Help for a troubled relationship
Matt and Phyllis were an unmarried couple in a long-term relationship. They had been living together for several years. They came to me because Matt recently learned that Phyllis had been unfaithful early in their relationship. Though it was in the past, it caused him great pain. Phyllis wanted to repair the damaged done to his trust in her, and both wanted a better life together.
Maria and Juan, a Catholic couple married for over 30 years, came to see me before going to a divorce court. She described her life with Juan as 30 years of neglect, isolation, and “single motherhood.” He described his life with Maria as one gigantic frustration from never being able to do anything right.
Couples, married and not, straight and gay, come to counseling because they are at wit’s end to know how to end the fighting, break the silence, and reconnect. Sometimes there’s the added strain of addiction and/or an affair. Not all marriages can be saved, but most can, and the relationship can become something better and more life-giving for the couple.
Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples (EFT) I have been trained in an evidence-based therapy for couples called EFT. I have been very successful in helping couples slow down, listen to each other for understanding, share vulnerable emotions of hurt, loneliness, and resentment, and replace negative patterns of interacting with new, positive behaviors that restore trust, love, and friendship.
Issues to bring to counseling: Lack of intimacy and trust, infidelity, addiction, poor communication skills, unresolved hurt from the past, extended family dynamics, money, sexual dysfunction, religion, children, infertility, divorce, domestic violence, and anything that gets in the way of marital/couple unity and love.
Couples Counseling
Preparing couples for marriage
Lin and Akeno, living together and engaged, came to see me because they both came from divorced homes, and did not want to end up like their parents. They were Evangelical Christians and wanted to lay a strong foundation for their marriage that would help them stay happily married till “death do us part.”
Karen and Jillian came for marriage preparation. As a lesbian couple, they felt great pressure from some family members who did not support their decision. They wanted to do whatever they could to ensure success for their marriage commitment. Karen had been doing infant foster care. As a married couple they wanted to adopt children from foster care. They were highly motivated to participate in pre-marriage education and counseling.
Marriage preparation integrates sound relationship education with effective therapeutic interventions that help couples to change negative patterns of interacting into more positive ones. Couples will grow in self-knowledge and self-awareness; strengthen communication and listening skills; learn how to have healthy conflict that actually builds love and enhances marital unity; and participate in facilitated conversations about interpersonal needs, finances, sexual intimacy, hurt and forgiveness, children, marital friendship, and vows.