Latest news with #newparents
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Rarely seen True Blood star Ryan Kwanten emerges in Sydney with his partner after going 'missing' as he confirms huge family news
Ryan Kwanten and wife Ashley Sisino have re-appeared in Sydney after the Australian actor dropped off the map following his rise to fame. The True Blood star, 48, and his partner, who are notoriously private, emerged after going 'missing' and confirmed they have welcomed their first child together. Having kept the birth completely under-wraps, the couple were seen in Northern Beaches as Ashley used a blanket to hide their bub, who appears to be at least six months old. Ashley looked every inch the doting new mother as she stepped out in warm black tights and white sneakers for the beach day. Pulling her brunette tresses back into a bun and hiding her eyes behind a pair of sunglasses, Ashley topped her look with a large cardigan. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. Having kept the birth completely under-wraps, the couple were seen in Northern Beaches as Ashley used a blanket to hide their bub, who appears to be at least six months old She carried her tot in a baby carrier against her chest, using a blue shark blanket to cover up her sleeping bundle of joy—perhaps hinting it may be a boy. At one point, she also used part of her cardigan to cover the child as she went for a stroll with Ryan. The Australian actor looked very casual in a basic white T-shirt and grey jeans as he slipped on a pair of bicycle sunglasses and a black cap. Following a walk down to the sand, Ryan then stripped off his clothes to change into a pair of swim trunks, tucking his belongings into a black backpack. As Ashley continued to rock their baby in her arms, Ryan took a brisk swim in the ocean, body surfing waves as they rolled through. It comes as no surprise Ryan and Ashley have welcomed a child together, as the actor confessed in 2019 the couple had family plans. 'I've haven't had a child yet,' Ryan told shortly after welcoming a rescue dog into his small family at the time. 'At some point, I'm sure it's going to happen and I'll become a father, but this is the first addition to the family so far!' She carried her tot in a baby carrier against her chest, using a blue shark blanket to cover up her sleeping bundle of joy—perhaps hinting it may be a boy Ryan gained thousands of devoted fans when he portrayed heartthrob sheriff deputy Jason Stackhouse in True Blood. But after starring in the hugely popular HBO series, the former Home and Away star dropped off the radar and almost entirely wiped his social media presence. He was last spotted in public in 2022, when he enjoyed breakfast in Manly with his family and wife Ashley after jetting in from Los Angeles. The veteran actor had a boom in his career when he moved to LA following his stint on Home and Away, and landed on HBO's hit series True Blood from 2008 to 2014. However, he is rarely seen on the mainstream big screen nowadays, despite working more than ever in the film industry. Ryan has made some very interesting moves in his acting career, choosing to 'stand behind first-time filmmakers and independent filmmakers' as often as possible. In an interview with Cinema Australia in 2022, Ryan said it brings him great joy to help other Australians 'raise their creative baby' and execute their vision. 'There's nothing that appeals to me more than being on set... surrounded by like-minded crazy people,' he said. '[We're] all working towards this one goal of trying to make art in the middle of all this madness. It's amazing. I love it.' Since True Blood, Ryan has worked in a slew of indie movies and television series, with his IMDB showing multiple works being released almost every year. And while he didn't appear to release any movies in 2024, likely due to the birth of his first child, he currently has three movies in post and pre-production. Ryan could be seen body surfing the waves as he went for a swim
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Sam Kerr's fiancee posts the first video of their adorable baby boy Jagger
