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

Life of the married couples can turn up extremely hectic in cities, especially if they have school going children. Commonly today’s new academic curriculum, in most cases, puts extreme financial as well as personal pressure on couples. After a tiring day at the office and stressful driving back to home, they are expected to help kids finish their long list of homework, school projects, exam preparation and so on. 

These things consume so much time of the couples that they usually forget that they have a life of their own as a couple that needs attention, rest, nourishment and refreshment.

Unfortunately, such a life situation make a marriage and romance extremely vulnerable. Talking on this topic Delhi’s top marriage counsellor Shivani Misri Sadhoo reveals some easy yet fun things couples can do together to rejuvenate their relationship.

1. Arrange for a Date Night Together

Couples who are parents always appreciate a spontaneous date night. But in the free time between those spontaneous breaks away from your routine, arrange for a complete date night together. Date nights do not necessarily have to be expensive to be fun either. Plan for a less expensive date night that allows you both out of the house without having to think about your family budget.

2. Try a Getaway Together

Pack your bags and suitcase and get away for the night or a weekend. A romantic getaway refreshes you both and gives you some quality time outside of your daily family life. If your budget is limited, try for a one-night excursion and opt for a good local hotel. Or if you are thinking for a getaway on a weekend, then you can easily plan for nearby locales from your city or town.

3. Renew Your Wows

Looking for something to do together it’s a little bit elaborate? Renew your vows in front of family and friends or have a private ceremony in your living room. By renewing you give yourselves a great reminder of the bond you two share with each other and it is also a fun way to include your kids into your vow renewal ceremony.

4. Take Up New Hobbies Together

Find for some common ground and look for hobbies you would enjoy as a couple. There could be a simple connection between your hobbies, such as going to a nature park. He will look to spy through binoculars and you can take pictures of the birds or animals you find.

5. Look to Cook Together

People say that the couple that cooks together stays together. Well, take out the measuring cups and recipe book to spice things up in the kitchen. At least one night a month, you and your spouse must wait to eat dinner until the kids go to sleep. Then cook your meal together and enjoy a gentle quiet dinner for just the two of you. If you can get out of the house take a cooking class together to know some new recipes and cooking methods.
 
6. Celebrate Together

Every day should be of a celebration of your marriage and family. Celebrate those moments. Mark your calendar to celebrate your first meeting, the date of your engagement and, of course, your wedding. But also be sure to celebrate other moments of life. If your spouse gets a promotion, cook a special dish to celebrate or give him or her a gift. We often ignore these regular life moments and keep them under the rug but celebrating them as they happen is another way to celebrate you, your spouse and the life you have together as a couple.

In today’s fast and frantic world maintaining relationships particularly the marital relationship is becoming tricky for few individuals. The honeymoon period in any committed relationship is not meant to last forever. Eventually, it becomes certain that sharing and living a life with another person requires an appropriate set of skills. Many couples start to come apart after the few years of the wedding because some of you are not bothering about how to maintain and strengthen your emotional bonds.

In this article marriage counselor and relationship expert Shivani Misri Sadhoo sharing Top 5 Ways To Improve Your Marriage. Here they are.

1.      Soften Your Stance

Arguments are one of the major reasons for discord in marital life. Arguments often flare up because one partner escalates the dispute by making a critical or arrogant remark. Discussing up problems politely and without blaming each other works much better and allows couples to peacefully engage in any conflict.

2.      Focus On The Positive Things

In a happy and content marriage, while talking about problems, couples should at least make 5 times as many positive statements to and about each other and their relationship as compared to the negative ones. For instance, a happy couple will say We enjoy a lot instead of “We never have any fun.  A good marriage must have an abundant climate of positivity. Make daily deposits to your emotional bank accounts.

3.      Learn To Fix And Exit The Arguments

Happy couples know how to exit an argument, or how to fix the situation before an argument gets completely out of order. Examples of fix attempts: usage of humor, offering a gentle remark (I understand that this is not easy for you), making it clear you are on a common page (We will handle this ordeal together), backing down (in marriage, just like any sport, you often have to yield to win) and, mainly offering signs of appreciation for your partner and their feelings along the way. If an argument gets too heated, take a 15 minutes’ break, and try to approach the topic again when you both become calm and composed.

4.      Refine Yourself

The happiest and successful couples are kind to each other. They refrain from saying every critical thought when discussing delicate issues, and they will search for ways to express their needs and concerns respectfully without blaming or criticizing their partner.

