Tag Archive : marriage counsellor in Vasant Kunj

Tips To Create Trust in A Relationship & Marriage

Trust usually is the act of establishing confidence and being able to depend on someone or something. Trust is essential for relationships, to function and for any person to be relatively happy. Without trust, insecurity sets in.

Trust is a matter of degree, and certain life experiences can affect an individual’s ability to trust others. The matter of trust and relationships focuses on the question of whether the partners are honest and faithful enough to each other.

Being able to trust your partner is the most essential part of a being in a relationship. Trust is said to be the core foundation of every relationship from which a strong connection can be created. Without trust in a relationship, relationships will not grow and prosper to a deeper level.

Delhi’s Top Marriage Counselor and relationship expert Shivani Misri Sadhoo shares tips to create trust in a relationship. Here they are.

Communicate Effectively

Communication is an essential factor in creating trust between partners in a relationship. Partners must communicate about their problems instead of sitting on them and brooding. When the time comes for communication, do it face to face. Personal verbal communication bolsters the bond between partners in a relationship.

Try to avoid communicate over emails, phone calls or texts. Instead, make it more personal and direct. When communicating, ensure that you keep eye contact with your partner as frequent eye contact during a discussion increases the bond of partners.

Do Not Hide Secrets from Each Other

Trust needs honesty and openness. If you are looking to build trust in a relationship, you must avoid to keep secrets and be open with your partner. To become a trustworthy partner, you must be honest in all your conversations and dealings with your partner.

Secrets ruin up relationships quite rapidly, so it is important, to be honest, and sincere about issues that arise together or individually. Having an open mind towards your partner assists him or her to share their deep dark secrets which are a sign that they trust you.

Set Boundaries

Defining clear boundaries set together is important to develop trust amongst partners. Setting boundaries help in explaining how much space you are comfortable with, in a relationship, physically and emotionally.

Boundaries can be about any kind of things, how much time you need to be alone, how convenient you feel about your relationship to tell other people and so on. Accepting one another’s boundaries is helpful when it comes to creating trust in the relationship.

Learn To Say No

You need to understand one thing, everything that your partner wants is what you are willing or capable to provide. You do not have to say YES every time to everything your partner wants or asks to do. If you do not like the certain thing he or she proposes to do, simply say no. You should not be enslaved to a relationship. You should not be forced to sustain what you don’t like. When a relationship is based on equality, it will be easier for both of you to march forward.

Do not cater to the vagaries of your partner just to make him or her happy, as this will ruin the relationship.

Never Make Promises You Cannot Keep

Never break your promises. Keep your words and your promises. If you have promised your partner that you are going to do something, ensure that you do it.

It makes a lot of sense that you want to keep promises you have made to your partner, but often the little things you promised get forgotten. Keeping your promises about small things is as important as keeping your promises about the big ones

When you are late, call your partner and tell what is holding you down, remember to pick up those items from the local store and remember to pay the bills on time. Yes these things appear small and it might be overlooked, but they go a very long way towards developing trust in a relationship.

Do Not Cheat On Your Partner

It is in the natural configuration of humans to get attracted to more than one person. But this does not permit you to cheat on your partner. Even if you are bored in the relationship, resolve it up or else walk out of it. But you should not cheat on your partner simply because she/ he is not fun to be with or you do not enjoy his or her company any longer. To develop trust in a relationship, make sure you tell your partner plainly that you are not happy with the way things are amongst the two of you, and need to sort it out, or else, walk out of the relationship.

Take Accountability of Your Actions

Take ownership of your behaviour, action, and inaction. Never try to pass the blame to a situation or someone else. Be true with yourself and to your partner as to why you made your decisions.


Counsellor Shivani MIsa

Counsellor Shivani Misri Sadhoo is an experienced and certified Couples Therapist with specialization in the area of Personal Crisis interventions like coping-up with Relationship Issues, Marriage Counselling, Separation and divorce, Child and Adolescent issues, Depression, Stress, Domestic, Loss & Grief. Counsellor Shivani is currently working with India’s top hospital groups like Fortis Hospital, IBS (Indian Brain & Spine) Hospital and with Express Clinics.

