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Are you and your partner struggling with intense feelings of resentment, anger, sadness, or anxiety regarding your relationship? Or have the two of you become so disconnected that you’re numb and withdrawn? Are past betrayals causing ongoing tension and making it difficult for you and your partner to move forward?
Does it seem like no matter how hard you try to articulate your feelings calmly and constructively, the result is always another argument or a lack of resolution?
No longer emotionally and physically intimate, are you worried that you and your partner are drifting apart? Or do one of you desire more intimacy than the other?
When relationships become strained, our bodies often react in ways that can make communication even more difficult. On a physiological level, intense emotions can trigger the amygdala, activating the brain’s fight, flight, or freeze response. This floods the prefrontal cortex—the brain’s problem-solving and decision-making center—with adrenaline, cortisol, and norepinephrine. As a result, the ability to listen, process information, and respond thoughtfully is significantly impaired, making calm and constructive dialogue nearly impossible. Understanding these physiological responses is a key step in recognizing why you and your partner may struggle to communicate effectively during times of stress.
If your relationship suffers from an unending cycle of tension and disconnection, you’re likely feeling frustrated and unheard by your partner. You may be wondering why they can’t be the one to change or offer some kind of security about your future together. Lacking attunement in the most intimate relationship that exists in your life, you may struggle with mood changes, anxiety, physical discomfort, and an inability to trust.
As a couples therapist, I aim to assist my clients in understanding that anger is frequently a secondary emotion, meaning that it arises in response to more vulnerable primary emotions like fear, pain, hurt, guilt, shame, hopelessness, rejection, abandonment, and disrespect. You and/or your partner may default to anger as a defense mechanism because it’s easier than being vulnerable and honest about your true feelings.
Yet, ultimately, your anger is acting as a mask—and removing it will allow you to reach the heart of your issues as a couple. Working together in couples therapy, you can foster a healing dialogue that addresses the real issues, paving the way for openness, empathy, and understanding.
In my approach to couples counseling, I blend trauma-informed approaches with therapy and insights from Dr. John and Julie Gottman’s research on marriage and relationships. As one of the most effective couples-specific approaches, The Gottman Method has helped my clients better understand core issues and escape the cycle of conflict.
Every couple faces challenges in their relationship, and it’s normal to encounter issues along the way. According to the Gottmans, 69% of relationship conflicts are “perpetual and unsolvable,” stemming from differences in personality, upbringing, and values that, if not constructively addressed, can lead to gridlock over time. [1] Through extensive research, they’ve identified five detrimental communication habits that are predictors of relationship challenges:
Couples often struggle to fix relationship issues on their own because they focus on immediate problems like frequent arguments rather than core issues. Many avoid exploring deeper feelings like fear or insecurity and instead show anger. This, combined with poor communication skills, makes it hard to break negative patterns and truly understand each other. Simple fixes, such as strategies to reduce arguments about money, fail to address underlying issues like feelings of inadequacy or fear of abandonment.
This is where a couples therapist can offer guidance. When communication has broken down, stopped entirely, or turns into frequent arguments, a therapist offers a clear, unbiased perspective to help couples identify patterns and problems they might not notice on their own. By guiding couples in the process of exploring their feelings more deeply—and asking tough questions when necessary—a therapist directs the conversation past surface issues to understand and resolve the root problems, leading to a healthier and stronger relationship.
In relationships, couples often unconsciously seek answers to questions like Do you hear me? Am I safe with you? Do you understand me? Will you meet my needs? Due to past experiences, people might expect negative answers, making them overly sensitive to signs of rejection or conflict, leading to misunderstandings and negative interaction cycles.
I help clients break these cycles by slowing down their interactions, identifying patterns, and addressing emotional triggers. This includes becoming aware of implicit memories formed during childhood or stressors that influence automatic responses and emotional reactions. The brain blends past and present, especially in moments of perceived threat. This causes instinctive, protective reactions as if past traumas are happening again. Without intervention, our minds tend to operate on autopilot, relying on old patterns and reactions. Over time, these automatic reactions shape our perception, filtering everything through past conditioning and current emotions. This distorts our ability to see reality clearly, and we must intentionally train our minds to adopt healthier patterns and responses. Understanding these elements will allow you and your partner to manage reactions, improve communication, and deepen your connection.
