by Melina | Apr 5, 2019 | Intimacy, Monogamy, Non Monogamy
When we hold an expectation of our partner to be everything: best friend, surrogate parent, emotional processor, and the sole person responsible for supplying our life pleasure and happiness, things tend to go awry. We’ve been raised with these expectations, but that...
by Melina | Jan 20, 2019 | Intimacy
There’s more written in polyamorous literature about jealousy and compersion than possibly anything else. And still, the feeling of compersion seems elusive for many. Compersion— a word coined within polyamory but increasingly finding mainstream use— is defined as an...
by Melina | Oct 28, 2018 | Conflict, Conflict Intimacy, Intimacy, Self Care
The Drama Triangle: a model for understanding interpersonal conflict. Again and again I return to this model to understand my own accountability in contributing to conflict, and as a tool for supporting others in navigating conflict. The Drama Triangle is a relational...
by Melina | Aug 29, 2018 | Intimacy, Love
“Enough with the martyrdom, Mel, you need to step out of that.” My friend Chris and I were finishing up a session of peer coaching (because even coaches need coaching from time to time) and he added this as a little aside at the end. We’d been talking about a...
by Melina | Apr 11, 2018 | Intimacy, Self Care
I’ve long believed that the most important relationship we have in our lives is the relationship we have with ourselves. When our relationship with ourselves is poor, that’s when we start to reach out to others in needy, and sometimes codependent ways. We might find...
by Melina | May 7, 2017 | Intimacy, Monogamy, Non Monogamy, Relationship Anarchy
“Boundaries are an essential part of life. They delineate and maintain needed borders and separations, making differentiation possible at every level. Boundaries both contain and preserve the integrity of what they are safeguarding, be that physical, psychological,...
