The conditions of your relationship are the conditions of the life you are living. Your relationship’s health has the largest impact on your possibilities of connection, safe independence, success, and security.
They were delivered into your nervous system — your alarms, the times you look away, reach out, manage, or give up hope. When two people bring their family patterns into a relationship it gets confusing. Not all of our patterns need changing; some patterns are good. But that is the nature of relationships: both partners get say and influence over which patterns stay, which go, and what new patterns need to emerge. In all cases the goal is to go from unconscious patterns that run the relationship to conscious patterns that both partners agree to and mold for themselves and each other.
Parenting is a unique difficulty, and working with children and parents is one of my specialties — I know how hard it is to parent well inside a relationship that also needs tending. The relationship you have with your partner is the first environment your children live in. When that relationship is solid — warmth, repair, honest communication — kids feel it. A healthy couple relationship is one of the most powerful things parents can offer a family.
You’ve been here before. You know what it looks like when it starts and you know what will come next. The fight isn’t really about what it’s about anymore. The instinctual physical responses are the body’s alert system — but when that alert system is triggering with our partner, then separation, isolation, and crashes become inevitable. Repetitive negative patterns weigh on a relationship. This leaves both partners exhausted, avoidant, and resentful — even just of the situation, if not of their partners or themselves.
The relationship is intact. Maybe you’re successful parents already, and well together. Maybe you run a business together and have been together since college. Relationships that are functional can still be flat. Life itself asks us to deepen into ourselves and the world as we age — so also must a relationship. If the relationship itself does not grow with two growing people, they will outgrow it and find themselves in the same home, miles away. Don’t ignore this. Relationships can be a gift with deeply life-giving energy — don’t live without this.
A betrayal. An affair. A decision made alone. The wound is real and the question is open. Repair is possible — but do we want that? How could we? How could they? This type of work takes both sides, the right therapist, and honesty. Betrayal takes unique work and it is not always successful. But when it is, like any good trauma work, it can create a depth of connection not known by most.
A baby, a relocation, in-laws, aging, illness, financial windfall, graduation — life has many twists and turns. Relationships need durability to hold connection and resources when the going gets tough. In many ways being in a relationship can be an improvable skill, just like any activity: partners can train better habits, consideration, and the depth of their communication and dialogue. I’ve worked with many successful couples on strengthening their relationship so that it is a durable source of strength for both partners.
Therapy comes in where books and conventional wisdom fail. People are unique, and general advice only works on the surface. Whether a couple wants to keep smaller issues from becoming larger problems, or is coming in because they want more from their relationship and partnership — the uniqueness of each person shapes what is needed.
This is why books often fail and yet education can still be helpful. I am here when books or general advice aren’t working. Unique people create unique needs, and it is my work to tailor the many perspectives on relationships as resources for your relationship to use. I don’t know what is best for your relationship — but for over a decade I have seen what works, what doesn’t, and which theories and schools of thought have had the most success in getting couples wherever they want to go.
This website is to support connective understanding between my work and you — but your job isn't to know all this. That's my job. I'm here to support relationships where they are, in whatever form they take.
A simple way to start: a call or text — 816-609-0782. We'll figure out where to go from there.