Love isn’t for the faint of heart. Relationships have their ups and downs, and their good times and bad times. Being in a marriage or romantic partnership means that you risk experiencing the downs along with the ups, and the bad along with the good. If you are seeking couples therapy you may be in the midst of one of these tough times right now where your relationship isn’t working in some way, your unhappiness outweighs your happiness, or more worrisome yet that your relationship is on the rocks and could be over if something doesn’t change. However your relationship is in trouble, or whatever the rough patch or bump in the road, let’s talk about it. Together we can find the happy ending that is best, right, and true for you and your relationship.
Finding your happy ending in couples therapy means we get to root of what’s jeopardizing your relationship. If you feel the love has faded or you’ve fallen out of love, then you learn how to rekindle the spark and infuse your relationship with love again. If you feel you have grown apart then you learn how to reconnect and stay close and bonded. If you spend the majority of your time together fighting, or have the same fight over and over, then you learn how to interrupt and stop this cycle of fighting, and interact and treat each other differently the way you both deserve. If your needs are not being met, or you are unable to meet your partner’s needs, then you learn how to ask for what you need, how to meet your partner’s needs, and manage when your needs aren’t met. If you feel your partner doesn’t understand, listen, or empathize with you then you learn how to cope with when this happens while your partner learns how to do these things. Whatever is straining your relationship we get to the root of it so you no longer hurt each other.
The reality in finding your happy ending is that sometimes love isn’t enough. You can love each other very much, but this is not a guarantee that your relationship will last. It takes more than love to make a relationship work. Often in some way people need to learn the relationship skills outwardly with their partner and inwardly with themselves that actually sustain a loving and healthy relationship over time. This is where therapy is extremely helpful!
To find your happy ending in couples therapy we work together to improve how you relate as partners and communicate, and to deepen your intimacy and connection to increase your relationship satisfaction. In the dance of relating it takes two people to contribute to the patterns and dynamics that are causing the problems in your relationship. As your couples therapist I am able to see, hear, understand, empathize, and validate both of your experiences. I know you are both hurting. For the sake of your relationship, I neutrally address what is and isn’t working, and what is healthy and what is unhealthy in your relationship regardless of with whom it originates. Drawing on experts in the field of couples therapy I apply what is known about couples in happy, healthy, loving relationships lasting a lifetime to your relationship so that you two can be in a happy, healthy, and loving relationship long-term. In our sessions together we may focus on the following:
- How you perceive and interpret your partner, and whether or not these perceptions and interpretations are true
- Developing empathy
- Validating each other’s experience so you both feel seen, heard, and understood
- Improving communication
- Conflict resolution
- Resolving conflict in a way that is productive and protects the relationship rather than resolving conflict in a way that is destructive and makes the relationship vulnerable
- Negotiating and resolving differences
- Problem-solving
- Increasing positive feelings such as trust, comfort, safety, security, respect, fondness, admiration, etc
- Reducing negative feelings such as anger, resentment, frustration, contempt, loneliness, sadness, emptiness, disappointment, boredom, apathy, etc
- Understanding what individual issues you bring to your relationship, how you may both be projecting your past experiences onto each other, and how this negatively impacts your relationship
- Clarifying what you are and are not responsible for, what you can and cannot control, what you can and cannot change, and what your choices are.
- Learning the ways you express care and love, and the ways you feel cared about and loved
- Learning the ways your partner expresses care and love, and the ways your partner feels cared about and loved
- Identifying and adjusting expectations
- Identifying, expressing, and meeting needs
- Identifying and maintaining boundaries
- Balancing levels of separateness and togetherness
- Balancing individual needs with the needs of the relationship
- And more
Couples therapy is appropriate regardless of the stage or status of your relationship. You may want help in starting out your relationship on the right track, committing to your relationship, resurrecting and rekindling your relationship, getting back together, deciding whether or not to stay together or part ways, or transitioning out of your relationship as smoothly as possible. Finding your happy ending may be that you calm the stormy waters of your relationship and sail off into the sunset together. Finding your happy ending can also be sailing off into the sunset separately and picking up the pieces, moving on, and starting over.
In couples therapy we meet in person as a triad on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis. I often recommend to the majority of couples to integrate individual therapy, because commonly individual therapy assists in the progress and forward movement of couples therapy, and vice-versa. Concurrently being in individual therapy can be useful for things like venting and expressing thoughts and feelings without a filter that would be harmful to the relationship, to process something before bringing it up during a couples session, or to work on your personal issues that you bring into your relationship that are contributing to your relationship problems.