Your relationship doesn’t work, not really, not the way you’d like it to. But you’re at a loss for how to fix it.
You’ve read self-help books and maybe even tried counseling. And maybe those things helped, for a time. But now it seems that you and your partner are back where you started. Or maybe things have gotten worse. The distance between you keeps growing and you’re beginning to wonder if maybe you just don’t love each other anymore. Maybe it’s time to throw in the towel, cut your losses, and walk away.
At the same time that you’re having these thoughts and dealing with these hard emotions, another part of you doesn’t want to give up. Refuses to give up. Some days it doesn’t even make sense but there it is nonetheless. Deep down inside part of you knows—just knows—that you and your partner are meant to be together and that to give up and end your relationship now would be a terrible mistake.
You and your partner are indeed at a crossroads. So, then, what are you supposed to do?
The reason most self-help books, relationship workshops, and couples counseling fail in the longterm is because the changes they facilitate often don’t go deep enough and lack the power necessary to bring about real and lasting change.
Think of it this way: Your relationship is like a wide and fast moving river; A river that follows the same repetitive and habitual behaviors that you and your partner have carved over the years into the bedrock of your life together.
A book about relationships or a weekend workshop for couples isn’t going to change the course of a powerful river like that. Neither is counseling that only concerns itself with the more topical problems that you and your partner bring to session each week. Therapy like that is like rebuilding in a flood zone. You can do it, but your house is going to get destroyed again the next time it rains.
You and your partner have very real and important issues that need to be discussed and worked through. All couples do. And we’ll get to those. But, before we do, we need to get underneath the surface of your problems to the emotional and behavioral bedrock that, right now, is keeping you stuck and preventing your relationship from functioning in a healthy, effective, and satisfying way.
In short, we need to re-engineer your relationship from the ground up so that now the flow of the river, instead of driving the two of you further apart, draws you closer together with greater warmth, closeness and intimacy.
Ready to get to work?
