of the identity
of each of them individually, as well as how they fit
as a couple.
So the empty nest syndrome, for example,
you've got a couple who maybe got married,
had kids within the first five years,
then they spend you next 20, 25 years
trying to launch those kids.
What happens when the children
are completely out of the house
and now it's just the two of you?
And you don't remember how you relate
to one another anymore?
You don't know your hobbies,
your interest,
you don't know how much space you need,
and you start really noticing that this retired life
that you envision for yourselves is just not compatible.
From __OTY_, how do you know if he's the one?
You want your relationship ideally to represent
a safe haven for you.
So if you're having stress at work,
with your family, you want this person
and this relationship to be the place where you can relax
at the end of a stressful day.
So even though in the beginning these relationships
aren't always that appealing
because they can seem actually kind of boring,
those are the types of things
that you want to pay attention to
where there can be nice longevity in the relationship
because you guys are creating a dynamic
where you can weather a lot of different storms together.
From Inspirechat,
how does developing self-love
help to strengthen your relationship?
When we are expecting the people in our lives
to make us feel worthy,
we are setting ourselves up for failure
because they're humans, and they're going to fail.
So when you have those self-love practices
of setting side time and having boundaries,
and taking care of your body, all of these things
that tell yourself, "Hey, if no one else
comes through for me, I'm going to come through for myself."
It makes it a lot easier for the people around you
to show you that they love you
and it feels like an add-on instead of a need.
413Honey, do love languages matter to you?
This is a great question.
I think love languages are really important.
When it comes to love languages,
I find that it's a really great way for you
to identify your needs compared to your partner's needs.
There are five love languages,
you have words of affirmation,
physical touch,
quality time,
acts of service and gifts.
Most of us are going to score on all of those
to some capacity, but you wanna see
what are your big hitters.
For me, for example, it's words of affirmation.
But a really interesting thing
that we don't talk enough about when it comes
to love languages is that it actually also gives you
insight into some of the most severe ways
that you can hurt your partner.
So if we were to continue with the words of affirmation,
for a person who really values words,
if you say demeaning things
especially in front of a group of people,
those things are going to affect a person
with the words of affirmation love language,
more than a person with physical touch, for example.
Next, from Stage5Social,
can you have a compromise without a sacrifice?
Like what if my partner wants kids and I don't?
How do you navigate that without sacrifice?
This is a great question, and it's one of those things
that needs to be discussed in the beginning
of your relationship.
If you wanna have children and your partner
does not want to have children or vice versa,
that's the type of thing that you really
cannot compromise on.
At the end of the day,
someone is not getting what they want
and they're going to have to compromise their values.
And when it comes to kids,
I personally think that's the kind of thing
that you should not be compromising on.
That's it, that's all the questions we had,
I hope you learned something.
Till next time.