It's been a busy few weeks for new parents Sam Kerr and Kristie Mewis, who announced the arrival of their baby boy, Jagger, on May 8. The pair have shared several insights into their lives of late, publishing snaps of themselves and Jagger out for walks in the park, while also enjoying some downtime at home snuggling with their newborn son. Kerr has also jetted back to Australia in recent weeks and was pictured watching the women's A-League final last month. Mewis, meanwhile, took to Instagram on Tuesday to share a video of their new baby for followers on social media. Jagger lay on a baby blanket underneath a mobile with several toys attached. Meanwhile, Mewis was sat next to her baby boy and appeared to be taking some time to relax herself, captioning the video: 'Letting momma watch her reality trash TV' while adding several praying emojis. Mewis and Kerr are due to get married later this year, with the West Ham star and the Chelsea striker having met back in 2019 In the past two weeks, Mewis has also been seen taking Jagger out for walks around London, while her parents, Melissa and Robert, were pictured on social media meeting their grandson for the first time at a restaurant. Many from the footballing world and beyond have issued their congratulations to the West Ham and Chelsea stars, including many of Kerr's Matildas team-mates, MacKenzie Arnold, Caitlin Foord and Emily van Egmond. Kerr and Mewis confirmed their relationship in August 2021 on Instagram. The Matildas striker later revealed during her high-profile court case this year that Mewis had slid into her DMs, sparking the relationship. The pair had begun dating and in September 2023, they got engaged announcing the exciting news publicly in November. They plan to get married later this December. Kerr, meanwhile, is yet to return to the football pitch, having now spent 16 months on the sidelines due to an ACL injury. The 31-year-old underwent surgery on the matter and had recently understood to have been nearing a comeback. Kerr has been pictured training on grass for Chelsea and travelled Down Under to link up with her Matildas team-mates for their friendlies against Chinese Taipei in December. She did not play a part in either match but was seen training with the squad. Joe Montemurro was finally confirmed as the Matildas' new permanent manager on Monday and he delivered a bombshell update on Kerr's current injury status, revealing that the Australia captain had undergone a surgical intervention to remedy a new injury which he said was unrelated to her ACL issue. He refused to be drawn on the nature of the fresh injury. 'Look, I think there were some complications and I've only caught up with the scenario in the last 24 hours,' he explained to Channel 10 News. 'There was a subsequent intervention, but I do believe she is now back running. 'I think it was something completely different (to the existing knee injury). I think the knee is fine. 'I think there were some other issues, but again I've only been briefed in the last 24 hours.
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Ex On The Beach star welcomes first child and reveals baby boy's very unusual name
Sam Reece has welcomed his first child with his fiancée Maddison. The Ex On The Beach star, 32, shared the happy news to Instagram on Thursday and revealed his baby boy's very unusual name. He uploaded an adorable black and white photo of himself and his partner holding the newborn's hand to announce his birth. Sam wrote: 'Indi Seven Eckhardt. 28th May 2025 3:43am. 'Our hearts are forever changed - we welcomed our perfect son into the world in the calmest, most surreal way.' From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new Showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. Sam continued: 'There's nothing quite like the magic of birth. A woman's body, creating life... it's powerful, raw, and utterly unbelievable. We are so in love.' The hairdresser, first hit headlines when he was forced to watch his ex Stephanie Davis cheat on him with Jeremy McConnell on Celebrity Big Brother in 2016. Moving on from his heartbreak, the reality star continued to document his failed romances on TV shows such as Ex On The Beach and Real Housewives of Cheshire. However, he has now found love with Maddison, with the duo announcing their engagement in December last year. In an Instagram post at the time, he shared a photo of a diamond ring on his wife-to-be's hand and wrote: 'WHAT A DAY.' back in 2016, Sam had been dating Stephanie for just over a year when the then 23-year-old actress entered the Celebrity Big Brother house. He was forced to watch as she cheated on him with another man, watched by the whole nation. Sam told MailOnline at the time: 'What's happened has happened, but good luck to them both.' The model went on to scoop a role on Emmerdale, which came about after he sent ITV producers a three-line audition clip. Sam revealed his role in the soap came about completely unexpectedly, admitting he doesn't even have an acting agent. He told MailOnline: 'I'd never had a speaking part [on TV] before. My modelling agent called me up and said there was a part going in Emmerdale and he wanted me to send over a casting tape.' Sam has now traded the limelight for a quieter life working as a model and a hairdresser.
The Guardian
27-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Butter wouldn't melt: Why does TikTok suggest feeding your baby butter to help with sleep?
