Terry Real - Relational Life Institute

Terry Real - Relational Life Institute Terry Real has been a practicing family therapist for more than 25 years. He also regularly appears on Good Morning America.

He is a bestselling author and has been featured on NBC Nightly News, Today, The CBS Early Show and Oprah.

Childhood wounds don’t always look the way you think.Maybe no one hit you, you had food and shelter, and your parents we...
02/20/2026

Childhood wounds don’t always look the way you think.

Maybe no one hit you, you had food and shelter, and your parents weren't monsters.

But somewhere along the way, you absorbed messages that shaped how you see yourself and show up in relationships today.

Maybe you heard:

"You're so independent, you don't need anyone." So now asking for help feels impossible.

"This family depends on you." So now you can't say no without feeling guilty.

"You're too much" or "You're the problem." So now you apologize for taking up space.

Or, "I'm too busy for you." So now you've learned not to expect much from people.

It might not have been said out loud. But it was the role you were made to play.

And most of the time, these painful roles were given to us by caretakers who were doing the best they could with their own wounds.

These messages are still running in the background today. They affect who you choose, how you show up in conflict, whether you stay or leave, and how safe you feel being truly known.

The first step to changing your patterns is recognizing which message you absorbed.

Which one resonates most for you?

02/19/2026

If you're waiting for your partner to change, know that you could be waiting forever.

You can't control what they do to improve the relationship, but here's what you can control: your next move.

One person changing the pattern is often all it takes to shift the whole dynamic.

Learn the 3 Shifts to Change Your Relationship in our FREE class on February 20th — link in the first comment! 👇

Two kids from violent homes got married. You can imagine how that went.For years, Belinda and I would get into it – both...
02/18/2026

Two kids from violent homes got married. You can imagine how that went.

For years, Belinda and I would get into it – both of us fighting from our wounds, neither of us actually present. Just two scared kids in adult bodies, doing what we learned to survive.

The turning point wasn't therapy-speak or communication techniques. It was learning when to take a break.

Not to avoid the fight, but to avoid destroying each other in it.

Now when things heat up, we know: this isn't us. This is our trauma talking, and we refuse to let it win.

15-20 minutes. That's all it takes to remember who we're actually married to.

Want to learn how to take breaks that bring you closer instead of pushing you apart?
You’ll find the link to the 10 Commandments for Taking a Time Out in the first comment below 👇

02/17/2026

Your Adaptive Child developed brilliant strategies to survive your childhood. The problem is, those same strategies are now wrecking your adult relationships.

The first step in healing is to recognize the automatic reactions that the younger, wounded part of you uses to feel safe and avoid pain.

The second is choosing something different. Something better.

The saddest thing I see in my practice isn't couples screaming at each other.It's couples who stopped talking years ago....
02/16/2026

The saddest thing I see in my practice isn't couples screaming at each other.

It's couples who stopped talking years ago.

Couples where one partner is walking on eggshells, swallowing their truth, and convincing themselves that keeping the peace is the same as keeping the love.

It's not.

I had a client once, 20 years married, who said she couldn't remember the last time she'd told her husband something he didn't want to hear. She thought she was being a good wife.

He left her for a woman who challenged him.

Because intimacy requires truth. And truth requires courage.

Want help learning how to speak your truth and build real intimacy?
You’ll find the link to my 20 Essential Practices for Loving & Lasting Relationships in the first comment below 👇

02/15/2026

You want to keep your s*x life alive? Be alive in your relationship. Lean in, take each other on, and deal with what's not working instead of letting it quietly poison everything.

02/14/2026

Happy Valentine's Day — from me and mine, to you and yours. ❤️

02/13/2026

Surviving abuse leaves a mark most people never see.

To cope, we unconsciously absorb some of the aggressor's energy. We tell ourselves we'll never be like them, but the truth is, pieces of them live on in us.

Healing requires us to recognize what we took on to survive and choose to put it down.

I work with people every day who tell me they're emotionally disconnected. They've gone numb. They don't feel much of an...
02/12/2026

I work with people every day who tell me they're emotionally disconnected. They've gone numb. They don't feel much of anything anymore.

But here's what I know after 40 years of doing this work: you're not emotionally dead. You're just not paying attention.

Somewhere along the way, you learned to turn the volume down on your feelings. Maybe it was safer that way. Maybe you had to in order to survive. But now you're walking through life half-present, half-alive.

The good news? Your feelings didn't go anywhere. They're still there, waiting for you to tune back in.

All you need is a structure: a way to locate them, name them, and listen to what they're trying to tell you. That's what this exercise does.

Try it right now and drop a comment – what feeling did you identify? Where did you feel it in your body?

02/12/2026

Can empathy be learned?

Most people will tell you no. That empathy is a character trait you either have or don’t. That narcissism, grandiosity, and selfishness are all hopelessly untreatable.

I don’t buy it.

I’ve spent 40 years teaching people how to grow the very capacity they thought they lacked.

Empathy is not some genetic lottery ticket. It’s a sensitivity and skill that, with help and practice, can be built.

You may have lost empathy because you were taught it’s weak. Maybe because a manipulative parent used it against you. Or perhaps no one simply ever bothered to install it in you.

If you didn’t learn it growing up, it’s not your fault.

But it is your responsibility now.

It starts like this…

For the next two weeks, before you speak, take a breath, and ask yourself:

What is what I'm about to say going to feel like to the person I'm speaking to?

This is a revelation for many of the people I work with.

02/11/2026

The demands women are making of men today aren't unreasonable. They're overdue.

What's being asked for – emotional availability, real partnership, vulnerability – these aren't feminine traits, they're human ones. And men were never taught how to deliver them.

The answer isn't to turn back the clock. It's to move forward and learn how to meet this moment with an open heart.

Healing begins when you stop waiting for your partner to behave differently and start taking ownership of your own relat...
02/10/2026

Healing begins when you stop waiting for your partner to behave differently and start taking ownership of your own relational stance.

That moment when you're about to lose it?

You don’t have to say the thing or stay in the room. You can interrupt the pattern.

But first, you have to learn how.

Want a tool that actually helps in the heat of the moment?

You’ll find the link to the 10 Commandments for Taking a Time Out in the first comment below 👇

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Arlington, MA

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