“We are born in relationship, we are wounded in relationship, and we can be healed in relationship.”

 —Harville Hendrix

Not Your Average Couples Therapy

Sometimes a fight isn’t just a fight. Sometimes it is a cry for help between people who have stopped being able to communicate effectively with one another. They have lost or forgotten the paths they once walked that lead to gentle kisses and soft words. When you’re in the thick of it, a fight may seem like the best thing…or the worst thing. At least then you’re talking to each other, right? There’s a better way and we can help you find it.

We’re here for couples. It doesn’t matter if you’re a same-sex couple, a heterosexual couple, a polyamorous thriple or if you’re in an open relationship. We are here for the people who are trying to find their way back to the people or person they love.

What are some of the reasons that people come to couples therapy?:

How do people who used to finish each other’s sentences wind up in a place where they don’t feel like the other person understands them at all? Over time, people change and sometimes their communication needs and wants do too. That is not always an easy transition and new tools may be required.

Anger, resentment, pain and trauma are just a few of the reasons that people become emotionally disconnected. Sometimes the disconnection presents as something small like a reduction in the number of loving texts exchanged during the day. Other times, the emotional disconnection runs so deeply that it leaves the door open for an affair. However it manifests, disconnection doesn’t have to mean severance. Couples come to see us to rewire the broken or damaged strands of their relationship so that they can connect again.

Sexual dissatisfaction is oftentimes an indicator of desire discrepancies in many relationships. Maybe there are performance issues that are causing a strain on the relationship. Perhaps there is a growing disparity in sexual appetites. That can be a cause of conflict. And it’s no one’s fault, per se. There are an abundance of reasons that may be hard to talk about. Maybe you don’t have the words. Sexual intimacy can be impacted by deficiencies in other parts of one’s relationship. Let us help you retrace the steps and understand how to bring the fireworks back to your relationship.

Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone is equipped to forgive and move past them in the same way. Some errors in judgment, like affairs for instance, can decimate the trust in a relationship and make it nearly impossible to rebound without intervention.

When we’re kids, we have a little spat, hug it out and move on like nothing ever happened. As we age, that process gets a lot more complex and we seem to lose the ability to move on with the same ease. There’s a required maneuvering of our pride, ego, and vulnerability that people sometimes need help navigating. That’s where we come in. We understand the repair work that accompanies relationship devastations. Most people who were victims of affairs experience PTSD with symptoms such as reliving the experience, hypervigilance, etc. As the couple goes through the “before” and “after”changes, a grieving process can take place. But devastation doesn’t have to lead to the demise of your relationship. Let us help you and your partner(s) repair and heal from past events so that you can reconnect in the present once again.

“I’m not telling you it is going to be easy, I am telling you it is going to be worth it.”

-Art Williams

Humans are an ever-evolving species. However, it is not always the case that our ability to communicate effectively and share the changes, in real time, with our partners happens. This can be especially damaging in romantic relationships/marriages. If one party is, lets say, polyamorous but doesnt know it yet, a scenario could arise where they feel their needs are not being met; at least not exclusively by the person that they are in a committed relationship with. They may have lingering feelings of wanting or needing more, but lack the vocabulary or even self-awareness to really know the ends and outs of where that longing comes from. That frustration could lead to infidelity.

And what happens at that point? What if you’re able to rebound from infidelity only to find that your

partner, though not acting on any particular outside sexual urge, still has an emotional connection with the person they’d had the affair with?Or what if you’ve been married for 25 years and discover that your spouse has an emotional relationship with a peer at work? Are you prepared for a scenario where, after some reflection and discovery, your person is now able to articulate that the “thing” they’ve been missing is a deep(er) connection with someone else that isn’t you? And what if that need is now as important and weighted as their connection to you? An inability to navigate these sorts of complex conversations is a really good reason to come to couples therapy.

Proudly, we are able to help couples overcome the damage to the relationship that happens when the things you never knew come to the surface. We are able to work with individuals who are discovering their polyamorous sides, or their partners who may need additional support. We understand the unique needs and distinct challenges that may arise in these relationships. We are, afterall, human too. Couples therapy is not magic, but it can be miraculous.

“Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand.”

-Emily Kimbrough

Let’s now move onto the how of couples therapy.

How does couples therapy work? 

Couples therapy is about helping couples to find better ways to reach each other. We recommend, and it works best, if couples attend together. There are few occasions for individual meetings since the goal of the session is couple-work. The work of the session requires all parties to contribute. What we find is that most times when there is conflict or dissonance in a relationship, it’s caused by competing realities. Our goal is listen, hear all of the verbalized realities and then aid in helping you to find a path together. We do this by teaching and guiding you in communication practices that can create more grounded and safe

dialogue. That’s not an easy task! But, we have a team of practitioners who are skilled in the intentional exploration of all parties’ individual history and past patterns that are impacting the stability of the relationship.

If you broke your arm, you’d go to the doctor to fix it. And you wouldn’t have any shame about it – no matter how you broke it, or even if this wasn’t the first time you broke it. This is not different. If your relationship is broken, come in and let us help you get back on the track to mending.

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