Due to a chaotic toddler, it has been many months since my partner and I have had more than two consecutive nights of solid sleep. Given research that suggests just two nights of broken sleep are enough to make people feel years older, we are positively decrepit. New parents face up to six years of sleep deprivation – a depressing statistic to consider when your infant has woken up for the millionth time overnight. No wonder we look, as Chappell Roan has put it, like we don't have light in our eyes. Bone-tired parents can get desperate enough to try anything: $2,000 app-controlled self-rocking bassinets, sleep courses sold by influencers with questionable credentials – even, as a disconcerting number of TikToks suggest, spoon-feeding babies chunks of butter. TikTok and Instagram abound with videos of chipper mothers giving their obliging children globs of the stuff before bed, with some touting butter as the trick that finally put an end to night waking. 'I can totally see why parents would be taken in by it,' says Dr Nina Jane Chad, a research fellow at the University of Sydney and an infant and young child feeding consultant for the World Health Organization. But butter is unlikely to make a baby sleep through the night, 'and there could be some harms involved' for young infants, she says. 'There certainly isn't any scientific evidence that a big dose of butter or fats or calories is likely to help with night-time sleep,' agrees Dr Fallon Cook, a paediatric sleep practitioner and director of Infant Sleep Australia. 'If sleep happens to be better that night, it's probably a coincidence.' Research suggests that what an infant eats during the day does not affect how likely they are to wake overnight. Other foods that were once touted as beneficial to baby sleep, like rice cereal, have also been found not to have any effect on sleeping through. Feeding butter to babies six months and under – for whom exclusive breastfeeding is recommended by the WHO – is 'going to change their gut flora and make them much more susceptible to whatever infectious diseases are doing the rounds', Chad says. From six months, infants require an iron-rich, nutritious solid diet in addition to milk. 'They need to have some animal-source foods, they need to have fruit and veg daily. They need to have whole grains and they need to have calcium-rich foods as well,' Chad says. 'Saturated fats is not such a huge issue for kids – we recommend that they have full cream dairy products,' she says. But she describes butter as 'an energy-dense but nutrient-poor food. There are better choices in terms of your child's whole diet.' 'In the first six months, it's very normal for babies to be waking multiple times overnight. They're often needing to feed to meet calorie needs, and it just takes time for sleep to consolidate into longer stretches overnight,' Cook says. 'As we move past six months … we start to see some longer stretches of sleep emerging.' According to Chad, 'Most babies will be waking at least once and usually up to three times up until their first birthday, and about a third of children are still waking at least once by the time they turn three.' Though night wakes naturally decline with age, 'we have this idea that babies and young children, should sleep for eight or 10 hours a night [in one stretch],' Chad says. 'They don't.' Though sleep 'regressions', such as the so-called four-month regression, are dreaded by parents, there isn't much evidence to support their existence. 'There aren't predictable times where sleep always goes bad,' Cook says. 'What we know is that for every baby, there will be natural ups and downs with their sleep, and it's not time-locked.' 'From about six months of age, children can develop sleep disorders,' Cook says. Some are physiological, such as snoring and breathing difficulties. Others, known as behavioural sleep problems, occur where a baby or toddler has 'rather specific conditions that they need met in order to fall asleep' – for example, being bounced on a fit ball, driven around in a car, or a very strong feed-to-sleep association. 'Some of these things every now and then are completely normal. But if it's at a point where it's exhausting parents and an older baby or toddler is needing these unusual conditions, six, seven, 10 times per night, that's when … it could be impacting sleep health, and probably impacting parent mental health.' While Cook encourages parents not to ignore serious difficulties, she says that 'when it comes to baby sleep, we will always say that parents know best'. 'If a baby's waking up a lot at night, but a parent feels fine about that … and they're managing, then there's not a problem.' Parents in the trenches wish for nothing more than a quick fix for better sleep. Unfortunately, Cook says 'There's no magical combination of things that you can do … it really comes down to consistency.' A regular bedtime routine 'gives your child's brain a cue that sleep is coming', while she advises parents having issues with settling their child to 'break it down into really little, manageable steps', such as introducing cues such as gentle pats or humming which can be done whether the child is rocked to sleep or settled in their cot. Whether or not to sleep train a baby is – like Donald Trump and Vegemite – a topic that seems to invite polarised opinions. Sleep training encompasses various behavioural strategies ranging from implementing a night-time routine to 'crying it out'. One study, which looked at the effect of controlled crying, found that sleep-training didn't reduce the frequency of waking but did seem to decrease parents' perceptions of how often waking occurred. Research shows that 'there are multiple ways of settling a baby in a cot, and they are safe', Cook says. 'We don't want parents using an approach that they feel devastated about or traumatised by.' Donna Lu is an assistant news editor at Guardian Australia and the sleep-deprived mother of a one-year-old Antiviral is a fortnightly column that interrogates the evidence behind the health headlines and factchecks popular wellness claims What health trend do you want examined? Your contact details are helpful so we can contact you for more information. They will only be seen by the Guardian. Your contact details are helpful so we can contact you for more information. They will only be seen by the Guardian.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Couples Are Revealing The Moments From Therapy That Altered The Course Of Their Entire Relationships
