Marriage Counseling

We can start to wonder if we’re “falling out of love” or feel like we’re “walking on eggshells” with the other person.

Our relationships are everything. As adults, our most important relationship tends to be the one we have with our significant other. When this primary relationship is in distress, it also follows naturally that the individuals involved will experience symptoms of anxiety or depression.

Communication becomes difficult and we become guarded. We can start to wonder if we’re “falling out of love” or feel like we’re “walking on eggshells” with the other person. Sometimes we feel like we “can’t do anything right” or we’re “too much” in the relationship.

If any of these sound familiar, couples counseling may help. In couples counseling, we work with you to identify the underlying causes of the problems.

Our main concerns as human beings within our attachment relationships involve answering the questions “Are you there for me?”, “Will you come when I call?”, “Can I rely on you?”. If we begin to doubt the other person in regard to these vital questions, then trust erodes and emotional walls are built. This often results in frequent bickering, misunderstandings, and other communication problems.

In couples counseling, we work with each partner within the context of the relationship to understand their own needs and wants — to belong, to be safe, to be connected — as well as the other person’s. Once aware of these longings, partners should be able to be vulnerable with each other and able to share these needs with each other.

We work with each person to understand their own emotions and the cues that trigger these emotions. Couples can then start to establish a more secure connection — a connection that leads them both to reach out for the other person when they are in distress and to have a felt sense of safety that the other person will “be there”. Couples can then learn to rely on the other person to help them regain their emotional balance.