NOBODY EVER SAID MARRIAGE OR BEING IN
AN INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP WAS EASY!
Many feel alone in their marriage.
Speaking the truth may resemble walking through a minefield.
Emotions are tamped down.
Truth is withheld.
Compromise is the name of the game.
The loving feeling from the early months, maybe years, of your relationship seems to have slipped away or been buried under the day-to-day routine. Get up, get the kids off to school, go to work, pick up the kids, cook dinner (or take the kids to their extracurricular activities), and fall into bed.
Where has the love gone?
Be PRESENT for Yourself and Your Marriage
Don’t Wait! Prevention Is Everything!
Most relationship problems (69%) never get resolved but are “perpetual” problems based on personality differences between partners.
67 percent of parents with new babies report decreased satisfaction in their marriage.
The Average Couple waits 6 years before getting help (Dr. John Gottman).
Avoiding support hasn’t worked, pretending the problem doesn’t exist doesn’t work, and talking no longer works because you are in an endless cycle of emotional dysregulation.
It has seemed easier to blame your partner and exile any other emotions, so you don’t feel them. This numbness can become debilitating. You can feel ill, end up in an accident, or some other life event that suddenly wakes you up.
Why seek Couples Therapy?
Most couples come to therapy to learn to recognize the limiting beliefs and reactions that are causing the cyclic conflict in their marriage.
Each relationship has specific strengths, and together we can learn to identify and build on these strengths.
We will learn about the effects of physiological flooding and how it may affect conflict resolution. We will also use mirroring to feel seen, heard and known. This is particularly important if one of the partners has a deep-seated feeling of not being heard.
Using the Fondness and Admiration System can help a couple renew respect and care for one another. Also, creating an Emotional Bank Account that you can draw upon in times of stress will act as a life-vest of sorts to know you have a safety.
We will work to develop your problem-solving skills, including the six skills for effective conflict resolutions. Most of us were not taught how to solve real-life conflict – we learned algebra or a similar skill.
But the emotions that arise during conflict should be those that we know how to control.
Moving Forward – Together
As a couple, it is important to find new visions and aspirations together. It may be that the first focus is unexpectedly on Self.
Having worked with couples for conflict resolution and non-violent communication over the 15 years I have been in practice, somatic inquiry is the beautiful compliment to self-care in a marriage. I encourage all my couples to find their own self-care plan. This is because we can’t be there for someone else unless we are there for ourselves.
We need to be able to step out of the ring, as Dr. Gottman puts it. To find a place of calm and ease when we feel triggered or stimulated emotionally by a conversation.