Couples therapy can be intense and uncomfortable at first: Inevitably, there are awkward pauses. There are revelations that are hurtful to hear and bursts of anger. And all of this while a third party listens. But eventually you and your partner get into the swing of things at your therapist's office ― or the Zoom square you're sharing, if it's teletherapy. Even better, you start to learn fundamental things about your relationship and the way you and your partner engage with one another: Maybe you learn about attachment styles and realize that you're anxiously attached while your partner is avoidant, which has caused a lot of misunderstanding and strife in your relationship. Or perhaps you learn to ask 'Do you want comfort or solutions?' when discussing something that bothers one of you. 'Aha' moments and lessons like that can be game changers in relationships. Below, married couples who've attended marriage therapy share their 'aha moment' and talk about how it changed their relationship for the better. (Their responses have been edited lightly for clarity and length.) 'We learned how to fight without tearing each other down.' 'My husband and I have been married for seven years and became first-time parents during the thick of the pandemic. No visitors were permitted in the hospital, and family couldn't visit as they sought vaccinations. So when couples with new babies usually have their village to support them, it was just the two of us. Becoming new parents is one of the most stressful events in the best relationship. The isolation of parenting during COVID magnified the stress. As I fell more in love with my baby, my marriage was slowly crumbling. Our sweet baby wasn't the only one crying and screaming; we joined her voice in our home, fighting each other. Our conflict resolution differences under stress and sleep deprivation became magnified. We were wired to address conflict in very different ways in our lives. 'We sought help in facing this crisis. The biggest thing we learned in therapy, and continue to work on daily, is how we fight. Learning how to communicate in ways that are not tearing each other down is essential. Even more critical, we learned the consequences to our relationship of continuing to fight. 'Pause before we react' is a tool our therapist taught us, and we continually work on it. We are more mindful of the results of attacking back. Of course, that doesn't help our relationship or daughter. Pausing helps us remember that by responding when we are triggered, we are almost guaranteeing an end to our relationship.' ― Vanessa Watson-Hill, a psychotherapist in New Jersey 'We learned that no matter how much we think we know about one another, there is always more to discover.' 'Monotony used to be a challenge for my husband, Daniel, and I. We've been together for 14 years. We'd get into emotional routines, and the boredom would make us shut each other out of our internal worlds. Therapy helped us understand that no matter how much we think we know about one another, there is always more to discover. Always. We're comrades, but we're also beautiful strangers. At any given moment, there are things going on in my husband's head that I can't see, which I find endlessly thrilling. And whenever I try to mine those things, I discover things about myself I haven't conceptualized before. It's an exhilarating give-and-take that not only saves us from boredom but also makes both of us feel seen. 'Since we learned that, even arguments have become more fulfilling. It's allowed us to let go of expectations about how a relationship should work, which makes us more accepting of our shortcomings. We are gentler with each other and more invested. I can't tell you how gratifying it is to feel that my partner cares enough to look for the mysteries in me. It makes me feel desired. It creates a beautiful reciprocity.' ― Micah Unice, a medical administrator in Salt Lake City, Utah 'We learned the importance of a 30-minute weekly marriage meeting and asking, 'What do you need?' 'My husband and I have been married for 15 years and have been going to marriage counseling for over six years. We started attending not because there was a crisis but because we ― well, I ― wanted us to be able to communicate in a way that reduced the tension I felt in the relationship and made everything feel easier. 'One of the most helpful pieces of structure that we've introduced into our lives because of therapy is a Saturday morning, 30-minute conversation in which we review the last week and look forward to the next week. We have two small children and a house and lives of our own, so life can get busy. 'Figuring it out ahead of time has made our lives easier. And especially because I tend to be the planner (which I literally am by profession) and my husband the 'go along to get along' type (a wonderful type to have, by the way, during the COVID quarantine), this structure really lowers my stress about keeping the household running without me needing to maintain an iron grip on it. 