the real work of couples therapy

Most couples don’t come to therapy because they argue (this is a whole other article that I’m working on tbh).

They come because they feel unseen.

Because the exact. same. fight. keeps erupting with ever-greater intensity.

Because closeness starts to feel dangerous, or impossible.

In the beginning, there’s often hurt. Blame. Silence.

Or two people who are so good at managing, performing, avoiding… they barely notice they’ve drifted.

My work with couples is grounded in Relational Life Therapy (RLT), a model developed by Terry Real that’s radically honest, deeply compassionate, and unafraid to name what’s not working.

It’s not about who’s right, whose wrong blah blah blah. No. It’s about a dynamic that has evolved little by little until intimacy has become badly stymied.

We look at the patterns that play out when love is under stress.

• How protection takes over.

• How early wounds show up.

• How contempt, control, or compliance keep partners from asking for what they really need.

And then we practice something different.

In couples work, I’m not a neutral mirror. I’m an active guide.

• I’ll name when someone is being grandiose, or collapsing

• I’ll speak to the power dynamics in the room

• I’ll slow the moment down enough for partners to hear themselves, and each other, without defense

The goal isn’t to have a perfect relationship.

It’s to build one rooted in connection, accountability, and truth.

A relationship where love doesn’t mean fusing or fixing, but staying present - especially when it’s hard.

Many of us weren’t modeled that kind of repair. So we build the muscle together.

We learn to speak in ways that land.

To hear feedback without shutting down.

To bring more self into the relationship - not less.

Because intimacy isn’t something we fall into. It’s a dynamic unfolding of loving, witnessing, fighting, laughing, breathing together, being together over days, weeks, months, and years. If we’re very lucky. If we put in the work.