Couples Counseling

Spoiler Alert: Relationships take work.

No one ever told us that.

We are bombarded by narratives of what a great relationship looks like.

We dream of a partner who can read our minds and anticipate our every need – a relationship without conflict. While that makes for scintillating films and novels, reality looks different.

Real life is messier than this.

In real life, we get our feelings hurt.

In real life, it isn’t fair to expect our partners to read our minds

It is not realistic to think that love alone will “fix” conflicts.

A healthy relationship is made of two healthy people.

Sometimes patterns learned from our own families (our parents, grandparents, siblings,) get in the way of creating a healthy relationship. Sometimes we simply don’t even realize there may be a different way to handle things.

Respectful and heart-centered conflict resolution is a skill set that has not been modeled for many of us during our childhood and young adulthood.

More often we have seen problems handled by avoidance, denial, explosiveness, silent treatments, or other maladaptive approaches.

As the song says, let’s “bring back that loving feeling.”

So often, rather than TRULY hearing what our partner is saying and trying to fully understand them, we are distractedly planning our response, explanation, or snarky retort.

It is amazing how incredibly validating it feels to fully be heard by another person – to feel understood and be seen.