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.

12/22/2025

Complaining invites defensiveness, not cooperation. If you want your partner to work on the relationship, lead with appreciation and show them how to come through for you.

The fairytale version of love says you shouldn't have to ask for what you need. That if they really loved you, they'd ju...
12/21/2025

The fairytale version of love says you shouldn't have to ask for what you need. That if they really loved you, they'd just know.

In reality, that's a setup for disappointment.

Your partner isn't a mind reader, and criticizing them for not meeting desires you never clearly expressed isn't fair to either of you.

I've watched this pattern destroy relationships for decades.

One partner waits for the other to spontaneously deliver what they want, then resents them when they don't. The other partner operates in the dark, failing tests they didn't know they were taking.

Nobody wins.

The skill you need is simple but takes practice: learning to name what you want without making your partner feel inadequate for not already knowing it.

Not "Why don't you ever..."

But "I'd really love more of this between us."

When you speak with such truth and generosity, your request comes from a place of collaboration rather than judgment.

That’s what your relationship needs. Not perfection, but two people willing to teach each other how to love them well – and humble enough to believe they still have things to learn.

12/20/2025

Listen to my full conversation with .mindypelz now – link in the 1st comment.

Boundaries are our psychological skin. Not rigid impermeable walls, but supple and flexible enough to let love breathe.W...
12/19/2025

Boundaries are our psychological skin. Not rigid impermeable walls, but supple and flexible enough to let love breathe.

When a partner pierces that skin through one of these seven violations, they shatter the trust that intimacy relies on.

The result is that both partners become locked in their Adaptive Child – the young, reactive part of us who learned how to survive conflict or discomfort.

But what was adaptive and kept us afloat in our childhood becomes maladaptive and only deepens the damage in our adult relationships.

Instead, intimacy requires us to be centered in our present and grounded, Wise Adult self. The part of us capable of honoring the healthy boundaries that keep us protected and connected.

Need to find your way back?

You’ll find the link to a free copy of my 20 Essential Practices For Loving & Lasting Relationships in the first comment below 👇

12/18/2025

Every parent carries a legacy. The work is choosing which parts to pass forward and which parts to lay down, to heal what was harmful, and love the real child in front of you, not the one you imagined.

If you win and your partner loses, you both lose.So many couples get stuck here. Locked in battles over who’s right, who...
12/17/2025

If you win and your partner loses, you both lose.

So many couples get stuck here. Locked in battles over who’s right, who remembers correctly, and who started it.

But when you make being right more important than being connected, you turn your partner into your opponent.

And that is the moment that you stop being intimate.

I teach that the relational answer to the question, “Who’s right?” is “Who cares?”

Objectivity has no place in close personal relationships.

As a healthy couple, you must be willing to drop your case, step out of the courtroom, and ask yourself:

“Am I trying to make things better? Or am I trying to win?”

One builds connection. The other destroys it.

12/16/2025

If you feel more like friends than lovers and you want to rekindle that spark, your job is to find your way back – not to who you were, but to who you can be together now.

You’ll find the link to the 3-hour workshop, Should I Stay or Should I Go, in the first comment below 👇

12/16/2025

Your partner will never give you everything you didn’t get in childhood.

That perfect god or goddess you dreamed of – the one who would finally love you, heal you, and complete you – that’s not the person you’re with.

This is what I call the mysticism of marriage.

We choose partners who are enough like what we came from that they throw us right back into the old wound.

And when that happens, it’s a great disappointment.

Because we all fall in love with a fantasy, and then reality sets in…

They don’t show up how you hoped, and you fight like hell to get from them what that little child in you never received.

This doesn't mean you're in a bad relationship. That’s intimacy.

The question isn’t whether you’ll get hurt… the question is, what do you do next?

The turning point in your relationship comes when you stop trying to get them to be different… and you do something different.

And when you do, your partner responds to what’s new in you by doing something new back.

That is how we heal.

Kids don’t come into the world knowing how to be thoughtful, relational human beings.They learn it from us.And right now...
12/15/2025

Kids don’t come into the world knowing how to be thoughtful, relational human beings.

They learn it from us.

And right now, more than ever, they need us to step up.

Because as a culture, we’re falling short. We’re not giving children the limits they need, the guidance they deserve, or the steady love to maintain healthy self-esteem.

When even one of those pieces goes missing, children can fall out of balance.

Some collapse into shame, and others become inflated with grandiosity. Both are wounds that follow them into adulthood, and into the culture we’re all shaping together.

As parents, it’s our responsibility to learn how to give our kids the full combination so they can grow into the relational, connected human beings their future and our world relies upon.

12/14/2025

Feeling bad about bad behavior is healthy, as long as it’s proportionate. Taking accountability without spiraling into shame is the foundation of healthy self-esteem.

We all want to protect ourselves from difficult people.But what about protecting the people we love from us?Our psycholo...
12/13/2025

We all want to protect ourselves from difficult people.

But what about protecting the people we love from us?

Our psychological boundary has two parts: the outside protects us from the world, and the inside protects the world from us.

Most people focus entirely on the first part and completely ignore the second.

But being able to contain your anxiety, rage, control, and reactivity is just as critical to intimacy as protecting yourself from others.

Without it, you wound the people closest to you. You become someone who desperately wants connection but is too unsafe to get close to. You drive away the very intimacy you're craving.

And here's the hard part: if you grew up in a home where people screamed, controlled, or leaked their anxiety everywhere, you inherited that pattern.

But you don't have to pass it on.

Every time you take a breath instead of reacting, you're breaking that legacy. Every time you walk away from a fight that's escalating, you're choosing a different path than the one you were shown.

12/12/2025

We’re all imperfect human beings. We must learn to take responsibility for the hurt we’ve caused while holding ourselves in warm regard. That’s how we move from shame to repair.

Address

Arlington, MA

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Terry Real - Relational Life Institute posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on LinkedIn
Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share via Email
Share on WhatsApp Share on Instagram Share on Telegram