Why Must You Smile More Every Day?

If you think smiling is just a social courtesy, way to greet a person, and then think again. Research has found that human smile holds an unlimited potential to improve the person’s social, psychological and physical well-being.  Today Counsellor Shivani Misri Sadhoo shares various reasons why it’s important to smile more often as you can.

1. Smiling reduces stress.

Smiling helps in reducing body stress. According to Smithsonian, people who smile through stressful events (whether the smile is genuine or not) have fewer physiological stress reactions and reduced stress hormones, and they report less stress than those who don’t smile. So next time you’re stuck in traffic or working against a deadline, stop to smile.

2. Smiling helps your heart.

Smiling not only can relax your body, it also has the power to slow your heart rate, reduce blood pressure, and decrease your chances of a heart disease.

3. Smiling improves relationships.

According to a University of California, Berkeley study, people who smile often are more likely to have fulfilling and happy marriages and relationships than people who do not. Try smiling at your spouse every day to see if the research holds true for you.

4. A smile builds trust.

Studies have proved that a genuine smile increases the trust that the recipient of that smile feels. In fact, the bigger your smile (not a crazy smile, but a big approachable smile), the more trustworthy you appear. Building trust is an absolute must for business and individual successes, and when you give your clients a warm smile, they are likely to trust you more.

5. Smiling makes you happier

We know we smile when we’re happy usually but do you know its works in reverse too. The human brain is stimulated when facial muscles move into a smile, whether or not the smile is caused by happy emotions. Hence as per the study, people who hold a smile, regardless of their emotional state, have reported feeling happier afterwards.

Qualities to Look in an Ideal Life Partner

Relationship expert and marriage counsellor Shivani Misri Sadhoo suggest if you are in dating world or if your family is arranging a meet with prospective guy or girl for an arranged marriage, here are 4 qualities of a romantic partner that you can look for in the person.

1. Look for similarities between you two

A lot of relationship research across the world has identified that opposites do not always attract in the long term. People tend to find more opportunities to develop their marital relationship when they share similar interests, value system and attitudes. For example, a girl who loves to trek would possibly get better opportunity to enhance her relationship with her husband if he loves to trek as well and they can trek together. However, if there are differences in taste and/or hobbies largely, the couple then should check if they both hold the capacity to respect each other’s individual preferences and can offer each other the freedom to explore their individual interests.

2.  Kindness, fidelity, and support

While selecting an ideal life partner, a person and his/her family in India put a lot of emphasis on personality, career, and earning potential and physical attractiveness. But remember more than anything else, it’s the person’s kindness, loyalty, emotional support and understanding that really defines who he/she is and that will determine if you would really be happy with this person in life.

Since all superficial traits are conditioned to time and situation, like someone who is an average earner today could reach an excellent career point in future or vice versa, or someone who looks extremely beautiful today would be overweight after child birth or vice versa.

But someone who is kind, capable and puts efforts to understand another person’s unspoken words i.e. emotions and feelings–will be like this possible for rest of his/her life. Hence look for these traits and check if it’s genuine or pretended.

3. Have to mean in life.

Appreciate and value the person who is leading a purposeful life, holds a passion, a mission or larger meaning to his/her life. This happens when a person uses his/her strengths to help something they believe in. It might be volunteering with NGO, being an active part of a spiritual process, contributing to a good cause.

Remember a person, who has a bigger mission in life and live more than its materialistic dimensions, holds much better chance to live an emotionally healthy and peaceful old age and that would certainly make them a better life partner than others.

4. Check for emotional stability

This trait is the most important harbinger of relationship success, and should ideally be at No 1. Those who lack emotional stability and are high on the trait of neuroticism, tend to be moody, touchy, anxious, and quicker to anger, all traits that can be destructive in any given relationship. Those who have low emotional intelligence or EQ, tend to be negative and are more prone to be combative with others and their partners. There is a strong link between high levels of neuroticism and divorce.

