Couples Therapy

After courtship and the honeymoon…

You did not walk lightly into the relationship with your spouse or significant other.

There were dreams, or at least hopes, that this relationship would provide all the love, support, and passion needed to be happy and to be the best version of yourself possible.

The ideal of your partner was someone who could anticipate your every need, read your mind, and always agree in the kindest way possible.

Reality check! Now, it looks different.

The emotions surrounding your relationship are more complex and confusing than you ever thought possible.

This person, the one with whom you once shared the deepest love, is now entangled in some of your deepest pain.

Learning to handle relationships, warts and all…

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

Sometimes patterns learned from our own families (parents, grandparents, siblings) get in the way of creating a healthy relationship. Unfortunately, we tend to recreate the good, the bad, and the ugly of what we have learned and observed from the relationships of our parents, family, and friends.

In all honesty, we simply don’t even realize there may be a different way to handle things.

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

There is no instruction manual.

The act of getting married does not instantly qualify a couple as experts on relationships or marriage.

In fact, because we are so emotionally involved in a serious relationship, we may not always recognize where we are getting off track or where we may be causing harm.

Your relationship with your spouse or significant other is the relationship that impacts you more than any other in your adult life and for a very good reason. The more invested we are, the more we stand to lose.

The relationship that matters the most to us, however, is also the relationship that can seem the most challenging and complex.

Good news!

Regardless of what you know or how things have gone thus far, the good news is that there are skills that can be learned and implemented to help you thrive in your most important relationship.

Where harm has been done and trust has been lost, there are ways to rebuild and create something better than our previous experience has shown.

Please call (509) 245-2800 to set up your free 30-minute consultation and give your relationship the chance and change it deserves.