5.      Adopt High Standards

Happy couples adopt high standards for each other. The happiest and successful couples are those who, even as newlyweds, denies to accept hurtful behavior from each another. Low levels of tolerance for improper behavior in the initial phase of a relationship equals a happier couple down the time.

About Shivani Misri Sadhoo is an expert on Marriage and relationship issues and gets frequently been featured in leading newspapers, magazines and TV channels. Counsellor Shivani is experienced and certified counselling psychologists with specialization in the area of Personal Crisis interventions like coping-up with Relationship Issues, Marital Counselling, Separation & Divorce, Child and Adolescent issues, Depression, Stress, Domestic and Sexual Abuse, Loss & Grief, Suicidal feelings. Counsellor Shivani is currently working withIndia ‘s top hospital groups like Fortis Hospital, IBS (Indian Brain & Spine) Hospital and with Express Clinics.

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.

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.

When we get married, most of us experience a “best days of my life” kind of phase. Everything seems so awesome and so romantic, we start believing that nothing can ever go wrong. Then slowly the time passes by and without our notice, our life situations starts to change and we add– work stress, financial pressure, kids, in-laws interferences, no time to spend with our partner and etc.

Then suddenly we realise that something has gone terribly (intensity differs from couple to couple) wrong in the relationship – we don’t feel that sexual attraction towards each other that we used to feel before, we hardly talk with each other and when we talk, it’s all about issues at home or with kids. Lately, we have started fighting too frequently and gradually we both have increased the bar of insults, abuses and hurt we give to each other during a conflict.

This happens to most of the couples in today’s fast pace lifestyle and the reason for it could be in general, couples don’t go into a relationship with the know-how or understanding of how to manage their relationship challenges. Hence it’s essential if the couple finds themselves incapable to bring back their romantic relationship and to eradicate the distance between themselves, then they should ideally consult an professional, i.e. a marriage counsellor.

Now the question is: how do you know at what stage you should immediately consult marriage counsellor before things turn complex, painful and devastating? Today Delhi’s eminent Marriage Counsellor and Relationship Expert Shivani Misri Sadhoo shares some of the important trigger points and behaviours in relationships that are signs you may need help.

Early stage indicators

1. When there is too less communication between you too, and whenever you talk, you talk about matters related to home, kids and EMI’s. Even if you try to talk something about your relationship, those conversations generally start by accusing each other, gradually end up into ugly quarrels.
2. You have started finding it okay to spend days or month without your partner expressing his/her emotional support and love.
3. You are living more like roommates rather than husband and wife.
4. You have started finding it difficult to get sexually attracted to your partner and gradually you both has lost the physical urge to get connected to your partner.

Advance stage indicators to consult a marriage counsellor immediately (when you miss to consult a counsellor at the early stages of marital issues and let your marital life reach the following adverse conditions)

5. Gradually, either you or your partner or you both have trust issues with each other.
6. You or your partner has started feeling attracted to someone outside marriage.
7. You or your partner or you both have started having an extra marital relationship, the only reason you are together is for of kids or you are waiting for your partner to initiate the lawful separation.

How people trip on the slippery slope of relationship?

Every time we think of the word ‘cheating’ we imagine someone engaged physical relationship. But cheating is a wider term and also includes emotional intimacy. “Emotional cheating is a modern term used to describe an infidelity condition where one or both partners maintain emotional and psychologically (non-sexual) intimate romantic relationship outside their marriage and hide it partially or completely from his/her partner,” says Delhi-based Shivani Misri Sadhoo, relationship and marriage counsellor and founder of Saarthi Counselling Services. It applies to unmarried couples too.

There seems to be a rise in this phenomena and of the several reasons attributed to it, counsellors say that lack of emotional fulfillment in a…..

Read here: http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/report-emotionally-not-yours-2489771

How to stop getting taken on a guilt trip?

Guilt trips can be defined as a situation where one of the partners tries to induce the feeling of guilt in the other partner for the purpose of manipulation. Most romantic relationships are susceptible to guilt trips. This is because partners feel a sense of commitment to each other and naturally crave acceptance from one another. As a result of this, if there is an argument, then usually one of the partners is quick to give in to the feeling of guilt to please the other and to avoid upsetting the balance of the relationship.

So, if you find yourself feeling guilty in your relationship for no reason whatsoever, then here’s what Marriage Counsellor Shivani Misri Sadhoo, relationship expert, suggest you to do to get out of a guilt trip….

Read the article here: HT City Article