Couples Therapy
The Quietest Silence
There’s nothing quite like the silence of lying beside your partner at night.
Empty. Separate. Painful.
You wonder how you got here, to this tension. The space between you is loaded with too many unnamed feelings and feelings named too harshly.
You long to love completely and feel loved back.
You’d do anything to feel connected and known again.
Your Coping Is Doing the Damage
Often, what gets so challenging when we’re in conflict with the ones we love is that, when we’re in distress, we fall into automatic coping and defense mechanisms.
You might not be aware of it, but walking away, slamming the door, and getting louder are all strategies we engage in when we’re trying to cope with our own distress. When we’re insecure, pepper our partner with questions to pull them back.
When our needs feel unmet, we get needy. When we feel unheard, we get critical in the hope that if we turn it up, something will get through. When we feel lost, we blame.
If there’s a clear bad guy, there’s a way to understand the moment and organize it all.
But the moment we protect ourselves in these ways, we bring up our partner’s deepest hurts. On the other side of a slammed door, our partner is left alone even if they don’t have the words for it.
But they feel shame when they’re alone. They pull away to keep the peace. They feel misunderstood and go deeper inside themselves.
In the silence, we feel even more alone. How will we ever get them back now? So, maybe you push even harder, and the cycle continues.
And all of these automatic responses just happen too fast to keep up with. Before you know it, you’re even more confused, separate, and overwhelmed than you were before.
What was unclear and painful before now feels hopeless to resolve. Talking about things makes it worse.
A Saner Way Forward
As the conflict spirals out of control, you need more options – things to do in these moments that help make the relationship stronger through conflict instead of more fractured.
Couples therapy with me usually goes like this: You’ll come in (ideally in person, but virtual is just fine). I like to start with your love story. I know it might feel far away at this point, but it’s really helpful for me to get a sense of what we’re fighting for.
We’ll talk about what’s working and what the biggest challenges are.
We’ll explore your conflict pattern – most couples tend to have a recurrent pattern they enact cyclically regardless of the issue at hand.
We’ll explore what you’re bringing in from previous relationships – big wounds, family patterns, relationships you’re trying NOT to recreate.
Once the patterns are clearer, we’re going to make some changes.
I’ll bring my experience working with couples from my decade as a therapist, as well as best practices in secure attachment.
We’ll practice new skills in session, including helping partners find words for their experiences so they can share them.
Skill work with me is aimed at helping you create enough safety to have the hard conversations. We’ll share feelings in a softer, more vulnerable way and process how difficult that is.
Partners unpack moments when they stopped feeling safe enough to be themselves and express what they feel.
In these moments, couples feel a return of the love and connection that brought them together in the first place. They often tell me, “We’ve talked about this a hundred times before, but never like this.”
Let’s Get in There Together
You need someone in there to help you slow it all down, figure out what’s happening, and work out how to do it differently to find love again.
Let’s make home feel like the place you want to come home to again, the place where you can rest from the world and be held.
When the work is done, the silent nights lying next to each other will be a distant memory.
The two of you will know how to express what you feel in a way that brings you closer instead of further apart. You will feel like you’re in a new relationship with the same person.
Start With a Conversation
Reach out for a free consultation and get started right away.
