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.

10/28/2025

Hurting someone because they hurt you doesn’t bring understanding or accountability. It only spreads the pain and keeps the cycle alive.

10/27/2025

All relationships are an endless rhythm of harmony, disharmony, and repair.

That first phase of harmony – the honeymoon, the magic – is what I call “love without knowledge.”

You have a deep soul recognition that this is your person… but you don’t actually know them yet. You don't know what they're like paying the bills or the state of their closet floor.

But still, you love them.

Then comes the next phase of disharmony, “knowledge without love.”

You begin to see every flaw, and now you can’t stand them.

This is what I call normal marital hatred.

You’re not seeing your beloved anymore, you’re looking through the wrong end of the telescope at a distorted caricature of your partner.

And then, if you hang in there and do the work, you reach the third phase: "knowing love."

Knowing mature love means that you see every imperfection, and you choose to love them anyway.

Love, therefore, is not a constant state but a living practice.

And its strength is not measured by how long you stay in harmony, but by how quickly and how skillfully you find your way back to each other when you’ve lost it.

10/26/2025

Objective reality has no place in personal relationships. Instead, open your heart and practice having compassionate curiosity for your partner's subjective experience.

There’s a reason you chose your partner — and it’s not just about love or shared interests.You were drawn to them uncons...
10/25/2025

There’s a reason you chose your partner — and it’s not just about love or shared interests.

You were drawn to them unconsciously because they trigger the same wounds you wished they would save you from.

In those painful and disappointing moments, most of us fight, shut down, or over-accommodate.

But that younger part of you that’s reacting doesn’t belong in the driver’s seat.

Instead, we must use these moments not to repeat the past, but to rewrite it. Not by controlling your partner, but by changing how you show up and inviting them to meet you there.

That is how we heal.

10/24/2025

Our relationships are not here to save us. But they can be the crucible in which we get to grow and transform, and if we do it well, even heal our deepest wounds and traumas.

10/23/2025

When your partner makes even a small effort, celebrate it.

Criticism shuts people down, appreciation pulls them closer. See the 15% that’s working and build from there.

Empathy is not an innate character trait that you were either born with or you weren’t.It should’ve been installed in us...
10/23/2025

Empathy is not an innate character trait that you were either born with or you weren’t.

It should’ve been installed in us as kids – like learning to share a toy, or asking a friend what they want to play.

But many of us missed that lesson.

Instead, we grew up self-absorbed. Not because we’re bad people, but because nobody showed us how to be relational and connect responsibly with another human being.

Fast forward to adulthood, and our relationships pay the price.

We push and demand without ever pausing to consider our partner’s experience.

Healthy, intimate relationships require empathy. And if you didn’t learn it as a kid, that’s okay.

You can learn it now.

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.

10/22/2025

Healthy guilt can be the wake-up call that saves your relationship.

Ernesto came to me as a rager. Not physical, but verbal – a screamer, a demeaning, get-in-your-face kind of abuser. He told me it just “came over him too fast.”

But these explosions weren’t random. They were learned.

When I asked him who taught him to be so nasty, he named his stepmother. She was cruel, humiliating, the “meanest, worst, most horrible” presence of his childhood.

Without realizing it, Ernesto had carried her voice into his marriage.

When I helped Ernesto see the connection, he recoiled.

He didn’t want to be seen in the same way he looked at his stepmother, least of all by his wife.

What he was feeling in that moment was healthy guilt.

I asked him to find a picture of his stepmother and then gave him one request:

“Next time you’re about to blow, take out the picture of your stepmother, look her in the eye, and say:

I know I’m about to do harm. But right now, being like you is more important to me than my wife is.”

Here’s what Ernesto replied: “That’s not true. That would stop me in my tracks. She’s not more important than my wife is.”

That was the moment he woke up.

Almost fourteen years later, Ernesto has not raged since.

As a man who was also raised by a violent, rageful parent, we have to ask ourselves:

Do we want to repeat the awfulness of what we grew up in?

Or do we want to remember the person we’re speaking to is not the person who made growing up hell, but someone we love and cherish?

As Ernesto said, “That would stop me in my tracks.”

Dealing with family means giving up the fantasy that you can manage them.You can’t control your parents. But what you ca...
10/21/2025

Dealing with family means giving up the fantasy that you can manage them.

You can’t control your parents. But what you can do is stand up and set loving limits.

This may mean giving up your long-standing role as caretaker or peacemaker of your family. Perhaps you’ve spent your whole life parenting your dysfunctional, out-of-control parents.

If that’s the case, then it’s time to let the chips fall where they may. If they’re disappointed, so be it. Nobody dies from disappointment.

You are the adult now. You’re the hearth and center of your family. Take that power and use it wisely with loving firmness.

10/20/2025

In love, there’s no prize for being right. Maturity means letting go of the fantasy that you and your partner will always see things the same way and instead finding a way forward that works for both of you.

Shame is feeling bad and staying there.Remorse is seeing the impact, owning it, and doing something different.I once wor...
10/19/2025

Shame is feeling bad and staying there.

Remorse is seeing the impact, owning it, and doing something different.

I once worked with a man who’d been snapping at his partner for years. Every time, he’d spiral into “I feel so awful…” and expect forgiveness just for feeling bad.

But nothing changed. No repair. No growth. Just self-attack, over and over.

I told him straight:

“You’re making this about you. He doesn’t need your self-criticism. He needs you to stop hurting him.”

That was the moment it clicked.

He stopped defending himself and started showing up differently.

Your guilt doesn’t earn you forgiveness. Your changed behavior does.

10/18/2025

Repair starts the moment you reconnect with your intention – not to win, but to make things better.

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