Neutral ground.

Most people enter couples therapy because they’ve realized that their relationship is not what they need it to be, and they’re having trouble making the necessary changes themselves. Often, there are past resentments and wounds that, left unresolved, have festered, leaving one or both partners feeling unknown, unseen, lonely, bored, or even shameful–shameful for being mean, for not leaving, for wanting to leave.

No amount of fighting (or avoidance) will fix a relationship. Still, couples are often caught up in relationship road rage, with their partners–the people they’ve promised to respect and cherish–smack in the middle of their blind spots. It’s exhausting and creates what feels like hopeless disillusionment. Therapy, though, can offer a reset, a neutral ground on which couples can be heard and hear. And, from there, it is more than possible to turn embattled, tit-for-tat negotiation into thoughtful, mutually supportive compromise. With work, with couples therapy, you can turn your resentful mental ledgers into lists of ways you’ve supported and celebrated each other's desires, interests, professions, friendships, and health. Or, turn criticism into feedback that will help you grow, together. Or to ask for genuine affection without being received as needy. 

To be frank, though, couples therapy is only for people with hope, even if they feel hopeless. If both partners have at least some desire for positive change, I can help. If you’re both willing to honor the time and energy you’ve already invested into your relationship, by honestly working to repair it, I can be your guide. In the end, we all want and deserve peaceful, cooperative, joyful relationships, even if, ultimately, the relationship changes shape. 

And, relationships do change shape.  Sometimes, couples just need help reconfiguring, and if they are splitting up, they want their separation to be amicable, at the very least.  At best, couples might hope for a positive relationship with each other in the future, sometimes because children are involved and sometimes because, even when uncoupling, partners can remain fond of one another.

In my space, you can remember when you considered each other magical, before all of the complications of reality. That groundwork can serve as a reminder that the work of therapy is worth it—the work of breaking bad habits and gaining and implementing new ways of being in and considering your relationship, whether together or apart.