RESPECT is a vital ingredient for any successful relationship and is particularly important for the creation of a happy, healthy and satisfying marriage, de-facto relationship or, in fact, for ANY relationship.

Respecting your partner means acknowledging and accepting them as an individual with their own thoughts, feelings, beliefs, values, strengths and frailties, all of which may be very different from yours. Respecting your partner does not necessarily mean agreeing with their beliefs and values. It does mean, however, recognising those things as belonging to them and as being an important part of what makes them an unique individual.

TRUST is the main building block for a happy and healthy partnership. It provides the safety and security that enables us to open our ‘innermost self’ to our life-partner. As it’s those treasures that live in the recesses of our heart that make us the unique beings we are, it’s essential to our sense of being fully known and loved that we allow our partner to enter that space. If we do not feel safe enough with our partner to let them see our strengths and frailties, our likes and dislikes, our hopes and fears, our relationship will be an unfulfilling, insecure and empty one. It will be one in which we never know whether we are fully loved, accepted and appreciated just for who we are.

Marriages are breaking up at an alarming rate even in good old Australia.
So, what’s new?
Gossip mags are filled with celebrity breakups week after week and as tends to follow, we - the general public -  more and more accept 2nd, 3rd and sometimes even more marriages as being ‘the norm’. But at what cost? What is the real cost of separation? I don’t mean the financial cost, although that can be absolutely debilitating. What I am talking about is the mental and emotional cost - the stress and distress that accompanies separation and divorce.