Couples

Feeling Alone in Your Marriage/Partnership

You’re wondering what happened to your story. How did everyday life create such a distance…a silence between the two of you? Trust has been broken in many ways; an affair, promises never kept…changes never permanent. After 20+ years of marriage, why can’t you find your way back to safety, romance, commitment without complications.

Or maybe your relationship is new, and you want to make sure that you learn from the past to connect and show up as the right partner this time. You want to gain tools to communicate with confidence, trust and a commitment to a deeper intimacy than you’ve ever known.

Couples counseling is a courageous decision. By working together to rewrite your story, you’re investing in your relationship at a deep level. In therapy, we will focus on the health and strength of you as a couple. enCOURAGE Counseling provides a safe place for deep healing that can lead to deeper intimacy, stronger trust and clear commitment. Based on your story, we will develop goals and work in session to support your growth and strength as a couple. You’ll leave your sessions with tools and a deeper connection that will support your commitment and communication.

Specializing in:

• 25 + years of Marriage
• Trauma Impacted Marriage
• High Conflict/Low Trust Relationship Dynamics
• Attachment and Intimacy

Healing the Wounds of the Past…

We know that trauma before or during a relationship impacts the quality and safety in a marriage and committed relationships. If one or both partners experienced trauma as a child or in their previous relationships, it can feel as if the rug keeps coming out from under the trust, communication and closeness you want to feel. Maybe there was an event in the years of your relationship that were traumatic, either between the two of you,  or an external event (e.g., financial disaster, infidelity, death of parent or child, accident) and you haven’t processed it individually or as a couple. A few common ways the wounds from the past can impact your relationship include:

• Avoiding certain topics in conversation
• Believing negative things about your partner
• High defensiveness or excruciating insecurity
• Disconnection and irritability with partner
• Avoiding certain activities, including sex

Another unexpected place you might be finding yourself is after 20+ years, it feels as if there’s no reason to stay together. Research indicates that since 1990, the divorce rate for couples who are 50 or older is now two times higher than previously found. It almost seems impossible that after all you’ve experienced together, you can’t find your way back to one another. Although every couple is different, many couples notice that they don’t feel connection or love anymore. Other couples indicate that after the kids have left and there’s more time spent together, they don’t find anything in common or they really don’t like each other anymore. Years, even decades, of neglect, hurt feelings and unresolved conflict have built up to the breaking point.

Or maybe it’s a combination of everything above and more. Long years of hidden trauma, conflict, hurt and anger are now too loud to ignore. All you know is that you aren’t sure if this is what you want anymore.

The good news is that it’s not too late to heal and to begin again. If you and your partner are ready and available to work hard in healing together, you can find a new way to be committed and loving together.

A Safe Place to Reconnect

Relational therapy can be very overwhelming to start. Who chooses the therapist? How will I know the therapist will listen to me and believe me when I talk about what’s going on? Have we waited too long for anything to matter?

That’s why we start with a free, no obligation 20-minute consultation appointment with both partners. This is a brief but essential start to safe and comfortable therapy. You and your partner can ask questions and share your goals for your relationship and what you want to get out of the experience.

Once you both agree this is the right time and right place to work together, we will meet for your first appointment. It can feel tense and awkward, and my job is to find ways to bring ease into the conversation and even start building on the strengths that are available in the relationship. I’ll ask about your relationship story and invite the other partner to listen to what reminds them of what you love and trust in one another. Each partner will get time to share their story and listen to the partner’s story.

After our first appointment, I will meet with each partner individually to learn a bit about both partner’s relationship stories and original family system. There is a lot to be understood from these appointments. It’s also an important opportunity to experience your own safety and trust with me.

When we meet again, I’ll share some observations I have from the first three appointments. From there we’ll decide on some initial goals. What do you see as the place to start? And what would you like to see different as a result of your time together in counseling?

And then we do the good, good work of couples working together. You’ll both leave with a new skill as well as an understanding of your partner and the dynamics in your relationship. The best work is done between sessions as you try out new skills and new ways to engage with your partner to communicate care, connection and commitment.

It’s Never Too Late to Connect With One Another

You’re taking the time to look for information about couple’s therapy. Something in you wants this work out and find ways to heal this relationship. I’m so grateful for your courage and the willingness to remember that there IS love here, even if it feels hard to feel that consistently right now.

Therapy for couples is a safe place to speak openly and honestly. Therapy offers a way to listen well, validate your own and your partner’s experience and then find the places that are ready to be addressed and healed. Couple’s therapy is hard work; I don’t want to sugar coat it. And it is really good work that supports you both finding a way to talk through the silent hurts and wounds of the past.

Couples therapy also offers tools and skills that will support your goal of communication, intimacy and trust. Between sessions, you and your partner will practice what you learn in sessions. This is where couples therapy grows roots to strengthen and grow your relationship.

Our shared goal is about healing your relationship and growing in places that will strengthen your commitment and allow you to flourish together. The work we do is designed to build trust, skills and healing in such a way that you both are ready and capable to navigate your communication, your relationship and your conflict together without someone needing to facilitate safety and the process.

“Yeah, but…”

We’ve been together for 30 years. Isn’t it just too late for therapy?

It really isn’t. I’ve worked with couples who have been together for over 30 years, and it’s a privilege to join with them in productive, loving ways that heal old wounds and integrate new ways of communicating and loving each other. The old scar tissue that can grow over the years is healed as you practice ways to have conflict without catastrophe as well as healing through empathy and forgiveness the burdens that have blocked safety and intimacy in your life together.

My partner’s past trauma has ruined our marriage. Is healing and recovery even possible?

Trauma shows up in unexpected ways, especially in intimate relationships. It complicates and blocks our sense of connection, intimacy and safety despite the years together that “should” let your partner know it’s safe to be loved and love. Healing comes from each partner noticing and naming the impact of trauma on the relationship and then participating in individual and partnered therapy. Healing and recovery ARE possible, and your relationship can experience growth and connection as a result of the work you do together.

I’ve worked with couples for over 10 years, and it’s wonderful, challenging work! I have seen relationships seemingly torn apart from trauma and the long years of disconnection come alive as each partner steps towards their own healing in service to the commitment and love they actually want. It’s never too late to start again.

I work from the deep belief that everyone wants to connect, feel close and live in a meaningful, intimate relationship.  Our work together will include interactive sessions that will include practicing healthy and healing connection skills. I can end up right next to each partner to coach you both through new ways to say things and listen well. I also provide the place to safely heal the trauma within you and between you in order to update your experience in the relationship.  

Today is the day to begin your journey together. Call or text today for your free, no obligation 20-minute consultation appointment. I’m looking forward to answering your questions and understanding your story that has brought you to this invitation to intimacy and safety.