'The single most important question we've learned to ask is, 'What do you need?' Let's say my husband is angry ― about what is less important. He's venting. I instinctively start to spin all sorts of (usually totally wrong) tales in my own head about how he's feeling or what he's thinking. It creates an uncomfortable atmosphere that I really wish would go away. 'If I simply ask him, 'What do you need right now?' then it usually leads quickly to him stating out loud what he needs and what, if anything, I can do for him. No more catastrophizing or guessing on my part. He feels cared for. And sometimes (!!) there's even something I can do to make his life better.' ― Meg Bartelt, a financial planner in Bellingham, Washington 'We learned how much our families of origin affect how we behave in our marriage.' 'My husband, Josh, and I have been married for 13 years. We began going to therapy when our oldest was 3 and our twins were under a year old. My parents actually saw some signs of fracture in our relationship. Having gone through a rocky season with infant twins and a toddler early in their marriage (I have twin brothers three years younger than me), they offered to pay for therapy and watch our kids. 'The biggest revelation for us was when our therapist began to really integrate some family systems theory into our sessions. I don't think either of us realized how much our families of origin affected how we handle conflict and decisions. My family is loud and debates and fights and lays it all out on the table, and then quickly repairs and moves on from the situation. That can be good but also bad ― sometimes problems need time to simmer and feelings can get steamrolled in the effort of getting back to 'normal.' Josh's family is much quieter about conflict, more likely to hold things inside and quietly stew or be introspective. Again, good and bad. Time to think is good, but stuffing feelings down is damaging. 'These family systems totally shaped how we viewed our relationship. For Josh, a giant blow-up was devastating, whereas for me, it was a release of pressure so that things could return to homeostasis. For me, when Josh holds things in or is introspective, it feels tense and awful. We haven't entirely unlearned these patterns and probably never will. We have, however, learned to recognize how our partner is dealing with a situation and see it through a different lens.'― Meg St-Esprit, a part-time staff writer at Romper and freelance journalist and content writer who lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 'After our sons' autism diagnoses, our counselor suggested we discuss how we truly felt to each other.' 'My wife and I have been together for five years, and we have four children in total and two sons together. Recently we discovered both of our sons have autism. Because of our busy day-to-day lives, we rarely discussed in detail how we really felt on the inside or how our lives would be drastically changed through our sons' diagnosis. I wasn't knowledgeable about autism and was fearful of the unknown, so I began to withdraw when it came to figuring out autism-related things, like behavioral therapy and speech therapy. Instead, I focused more on what I knew I could do, which was housework and taking care of the boys. I didn't realize my lack of interest in their autism was an issue until my wife and I got into a heated argument about how she needed me to be more involved in that part of their lives. 'While in couples counseling, our counselor suggested we discuss how we truly felt to each other, and afterwards we entered into a new realm of intimacy with one another. The discussions strengthened our bond and were integral in helping us face our new reality together with love, communication and understanding. I realized my family needed me to be present in every aspect of their lives, not just the parts I wasn't afraid of. The discussions helped me face my fears and extinguish them as I became more available and hands-on with their autism, and it helped me become a better husband and father.' ― Shon Hyneman, a content creator who lives in the Austin, Texas, area 'We learned to use 'I' language instead of accusatory 'you' language.' 'My fiancé and I recently got engaged and had our first child together, but as we were planning our wedding, it suddenly dawned on us that we had some unhealthy communication styles that we wanted to address in premarital couples counseling prior to walking down the aisle. 'Prior to counseling, I always avoided the difficult conversations with him because one of us would either get too defensive or too prideful to accept criticism about ourselves, and the conversation would go left and nothing would be resolved. 'Thankfully, in couples therapy I learned how to be a reflective listener, which taught me how to actively listen and give my fiancé the opportunity to speak freely. In our conversations, we learned to use the 'I' instead of 'you' technique that taught me to say, 'I feel hurt when you do X,Y, Z,' instead of saying, 'You hurt my feelings.' By simply learning how to redirect the emphasis on trying to understand each other rather than focusing on winning the conversation or counter-arguing, we learned how to communicate on a deeper level.' ― Brittney, a stay-at-home mom in Missouri 'We learned the four biggest predictors of divorce.' 'My husband and I have one of those meet-cute stories that people 'aww' over, and it really set the tone for our early relationship. It was fast-paced, exciting and full of promise. Of course, the honeymoon phase eventually ended, and we were left with no tools to get us through the rest of our lives together. 'Couples therapy has provided numerous long-lasting benefits for my husband and me, but the most powerful takeaway has been learning psychologist John Gottman's Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the key indicators of divorce he discovered through his research of couples: They are criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling. Being able to identify these as they occur has helped us immediately take a step back, regroup and then re-approach each other and the situation. 