This isn’t how you imagined your relationship.

You have put a lot of effort to get to where you want to be in your career. And somewhere along the way you noticed you have neglected your relationship.

Whether it was on purpose to avoid arguments at home, to avoid feeling like a disappointment, or simply because you were trying to chase after the next promotion, you’ve noticed you and your partner have become distant. At the end of the day, working on your relationship feels like a chore. Intimacy and sex? Forget it, that’s out the window.

You’re desperately looking for a way to figure out how to get the spark back and to feel emotionally close and have fun with your partner like when you first started dating.

You Find Yourself Asking “Isn’t There More To Relationships”?

Couples therapy can help you better understand yourself, your partner, and improve your relationship with each other in the following ways:

  • It starts with identify how your past childhood and adult experiences impact your ability to be vulnerable. We all have reasons for why it’s hard for us to share seemingly small but personal things, even with someone who we’re “supposed to” share our secrets with. Due to past interpersonal experiences, it makes sense why some partners may have a response that is heightened (think raising your voice or criticizing) while others may have a response to withdraw (think getting quiet or literally walking out of the room). My goal is to help you understand what function these behaviours are serving in your relationship and to help you change that relational cycle. We will dive deeper under the surface and explore the more tender, vulnerable emotions and needs, that may be too scary to say to a significant other.

  • Explore your “relationship cycle”. A dance we all get stuck in that makes it seem like we just keep having the same arguments over and over again, which leaves both parties feeling extremely disconnected. After exploring your past histories, I help you to make sense of how your dance keeps you stuck, and by slowing it way down and exploring what’s really going on under the surface (criticism, defensiveness, anger, withdrawing, etc), can help you to express your needs and desires (to feel close, have fun, be loved) in a way that leads to connection as you understand each other’s wold more intimately.

Couples Therapy Isn’t About Proving Someone Is Right or Wrong.

What you won’t find me, as your therapist, doing in sessions:

  • Taking sides. I believe both partners engage in undesirable behaviours due to their upbringing and past experiences with relationships. I view both partners as being on the same side, fighting against the cycle, looking to improve their relationship together. As long as you’re willing to work on your relationship, I will hold the hope and work along side with you to increase your relationship quality and satisfaction.

  • Telling you what to do. It’s not my place to tell you what is best for you, only you know what that is. I will provide us with a space to have challenging and deepening conversations and check in with you to make sure that we are working towards your goals, taking your feedback into account. Emotionally Focused Therapy has been found to be a highly effective form of therapy to help partners gain insight and improve their emotional connection with themselves and others. You can read more about EFT here.

  • Talking about every argument or surface level issue. I strongly believe that the recurring arguments about specific things can serve as a starting point to explore whats happening in the cycle, but what you argue about is not nearly as important as understanding how your argue. My goal is to help you understand what your needs and core emotions are, and how you can talk about the hurt, sadness, and shame, in a softer and more vulnerable way, rather than problem solving each argument individually. That way, when the next challenge in your relationship pops up, you’ll have transferable skills to help you talk about what it’s brining up in you and thus navigate it.

My goal is for you to be able to have the vulnerable conversations on your own, outside of sessions, without my help. The number of session to help you get there will vary from couple to couple and be personalized to meet your needs.

What should you expect after our 20-minute consultation if you choose to work with me?

I will ask you to fill out a couples intake and consent documents to help me understand more about your own personal and relational history and outline confidentiality limits and my practice policies so we can have an understand of what our relationship looks like.

We will then meet for a couples intake session where we will talk about what brought you to therapy, what your relational dance looks like, what are common stressors in your relationship, and explore goals and ways we can address those. After that, I meet with you both individually to discuss your own relational histories to help me understand your backgrounds and how the past influences the present.

Then, we will meet again as a couple, discuss what I learned about the both of you and your relationship in the previous sessions, and finalize a plan for us to move forward together - settle on the frequency and the duration of couples sessions, and continue with identifying the relational dynamic that you both get stuck in to work towards increasing connection.

Going to couples therapy, doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. In fact, it shows you’re committed to bettering yourself for your partner, relationship, and own well-being.