Self Love

How To Be Your Best Self In A Relationship

By Mary Ellen Goggin / October 3, 2022
Couple playfully embracing and laughing.

You’re a go-getter. Everyone in your world knows that about you. You aced school, championed every sport, snagged the best job from a banquet of delicious offers. You look your best, act your best, even work to perfect your best. But there’s that other part of your life that involves your heart and another person.…

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8 Reasons Self-Love In A Relationship Is Critical To The Relationship’s Success

By Mary Ellen Goggin / July 1, 2022
Appeal for self-love: Love yourself sign surrounded by red roses.

As redundant as they can be, everyday proverbs stand the test of time for a reason. Their succinct, often poetic composition helps commit them to memory. It’s then up to us to pull them out, contemplate them, and apply them. “No one can love you if you don’t love yourself first,” for example, has a…

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Ep 43: Jerry Duberstein | Insight from a Couples Therapist of 40 Years

By Mary Ellen Goggin / June 23, 2022

In relationship, you want to maintain individual autonomy, and you also want security. Many people believe you can’t have both, but you can. Dr. Jerry Duberstein has been a couples therapist for over 40 years. He and his wife co-wrote the book, Relationship Transformation: A Practical Guide for Couples Who Want to be Free and…

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8 Things To Do If You’re Losing Your Sense Of Self In A Relationship

By Mary Ellen Goggin / May 11, 2022

You may not even notice that you’re losing your sense of self in a relationship, especially if you’re married. But living into a balance of “me” and “we” is essential for happiness when you’re living as a couple.

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6 Benefits Of Learning How To Be More Self-Aware In A Relationship

By Mary Ellen Goggin / March 31, 2022

It’s so much easier to focus on what the other person is doing (or not doing) in a relationship. Is s/he following the rules? Communicating to your liking? Reading your mind? Being a royal pain-in-the-you-know-what? Did it ever occur to you that learning how to be more self-aware in a relationship could be the key to getting the answers you want?

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5 Ways To Cultivate Self-Love In A Relationship

By Mary Ellen Goggin / January 14, 2022

Perhaps you’re so in love that you don’t realize the full extent of what you’re promising. Perhaps you just want to say “I do” and get the reception rockin’. And perhaps you think these vows are all about “other-love” and not self-love. In a relationship, after all, it can be easy to lose your footing in the name of love.

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How To Gain Self-Respect In A Relationship

By Mary Ellen Goggin / November 15, 2021
Cracked wall painted with with the word respect sloppily stenciled on it.

Relationships. They draw us in, bind us together, dangle possibilities before our star-struck eyes. They also expose us for who we are and can be. Relationships strip us to the nakedness of vulnerability – that iffy space that can both heal and hurt. Do you find yourself or lose yourself? Do you know how to…

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How To Maintain Your Self-Esteem In Relationships

By Mary Ellen Goggin / September 18, 2021
Sign stating "You are worthy of love."

And the two shall become one. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Put others’ needs before your own. And so the song of self-surrender is sung…while the task of maintaining self-esteem in relationships is left to the self-help DIYers. The irony of relationships, and especially marriage, is that they are so…

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