couples & relationship
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photo © 2015 melanie smith
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Call for help before calling it off
Disagreements in romantic relationships are all but unavoidable. With better skills and understanding, disagreements to not have to habitually degenerate into angry, relationship-threatening arguments.
You can improve your relationship! You just have to take the time to do it.
I specialize in couples counseling and love this work. I find that many couples in secure and fundamentally loving relationships endlessly suffer through unnecessary ongoing issues (sometimes for years). I can work with you to help you regain the stability and loving feelings that brought you together in the first place.
Sensitive to your "age and stage."
Like any living thing, a relationship has a life cycle. The types of issues you are facing will be affected by many complex things, including your age and experiences, and the stage your relationship is in. If your relationship is in an "early" stage (< 10 years together), middle (10-20 years), or a later stage (20+ years), you will likely be encountering different types of issues. We can work together to understand how the matrix of "age and stage" are affecting you and your partner.
For couples with different, or unclear, counseling agendas
If you are desperate and considering breaking off your relationship or divorcing, couples counseling can be a good option. Sometimes, one partner in a couple is unsure about whether or not to continue the relationship, while the other one is still committed. This is called "leaning out and leaning in." If this is your situation, we can work together to clarify the issues and come to a decision about next steps.
A sample of issues I work with:
Disagreements in romantic relationships are all but unavoidable. With better skills and understanding, disagreements to not have to habitually degenerate into angry, relationship-threatening arguments.
You can improve your relationship! You just have to take the time to do it.
I specialize in couples counseling and love this work. I find that many couples in secure and fundamentally loving relationships endlessly suffer through unnecessary ongoing issues (sometimes for years). I can work with you to help you regain the stability and loving feelings that brought you together in the first place.
Sensitive to your "age and stage."
Like any living thing, a relationship has a life cycle. The types of issues you are facing will be affected by many complex things, including your age and experiences, and the stage your relationship is in. If your relationship is in an "early" stage (< 10 years together), middle (10-20 years), or a later stage (20+ years), you will likely be encountering different types of issues. We can work together to understand how the matrix of "age and stage" are affecting you and your partner.
For couples with different, or unclear, counseling agendas
If you are desperate and considering breaking off your relationship or divorcing, couples counseling can be a good option. Sometimes, one partner in a couple is unsure about whether or not to continue the relationship, while the other one is still committed. This is called "leaning out and leaning in." If this is your situation, we can work together to clarify the issues and come to a decision about next steps.
A sample of issues I work with:
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• Communication and emotional distancing issues
• Feeling unloved and unimportant to your partner • Deep-seated interpersonal issues that go back for years • Conflict, anger, and chronic arguing • One partner is "leaning out" and the other is still committed. |
• Intimacy and vulnerability issues
• Premarital counseling • Loss of love toward partner • Loss of interest in marriage • Power and control issues • Commitment and insecurity • Divorcing with dignity • Loss of trust issues • Affairs and secrets |
• Sexual issues
• Unresolved early-life trauma • Deciding the relationship's future • Incompatible life goals • Stagnation in relationship • Problem in-laws • Money issues • Career issues and work habits • Medical care and related problems |
Do you recognize any of these common behaviors of partners in troubled relationships?
My approach to couples work draws from many resources.
One of the complaints I often hear from couples is that when they have tried counseling in the past, it felt too unstructured, or too fuzzy, or like the therapist did not understand them or know what to do. While it is true that couples therapy is a messy business, I try to ensure that my approach offers structure, clarity, compassion, and understanding. I will do my very best to understand you as a couple, and to also get to know you as an individual, unique person. Together we will create a sense of purposefulness for every session.
Key components of the way I work include elements from:
• My counseling psychology education
• My life experience
• My experience as a client of couples counselors
• My professional experience working with hundreds of couples and individuals with relationship problems
• Family mediation training
• Conflict resolution training
• Collaborative divorce training
• Relationship Enhancement training
• EMDR for individuals and couples training
Full Day Couples Healing Immersion Sessions "CHI"
Please check out my Couples Healing Immersions (CHI) sessions. A one-day intensive to help expedite and begin to feel real change in your relationship, fast. Click here.
A note about sexual orientation and gender identity in my practice
My practice is friendly to straight, gay, lesbian, bi, queer, questioning, poly, transgender, and all other identifications.
- Ongoing angry episodes of fighting with no resolution (giving up or giving in)
- Quickly going to "Armageddon" and threatening the entire relationship
- Refusing to really listen to your partner (often because you feel attacked or resentful)
- Speaking without thinking about the impact of the words you choose
- Assuming role of helpless victim or self-sacrificing martyr and blaming the other person for everything
- (Too) frequently making plans that do not include your partner because you feel so incompatible and your friends are more interesting and easy to be around.
- Abstract globalization of one issue way beyond the situation at hand
- Unable to overcome damaging experiences with your partner from the past (feeling stuck and unable to let it go)
- Refusing to listen or apologize
- Lying or distracting to escape responsibility from unskillful behavior and words
- Distracting from conflict by changing the subject
- Running away, or disappearing into own thoughts and becoming non-communicative
- Minimizing, ridiculing, or ignoring the other person's concerns
- Intentionally saying cruel things to the other person
- Falling apart and playing on the sympathy of the other person
- Withdrawing and blocking the other person out — "the silent treatment"
- Pathologizing the other person by making it seem as though they are mentally unstable ("gaslighting")
My approach to couples work draws from many resources.
One of the complaints I often hear from couples is that when they have tried counseling in the past, it felt too unstructured, or too fuzzy, or like the therapist did not understand them or know what to do. While it is true that couples therapy is a messy business, I try to ensure that my approach offers structure, clarity, compassion, and understanding. I will do my very best to understand you as a couple, and to also get to know you as an individual, unique person. Together we will create a sense of purposefulness for every session.
Key components of the way I work include elements from:
• My counseling psychology education
• My life experience
• My experience as a client of couples counselors
• My professional experience working with hundreds of couples and individuals with relationship problems
• Family mediation training
• Conflict resolution training
• Collaborative divorce training
• Relationship Enhancement training
• EMDR for individuals and couples training
Full Day Couples Healing Immersion Sessions "CHI"
Please check out my Couples Healing Immersions (CHI) sessions. A one-day intensive to help expedite and begin to feel real change in your relationship, fast. Click here.
A note about sexual orientation and gender identity in my practice
My practice is friendly to straight, gay, lesbian, bi, queer, questioning, poly, transgender, and all other identifications.
505-377-0005
Sessions by appointment only.
