Wm Paul Young, best known as the author of The Shack says: “When you even skim the edges of relationship, you submit to mystery and lose control. Marriage would be so much easier if there wasn’t another person involved, but then it would be meaningless, too. Relationships are entwined, entrenched, elusive, messy, enabling, enrapturing, maddening, exhilarating, frustrating, exposing, and too beautiful for words.”  

 

It’s no surprise we occasionally find ourselves struggling to navigate our relationships in healthy ways. We all bring past experiences into our relationships, and sometimes we get stuck. In our stuckness, we might become attached to familiar, but unhealthy, ways of navigating through pain. Life transitions, even good ones, become fertile ground for relationship challenges. Help is available, and accepting help is good!

 

Relationship Challenges Might Include...

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• Marriage

• Life balance

• Financial

• Mental illness

• Physical illness

• Trauma

• Loss and grief

• Intimacy (physical, spiritual, emotional)

• Divorce

• Extended family

• Infidelity

 

Relationship Challenges Might Be Experienced As...

 

• Getting stuck in the same argument over and over

• Feeling as if you and your loved one are adrift - and moving further apart

• Longing for deeper intimacy

• Fear of being misunderstood or rejected

Relationship counseling invites you to learn and practice new skills that will help you recognize your own inner feelings, core longings, and needs - and communicate them with your loved one.  

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What to Expect in Relationship Counseling

 

Employing practices of Emotion-Focused Therapy as our guide, I will invite you to deepen your understanding and connection with each other. The aim is for partners to feel safe expressing their needs and longings with each other.  We will spend time in sessions processing experiences and practicing together. In our relationships, we reach out for consolation when we are feeling insecure, uncertain, threatened, misunderstood, anxious, lost, or upset.  You will practice being with one another in these kinds of moments, offering the other the gift of listening and compassion, and providing a safe haven where upsetting emotions can be eased, trust can grow, and love can deepen.

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"No one can dance with a partner and not touch each other’s raw spots. We must know what these raw spots are and be able to speak about them in a way that pulls our partner closer to us."

Sue Johnson, Author, Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love