Couples Counseling
“The wound is where the light gets in.”
–Rumi
“I can’t do this anymore.”
This is the line I hear most often when a client first contacts me about couples counseling.
Are you frustrated with your relationship?
Your partner doesn’t listen to you and cuts you off when you try to explain something.
Perhaps you’re the only one trying and wonder if you even want to bother anymore.
You try and keep the peace and tell yourself to “ let it go,” but lately, you’ve been exploding in anger.
You’d rather leave or retreat to another part of the house to avoid conversation.
Do you not feel heard, seen, or valued?
Your partner scrolls on the phone while you pour out your heart.
“The wound is where the light gets in.”
–Rumi
Maybe you repeatedly ask your partner to do something for you, but it never gets done.
Your partner forgot your birthday or anniversary but never forgets to schedule a night out with friends.
You’re the only one pulling your weight around the house, and you feel like a servant.
Does your partner not get you?
It drives you crazy when your mother-in-law moves things around in the living room, and your partner tells you not to make such a big deal about it.
You’re so proud of an accomplishment and want to be acknowledged for it, but your partner teases you about it in a way that feels demeaning.
You feel strongly about a parenting issue, and your partner doesn’t back you up, or even worse, aligns with your child against you.
Have you been betrayed?
Your partner constantly flirts with waitstaff when you go out but denies it when you confront them about it.
Your partner has been texting a “work colleague” at night and has been hiding it from you.
Perhaps you uncover your partner is having an affair, and you’re not sure you want to stay in the relationship.
You feel devastated by a secret that’s revealed and wonder how your partner could have kept this from you.
It wasn’t always like this.
You used to be so affectionate – loved holding hands when you went out and had a great sex life.
It was so easy to talk about things and even disagree, but you never went to bed mad at each other.
Your partner used to do romantic things, like leave you notes in the morning, plan special nights to celebrate your birthday and anniversary, and buy gifts to surprise and delight you. You felt like a priority, not a burden, when you asked for help around the house and looked forward to seeing your partner at the end of the day.
You felt proud of your relationship, and when you compared yourself to other couples, you felt lucky you were with such a wonderful person who totally “got” you.
You miss your best friend and want that person back again.
You’ve tried… you’ve REALLY tried.
You’ve read books and self-help articles.
But your partner dismisses and even mocks (or rolls their eyes at your efforts).
You realize that it takes two to make changes, and you feel exhausted from working on your relationship alone.
You’ve tried to improve your communication.
No matter how kind, patient and assertive you try to be, your partner constantly tells you why you’re wrong.
You find yourself snapping and talking over your partner because you are so angry you don’t want to listen anymore. Sometimes the only way you can be heard is to shout, and then you feel bad for losing control.
Maybe you’ve even tried couples counseling.
Your partner thought the counselor sided with you.
You’d go home and try to practice assertive communication, but you press each other’s buttons so much that it always ends up in a fight.
Your partner reminds you of one of your parents. But you didn’t explore the unresolved issues and patterns from childhood that influenced your relationship. Without this, you couldn’t recognize when a younger, wounded part of you showed up in your marriage.
Let me tell you a better way…
It’s called Relational Life Therapy (RLT) for couples, and it works!
RLT will teach you how to repair the damage in your relationship that made you feel hurt, angry, and disconnected from your partner.
You’ll learn to listen to each other with respect, meet each other’s needs, and restore the love you’ve been craving in your relationship.
Your relationship is the vessel that holds your love…
When it cracks, it feels like the love seeps out… with nothing but broken pieces remaining.
But hope isn’t lost! Consider this…
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing pottery. To mend the vessel, the artist gathers the broken pieces and rejoin them, sealing the cracks with gold. The cracks are still visible, but all the broken pieces are made whole, transforming them into something beautiful to behold and cherish.
Using RLT in couples counseling can repair the broken pieces of your relationship and seal those scars in love. The revealed cracks become a beautiful reminder of the precious bonds that hold your relationship together.
I’ll help you recognize how and when you use the five losing strategies all couples get caught up in.
- Needing to be right.
- Controlling your partner.
- Unrestrained self-expression.
- Retaliation.
- Withdrawal.
Then I’ll teach you five winning strategies:
- Shifting from complaint to request
- Speaking with love and savvy
- Responding with generosity
- Empowering each other
- Cherishing what you have
You will learn how to recognize when unresolved childhood patterns interfere with your relationship and what to do to interrupt this. You will learn to soothe yourself and thus reconnect more lovingly and satisfyingly with your partner.
If you want to learn more about how I use Relational Life Therapy (RLT) in couples counseling sessions, I invite you to read more about My Approaches.
Call me today. Let’s talk about how I can help you through this: (813) 336-2173.
