Show up as your best self in your relationship
Couples Counseling
I help couples who have experienced infidelity, emotional/ verbal abuse, poor communication, and conflict resolution issues to understand how where their behaviors originate and how to change them.
You’ll learn about why you or your partner cheated or was verbally abusive, why your way of dealing with conflict isn’t working, and how to heal the wounds you or your partner have caused.
You’ll learn better ways to express yourself with your partner, in a safe space where both of you will be heard. You will talk about the hard issues including challenges in your intimate life, you and your partner’s flaws, and why you feel you aren’t growing in the relationship (without the other getting defensive).
The way out is through.
Relationships go through stages and couples often seek help due to lacking the skill set to navigate one of the various stages. It is important for both partners to identify the areas that they struggle with, and to get away from blaming their partner for what doesn’t work. Relationships are a two-way street, and blaming your partner only serves to build emotional distance and exacerbate the tension between you. In my work with you, I will provide psycho education on how to improve communication including body language/ tone, conflict resolution, and intimacy building activities. Homework assignments are common, and a useful part of rebuilding trust and intimacy (they also promote enjoying your partner and having fun!).
“Love involves a peculiar unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding." Diane Arbus
Areas I work on:
Stress, Defense mechanisms, communication, connection and power struggles
Infidelity, divorce, break ups, rebuilding
Resolving past hurt, trust and security, play and enjoyment
Support, openness, intimacy and sexual fulfillment
Benefits:
Strengthening your relationship, increasing your and your partner’s long term happiness, and help build the successful of relationship you’ve always dreamed about. I use Zoom for sessions, so you and your partner can either be in the same location or in different locations (this also works well for long distance relationships).
Risks:
Without engaging in therapy with your partner to process why you are unhappy you risk staying in a broken relationship too long, not repairing a relationship that would be truly fulfilling with forgiveness and letting go of resentment, or continuing to feel stagnant/ unengaged in your personal life.
Common questions about couples counseling
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I begin with an intake assessment where both of you get to write about what the problems are. When we meet the first time, both are free to express their frustrations and challenges in a safe space. Future sessions include individual as well as joint sessions together.
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Every therapist has a different approach, and it may be that it was not the right match. Just because therapy didn’t work the first time around, doesn’t mean change isn’t possible with another provider. And it’s possible that you are your partner were in a different stage of change and more ready now to do the work necessary to facilitate a lasting shift.
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Yes, if both partners are open minded and motivated to work on the marriage there are difference exercises and homework that you can utilize to try to bring back the spark.