'In our short seven-year relationship, we've had job transitions, deaths in the family, cross-state moves, financial difficulties, life-threatening pregnancies, sick children and many other major stressors. Having an open dialogue and recognizing the signs of a struggling relationship have helped us face these stressors head-on and come out the other side with our relationship not just intact but strengthened.' ― Jemma, a graduate student who works in marketing and lives in Washington state 'We see each other as teammates, we work together on housework and we ask, 'Is this a listen or a fix it?'' 'Luis and I attended premarital counseling and have been in therapy ever since. We have had some months where we don't actively go because our therapist says we are OK, but we try to go for maintenance and, honestly, we enjoy it ― both of us do. It's like going on a date for us. When we leave, we feel rejuvenated and like we just learned something completely new about each other, even after 17 years and three children. 'I would say we have learned three key things in therapy that have greatly helped our relationship. One, we both understand that we are a team and teammates don't try to hurt each other. We understand that if arguments or issues arise, it's us against the issues, and not one against the other. 'The second lesson I learned was how to ask him to get certain things done around the house. As Africans from Cape Verde, we were both raised with the habit that the house has to be clean at all times and everything must be in order. I used to get upset when I asked him to do certain things and they wouldn't get done. The conflict happened when I wouldn't tell Luis when I needed them done. We are both full-time parents and full-time professionals, so it's busy. Our therapist suggested I make a list of things I needed done and include deadlines as well. In this way, I could communicate what I needed and he would figure out a good time in his schedule to get them done. So, for example, I can write: '1. Change the bathroom light bulb (no later than tomorrow); 2. Fix my laptop (the end of the weekend).' These were clear asks with deadlines. If the deadlines were unrealistic, we could discuss further. 'Lastly, we learned about 'Is this a listen or a fix it?' My husband loves finding solutions to anything his sees as a problem. However, sometimes I just need a listening ear and a shoulder. So in therapy he learned to say, 'Is this a listen or a fix it?' instead of telling me 'You should do this' or 'You need that.'' ― Terza Lima-Neves, a professor of political science who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina 'We learned how to deal with our drastically different communications style.' 'When Mandi and I chose to engage in couples therapy recently, we had come to the realization that we were communicating in a way that had become unhealthy for us, our child, our sex life and just our relationship in general. Mandi has ADD, and I am a bit more Type A than I'd like to admit, so we were butting heads over simple things like cleaning the house, parenting... you know, all of the stuff that comes along with a relationship. Our disagreements had gotten hotter and hotter, and her defense mechanism of shutting down and threatening to leave was getting tiresome for us both. She didn't want to leave, but knew it was a button to push to stop the conversation (I've been married twice before). So we decided to enter therapy and found a killer therapist, which was really hard to find. 'For me, the 'aha' moment came when I had to make some realizations about myself and how I communicate. I had to own a lot of my own stuff before I could get into how I reacted to her. First and foremost, I learned that I sit on a thing that is really heavy to me but might mean nothing to her. I let myself spin out about that, and once that particular problem is solved, I keep going and will find any and all things negative that pull me into a really nasty spiral. The 'aha' came when I realized how miserable my own behavior was making those around me. I had to work very hard, and still do, to catch myself when the spiral begins. I now have the tools to tell Mandi it's starting, and she knows to let me just go work through it without pushing on the conversation. I also know to not try to enter the conversation in that state.' ― Brian Rickel, a dean of arts, media and entertainment at a community college in Sacramento, California 'We learned each other's love languages.' 'Many people hear 'couples counseling' and they automatically assume something is wrong with the relationship. That was not the case in ours. I wanted to be in therapy as a way of keeping our relationship healthy. 'One of our main 'aha' moments in therapy was when our therapist had us identify our main love language. For years we were using how we identify love on one another, but we learned in therapy we should love each other the way the other views love. In our early 20s, the world was not talking about love languages, but we somehow made it work. Our therapist taught us how to prioritize how the other identifies love ― a sacrifice that is easy to make when you're open to learning and growing. My husbands is 'acts of service,' and mine is 'words of affirmation.' So he started to give me the reassurance I needed and I started taking things off his to-do list. We are nine years strong, have been in therapy for five years and our daughter, Sunset, will be 1 in September!' ― Billi Sarafina Greenfield, a writer, mother and business owner in Southern CaliforniaThis article originally appeared on HuffPost.