How to check if the person is emotionally stable? Marriage Counsellor Shivani Misri Sadhoo suggests looks for the following clues.

  • An emotionally stable person treats others well. They view other people with compassion and treat them with kindness that is a hallmark of their own emotional well-being.
  • An emotionally stable person is flexible. People who have emotional wellness have an ability to adapt to all kinds of situations that life throws at them. They’re able to assess a situation mindfully — they notice their surroundings, their own emotions and other’s reactions to a given situation — and then they use these factors to decide what the best course of action would be for them. Hence if a person shares a difficult period of his/her life and how they overcame time, try to identify how they coped with it, took help of others or used situational assessment, searching inner strength, overcoming fear and doubt etc.
  • An emotionally stable person holds gratitude in life. If a person is emotionally healthy, it’s likely he/she easily feels and shows gratitude for the people and the things in their life. Holding gratitude is a way of purposefully looking at our life with a sense of appreciation for what we have, rather than focusing on what we are lacking. And indeed, research has shown that counting our blessings has added strong benefits to our emotional well-being.

How to Bring Work Life Balance in Today’s Corporate Life?

Developing and maintaining work-life balance can seem impossible in today’s competitive workplace and fast lifestyle. Technology has made employees accessible around the clock. Fears of job loss increase longer working hours. Physicians and mental help experts agree that the compounding stress from the never-ending workday is damaging. It can hurt relationships, health and overall happiness.

According to Couples Therapist Shivani Misri Sadhoo, despite these realities, there are people who are managing to carve out satisfying and meaningful lives outside of their work and maintain good work-life balance. She suggests for bringing work-life balance, people must understand and try to bring certain habits in their life. These habits are:

Make Deliberate Choices

Instead of just letting life happen, people who achieve work-life balance make deliberate choices about what they want from life and how they want to spend their time. They talk to their partners, spouses, and others who are important in their lives and come up with a road map of what is important to them, how they want to spend their time and commit to following their path.

Time for family, Friends and Important Interests

People who have managed to bring work-life balance in their life, commonly don’t just wait to see what time is left over after work. They make a point of planning and booking time off to spend outside of work and powerfully guard this time. Hence when they are home, they don’t think or get bother about office worries, when they are at the office they guard themselves against having any home worries.

Strong sense of what they expect from their life

People who manage work-life balance have developed a strong sense of who they are, their values, and what is important to them. Using this as a guideline for everything helps them determine what success means to them. They know what makes them happy and strive to get more of that in their lives. In short, they don’t run a blind race that causes professional, mental and emotional complexities.

They devote time to healthy habits

People who manage work-life balance often develop an interest in healthy activities and perform them daily. Activities like yoga, aerobic, meditation, music, sports, or some other interests allow them to get away from the pressures of everyday life to relax, rejuvenate, and regenerate themselves.

Always Be Nice to Your Partner – Suggests Marriage Counsellor Shivani Misri Sadhoo

One of the hardest things to do in a relationship is to be nice to your partner when you’re upset with them. It’s also one of the most important moments to be kind.The act of not choosing kindness is therefore doubly hurtful to our partners and to ourselves because it undercuts our efforts for growth and the potential for greater intimacy.

I see couples in my chamber who want to “solve” their issues first before going out for an ice cream or relaxing over dinner. It will never work. It’s not possible to solve problems with someone you don’t want to collaborate with.

I often encourage couples to do an activity together to enjoy their love – despite their insinuations! It is much easier to discuss problems with your best friend than with your enemy.

It’s easier to offer a smile and to extend an olive branch to the person who is in the struggle with us – not against us.

About the author:  Counsellor Shivani Misri Sadhoo is the consulting Counsellor at Fortis Hospital, IBS (Indian Brain & Spine) Hospital and with Express Clinics. She has served over thousands plus happy & satisfied individual and couples in India and abroad. She is one of India’s eminent Marriage Counsellor & Relationship Expert, who is frequently been featured by leading newspapers, magazines and TV channels.