couples goals

Embrace the Suck

Courage over comfort. That is the key. The primary vehicle for change in a relationship really is developing a better relationship with our own feelings and unpacking why we feel what we feel when we are having that feeling.

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the need to make your relationship better depicted by a snowscape.

Toughing It Out: How to Make a Relationship Better

We all have emotional survival strategies that do not work. A common one is ‘going it alone,’ ‘sucking it up,’ or ‘toughing it out.’ We put our heads down, close our eyes and push forward. But we don’t know how to make a relationship better. 

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relationship goals depicted by picture of a couple

Learning to Reconnect

It had started like a regular day weekend day.  John and Patti were taking a walk.  The sun was shining.  Life was good.  But then, John sheepishly told Patti that he would not be working on a project they had told Patti he was going to do, and that had been planned for that weekend. 

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advice for a relationship depicted by a pair of sneakers and standing in your shoes

Standing In Your Shoes: Advice for a Relationship

I was recently talking to Cathy, a friend of mine.  She and her girlfriend Sammy were having a tough time in their relationship and had just gotten into a fight. She explained what had happened. They were decorating the house for the holidays together, but Sammy got upset and said it was all for her, her tree, her project. She lashed out at Cathy and left. From Cathy’s perspective, Sammy was having a temper tantrum.  She didn’t understand why Sammy was getting so upset. Why couldn’t they have a nice evening together?  What went wrong?

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Marriage boot camp depicted by WeConcile Logo

Announcing WeConcile®: A Marriage Boot Camp

Over the years of working both as a therapist and a couples’ therapist I have come to believe that something more is needed to help all of us with our relationships.  Many of us just don’t have the skills we need. Therapy has limitations due to its cost, and many therapists, though effective with individuals, don’t have the specialized training needed to be effective when working with couples. The time constraints of people’s busy lives, and the stigma that therapy has for some also inhibit people seeking help. 

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puzzle pieces depicting elements of emotionally focused therapy for couples

Using the Science of Love to Help Us With Our Couple’s Goals

Working with couples effectively means you understand the three dimensions of our relationships: Attachment, emotions and cycles.  Learn about what needs to be focused on to do effective couples work, or to work on your own relationship.

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goals for a marriage depicted by girl reading

Goals for a Marriage

Lets look at couple therapy, which is a pretty complex process.  As a client in couples therapy, we must learn enough about ourselves (among other things) so that we can untangle a bunch of behavior that simply does not get us what we want: an accessible and responsive relationship. We supply the courage and tenacity on the road to mastery of this challenge, but we need more than motivation, creativity and desire for this purpose. We also need a map.

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Crashed care depicting wounds colliding in a relationship

How Past Pain Causes Conflict in Relationships

When wounds collide, we suffer and we don’t feel safe. Our partner becomes somebody we no longer trust. It is one of the most painful aspects of a relationship. When we are scared, we act in ways that do not help our relationships. When we feel safe, our relationships can blossom.

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Poisonous flower depicting trauma on a relationship

Solving Problems in a Relationship

“The more quickly either person goes from disappointment or hurt to anger, defensiveness, or emotional withdrawal and remains stuck there, the less that person is capable of having a relationship and the more the other person will have to walk on eggshells.” – Mark Goulston

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marriage rescue depicted by two hands touching

Marriage Rescue: When Love Stops Working

When relationships stop working, there is often a wound that needs to be attended to. Many of us grew up in homes with various kinds of disconnection occurring. Whether our caretakers were preoccupied, angry, needy or impatient, we may at times have felt uncared about. We may have lost someone we loved, or have been completely disregarded or abused. As children, we had to survive this pain. We may have learned to push our feelings out of our awareness. Ultimately, we developed ways to tolerate and survive these disconnects. These are the survival techniques that we have brought into our current relationships. And they often don’t work.

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Tools to reduce couples fighting depicted by a Couple holding hands

How To Stop Those Repetitive Fights

George had been very upset about the actions of an ex friend. Susan could feel his pain and asked him if there was anything that she could do to make him feel better. George replied, “I could think of something”. Susan retorted, “I wasn’t talking about sex”. George responded, “So what’s new?”

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Eye in landscape depicting intimacy

Intimacy (Into-Me-See): Intimacy in a Relationship

In relationships, each person lives in a different world. We will never live in the same world; never have the same past, the exact same experience or way of understanding our lives. We have different wounds and different sensitivities. When we are listened to, we feel less alone. We crave to be listened to without argument or interruption, to simply be heard. One of the things that make a relationship work is when we can listen to our partner, and conversely, know our partner will listen to us.

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How to make a relationship last depicted by a Couple with lasting love walking down boardwalk

How to Make Your Relationship Last

Making love last is a concern for anybody with a relationship history that has included disappointment, pain and loss. How do we do it differently the next time around?

What starts for so many as a blissful connected loving state often turns into sadness riddled with problematic behavior and seemingly un-resolvable conflicts.

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Fixing relationships, girl in white dress desiring emotional courage.

Embracing Emotional Courage

How do we change the direction of our lives? Despite our histories, why do some people create fulfilling lives for themselves while others do not? As a therapist, and as a person who has made her life about self-transformation and then later, the transformation of others, this is easy to see. But for many people, especially those who do not know much about “therapy,” and the process it entails, this is more of a mystery.

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