Posted by Gayle

This morning, Good Morning America did a segment on real Modern Families. Today’s family was a couple with a 30 year age gap!!! We are becoming more and more mainstream by the second! Such exciting times for all of us gappers!

http://abcnews.go.com/gma/ModernFamily

Related articles

• Real ‘Modern Family’: Age Only a Number (abcnews.go.com)
• “Good Morning America” Grows in Total Viewers: Week-to-Week, Year-to-Year and Season-to-Date (tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com)

Posted by Gayle

This is the most refreshingly honest post I’ve seen written about May-December couples!   I. love. it.

How about you?

“May-December” and Life..

Posted by Gayle

A client and I were talking about “trust issues” the other day.  We can find so many *good* reasons to abandon our ability to trust. The earliest developmental task of an infant,  according to Erik Erikson,  is determining whether or not he or she can trust his or her caretakers to meet its most basic needs.  That infant has no linguist ability… no speech… no words… no cognitive ability to understand words.  Not being able to express myself verbally or understand the verbal expression of others seems like it would cause trust issues in and of itself.  Of course that is being said by Chatty Cathy herself!  In reality, no words mean… NOLIES!!!!!

Your needs either get met or they don’t. As we develop language, we also acquire the ability to fib and be fibbed too.  It never ceases to amaze me how many of my clients are dealing with self-doubt because they have been told that one or more of their needs are stupid, irrelevant, not really needs, demanding, etc.  When doubt rears it’s ugly head, control is nearby.

I think we learn to substitute control for trust.   When we no longer believe we can trust, we begin trying to control others and/or ourselves.

con – trol (noun):  • the power to restrain something, esp. one’s own emotions or actions •  a means of limiting or regulating something or someone .

The problem is trust is at the core of our basic nature.  Without the ability to trust, we’re basically screwed.  So what happens when you are betrayed?  Surely you’re not supposed to extend trust to the other person and invite them to screw you again… are you?  I don’t have a quick answer for you here.  What I do have are a few questions for you to ponder…

• If someone betrays you, why are you so quick to blame yourself and think you are stupid or a fool?
• Do you take vengeance and revenge in your own hands and if so does it work to make you feel happier in the long run?
• What do you consider betrayal?  Is there room for imperfection in your life? -and- here is the biggie
• Can you trust yourself to survive betrayal?

I’ve been hurt, wounded, betrayed… whatever you want to call it… more times than I care to remember.  That doesn’t make me special.  It makes me human!  Sadly, betrayal is just part of the human landscape.  When it happens, I go through a period of time where I feel like it is unsurvivable.  I’ve spent hundreds of hours with clients who do not believe they can survive the betrayal-du-jour. Perhaps my most repeated phrase is “it’s not bigger than you… you will not always feel this way.”  When they look at me incredulously and ask me how they are going to survive I tell them the truth… “one breath at a time.”  Breathing is highly underrated.  If you are stilling doing it… then. you. are. surviving.

Control won’t fix a thing.  Trusting yourself will.  Breathing will keep you alive long enough to find a way to breakthrough the pain when betrayal knocks on your door yet again.

If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.
~Mario Andretti

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.
~Eleanor Roosevelt

A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her.
~David Brinkley

Related articles

• Betrayal Sucks (buddhathepig.wordpress.com)
• Book Giveaway: Surviving a Shark Attack (on Land): Overcoming Betrayal and Dealing with Revenge by Dr. Laura Schlessinger (writer.fitzhome.com)
• NYT: Adultery in marital bed often the absolute betrayal (today.msnbc.msn.com)

With applause, pictures, hugs, and blog post of course!

(Posted by Gayle)

They weren’t a May December couple.  In fact, my guess is they were more likely an April/April couple.  But one thing was clear – they were truly, madly, deeply in love.  She was in shock and couldn’t stop crying.  It was just the two of them and about 20 or so strangers.  For a moment we got to share in their love and will be telling their story for a long time to come.  And every time I tell their story, I will send a wish and prayer into the heavens for their happiness and devotion to each other to continue and to grow. Read the rest of this entry »

Look no further.  Here’s our advice on giving advice!

(Posted by Gayle)

A question from one of our readers came in today.  He’s 45  – she’s 21.  They’ve been seeing each other about 6 months.

…I think that we both worry that there is some issue we are missing.  He says that I’d probably meet some 25 year old stud and go through the thrills of discovery in my twenties and thirties with them, and that he’s practically in his late 40′s. I suppose he feels like he’s taking something from me. While I don’t have the knowledge that he does I feel like I could potentially be taking something from him that he could get from someone his own age. Yet, when we are together all we feel is love. I know it’s still early in the relationship, but we can both feel the real potential for long term commitment. Yet, it is getting curbed by our age difference. Read the rest of this entry »