Couples Counseling
Do you feel like, as partners, you don’t have fun together or even enjoy each other’s company any longer? Does the increased disconnection, strain, or silence have you believing you live with a roommate rather than the partner you fell in love with? Are you exhausted from the chronic and unresolvable arguments related to finances, sex, time together/time apart, parenting, household chores, or other challenges that seem to be void of a resolution? Worse yet, do you often feel like a new fight is simmering just under the surface?
There may be several reasons that have caused you to experience increased relationship strain. For some, this can be due to feeling stuck or unhappy in their relationships. For others, it can stem from a differing opinion on what the relationship should be like.
Common challenges include:
- A significant life event (new baby, blending of families, or a child leaving home)
- Death of a loved one
- Disagreement over new life goals
- Health problems or chronic illness
- Addiction in some form
- Affair
This way we can have the same number of lines. Add affair after addiction
Most Couples Face Challenges
If you are feeling distressed and unsure about your future together, you are not alone.
Couples therapy can be an effective way for you and your partner to reconnect and rekindle your unique spark. You can reduce the stuck, disillusioned, or “cynical” thoughts you experience after long periods of fighting and bickering with no actual resolution.
Couples therapy is a short-term, goal-oriented process that helps couples resolve problems that interfere with their ability to establish and maintain a satisfying and stable intimate relationship. The focus of therapy is on improving the relationship by helping partners communicate more effectively, clarify their needs for each other, understand each other’s feelings better, improve the overall level of satisfaction in the relationship, and resolve differences or conflicts that create distress in the relationship.
With the help of a skilled, experienced couples’ counselor, I will help you develop the greater self-awareness and couple-awareness tools you need to come back together and rebuild a solid foundation for your future.
Grow Together, Not Apart
If you are struggling in your relationship, it’s essential to know that you have a partner who cares about you and is willing to work together to improve things. Therapy for couples can provide guidance and support for healthier relationships to develop so both feel cared for, respected, and loved.
Treatment becomes useful when you apply this new knowledge and skills to discontinue ineffective ways of relating. Through couples’ therapy, you and your partner can see each other through a more positive lens, resolve conflict, rebuild your bond, and reignite the passion and love once shared.
I offer guidance, support, and practical strategies to help you shift your primary thoughts away from negativity, conflicts, and hurt and see areas where your relationship works and keeps you together. Let’s identify the relationship patterns keeping you stuck, get to the issues at the root of your disconnection, and develop positive-focused and solution-based strategies to create lasting and positive change.
Treating Couples
In addition to Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, I utilize empirically validated couple treatment methods from Positive Psychology and the Gottman Method. I will draw on my extensive experience and skills to create a treatment plan that best suits you and your partner’s personalities, needs, and shared relationship dynamics.
Therapy is not always an easy solution to improving a relationship. Yet, research has shown that therapy is one of the best ways to organize your thoughts and feelings, which bring clarity into a troubled situation. As long as both members are committed, therapy can help them find their right path toward happiness.
I will respect each of you as an individual – without taking sides or assigning blame – while also working to support your growth as a couple. As we address your challenges, we will further look at areas related to your existing strengths, positive relating, and individual well-being factors. During periods of conflict and strain, couples feel overwhelmed by the negative cycle and lose sight of the positive aspects of relating between them.
As you nurture your relationship’s strengths, positive interactions and build resiliency and connection, you can replace old, unproductive patterns with practical ways of expressing your needs and desired outcomes. It is possible to recreate your relationship guided by mutual kindness, love, trust, and respect.
Together, we can tackle:
- Communicate More Effectively Each Other
- Stop Fighting and Seek Understanding
- Negotiate Instead of Compromise
- Regain Your Deeper Emotional Connection
- Increase Positive Emotions
- Repair Your Sexual Relationship
- Rebuild Trust, Emotional Safety, and Security After Infidelity
- Resolve Perpetual Problems
- Parent as a Team (Instead of as a Judge and Sheriff)
- Blend Your Family
- Support, Love, and Respect Each Other
- Create or Re-envision a Life of Shared Meaning and Purpose
- Enjoy Each Other Once Again