As an experienced couples therapist, I work with you and your partner to shift focus from the surface-level details of your disagreements to the deeper motivations and unmet needs fueling these conflicts. Together, we will cultivate self-awareness and communication skills that reduce blame and foster greater harmony in your relationship. My goal is to help you build a stronger emotional connection and equip you with the tools needed to address challenges constructively, creating a more supportive and resilient partnership.
I offer couples two standardized assessments in the process of individualizing the counseling process to each client’s needs. Based on extensive relationship research, The Gottman Relationship Checkup evaluates five key relationship areas: friendship and intimacy, sex and passion, conflict management, shared meaning, and trust and commitment. Insights from this assessment can help pinpoint areas of improvement and facilitate effective interventions. I also offer the Prepare/Enrich assessment which helps couples explore topics such as communication, conflict resolution, roles, finances, and expectations. This is especially helpful for premarital counseling and for newlyweds.
While these assessments provide valuable insights, I use standardized tests with caution. Interpretation can vary, and standardized tests may not reflect unique cultural, social, or personal backgrounds. I incorporate these tools as part of a broader, personalized therapy approach, using them to start important conversations and gain insights. However, they are just one piece of the overall process to improve your relationship.
Using insights from assessment(s) and our conversations together, I will guide you and your partner in exploring the underlying causes of your emotional reactions and interactions. Through this, you will develop a new understanding of how you may be unintentionally triggering each other’s sensitive areas. Identifying these triggers in a supportive environment will allow you to move beyond longstanding behavior patterns, fostering empathy and support.
As you understand the roots of your conflict, you can break the cycle of blame and see how past experiences shape current interactions, eventually replacing defensive behaviors with awareness and compassion. IFS will be incorporated to empower you to investigate your internal dynamics—enhancing self-awareness and revealing how different aspects of your personalities affect your relationship behavior. By identifying and understanding the various “parts” within yourself, such as protective or wounded parts, IFS helps you address internal conflicts that might influence your interactions with your partner.
Finally, while many couples seek therapy to strengthen their relationship, there are times when counseling uncovers that the best path forward is to separate. If too much hurt has occurred, therapy can help you part ways amicably and with clarity. My goal is to guide each of you toward deeper understanding and empathy, whether that leads to renewing your relationship or reaching a respectful conclusion. This approach ensures that decisions align with each person’s true needs, fostering healthy outcomes for all involved.
While many couples initially find it challenging to be fully authentic and vulnerable in counseling, my role as a therapist is to guide you in uncovering and gaining insight into the hidden parts of yourselves, both from each other and from your own awareness. As you increase your self-awareness, you’ll both develop a clearer understanding of your own needs and how to meet them, as well as how to support your partner’s needs. Throughout this journey, you’ll build the courage to be open and honest with your partner, ultimately creating a stronger, more genuine, and more fulfilling connection.
It’s common for one partner to be hesitant about attending couples counseling. If this is the case, I recommend asking your partner to attend just one session to meet me and see if it feels like a good fit. This initial session is simply to get acquainted and discuss the relationship history and any concerns in a neutral setting. Usually, this first step can help alleviate fears or misconceptions about therapy. I am also available to meet with the partner who is willing to do counseling to provide guidance on how to encourage the reluctant partner to participate.
Therapy is not always about resolving every issue. Sometimes, it’s about gaining the clarity needed to make difficult decisions, including the possibility of ending the relationship. As a therapist, I strongly believe in the transformative power of couples therapy and have seen incredible changes in people. However, there are instances where the damage in a relationship is too severe to repair.
Even in these cases, counseling can provide valuable insights and facilitate a more amicable separation. This process helps both partners understand their needs and make informed decisions about their future.
The first session is typically 90 minutes long and involves both partners. During this session, I will gather a comprehensive history of your relationship to understand the context of your issues. Following this, I will meet individually with each partner in separate sessions to collect childhood and personal background information.
After these individual sessions, we will resume meeting together as a couple. However, depending on the circumstances, I may occasionally have individual sessions with partners when needed to address specific concerns.
If anger, resentment, and frustration have clouded your ability to see your relationship clearly, couples therapy can offer valuable insights and perspectives as you repair wounds and foster a deeper, more compassionate understanding of each other. Contact me for more information or to schedule your first session.
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