Mental health issues affect more than just our individual lives – they can impact our families, partners, and loved ones. We’ll find solutions and strategies as an unbiased third party to get the skills and tools you all need to thrive.
Get StartedMaybe you’re fighting with each other more than usual and all your interactions are colored by anger, resentment, and constant nitpicking. Perhaps there was infidelity and you’re wondering how you’ll ever bounce back and regain each other’s trust. Or maybe parenting stress has put a strain on your relationship and you’ve realized you have wildly different ideas about raising kids. No matter what the source of your troubles is, you might worry that your relationship is a sinking ship and find yourself questioning your future together. As a result, you may be thinking that it’s time to see a couples therapist.
Not all relationship problems stem from conflict. Maybe you and your partner aren’t arguing or clashing heads all the time, but a sense of roommate syndrome has come over your marriage. Whereas once you felt enamored with each other 24/7, now you feel like you’re just ships passing in the night. What started as an exciting and supportive partnership feels so far from where you began and now you’re concerned that you’ll continue to drift apart. This could make you anxious, depressed, irritable, and isolated.
Deep down, you may be wondering if you and your partner have what it takes to rekindle your spark. At The Therapy for Women Center, we’re here to answer that with an emphatic yes. Our Gottman-informed approach to counseling can help you repair your connection, increase your intimacy, and create a life of shared meaning and purpose together.
Our culture teaches us many unhealthy beliefs about love and romance. We are taught that when you find the right person, “everything will click,” as if relationships are based on pure chance. The truth is that, no matter how magical the first encounter may feel, relationships take hard work. Even intimacy doesn’t come naturally to most couples, and if it seems to at first, there are generally periods when every couple feels disconnected.
What’s more, most people are not taught healthy communication skills and conflict resolution strategies. Many of us grew up with less-than-ideal examples of how to resolve marital discord. And even if our parents did their best, they may have had blind spots or they may not have modeled the repair process for us. This is why it’s so important for couples to seek extra support. None of us is born knowing all the answers to relationship issues, so there’s no shame in getting help.
It’s no secret that couples today face more distractions than at virtually any other time in history. Between social media, endless entertainment options, and our busy, work-crazed lifestyles, it’s hard to drown out all the noise in our lives and focus on each other. Oftentimes, relationships crumble simply because people are so preoccupied with life’s demands and have no room for intimacy or quality time. This is especially the case once kids enter the picture, as parenting often takes up all of a couple’s time and energy.
Thankfully, it’s possible to rekindle your romance and breathe new life into your relationship, no matter how much you and your partner are struggling. As long as the two of you want the best for each other, you can break out of old patterns and establish a healthier, more mature connection.
Get StartedEven though you can’t avoid conflict, you can learn to manage it well. When conflict is managed correctly, it can actually help you learn to love your partner even better. At Therapy for Women, our counselors are experts in helping couples navigate conflict and find common ground so that they can rediscover the joy that drew them together in the first place. We’re confident that we can help you and your partner accomplish the same thing. We will teach you the skills to de-escalate conflict, improve communication, and increase closeness and intimacy.
Our practice is open to working with couples from all walks of life and we have lots of experience providing therapy for LGBTQ+ couples. We work with couples who are worried that they’re on the brink of divorce as well as those who simply want a relationship tune-up. And in addition to standard therapy, we offer intensive sessions for couples who are looking to get their relationship work done in a shorter, more concentrated timeframe.
Get StartedThe primary approach that our practice uses is the Gottman Method, which is widely considered the gold standard of couples therapy. Following the Gottman model, we’ll meet with you and your partner together for the first session and then have individual sessions with each of you to get to know you both on a deeper level. After that, we’ll resume meeting with both of you for the remainder of therapy, focusing on helping you strengthen your marriage or relationship.
The Gottman interventions we use are meant to assist couples in three major areas: friendship, conflict management, and the creation of shared meaning. We’ll help you deepen your emotional connection so that you can understand each other better and improve your friendship. You will learn how to break out of patterns of conflict and replace them with positive interactions so that you can repair hurts. And lastly, we’ll help you create changes that enhance your shared goals, allowing you to endow your marriage or relationship with a deeper sense of purpose.
Ultimately, The Gottman Method is a truly powerful framework for helping couples develop traits that improve their emotional connection. By drawing from the wisdom of this approach and creating a counseling plan that’s tailored to your relationship’s unique needs, we believe that we can help you and your significant other repair hurts and reignite your love for each other.
Get StartedAs couples therapists, our job is not to tell you and your partner whether you should stay together or split up—that is your decision and we will never tell you what to do. Our job is to help you manage conflict, learn communication skills, and break unhealthy cycles of behavior. We want to support your goals, period.
Obviously this is your partner’s choice, but if they’re overly hesitant about therapy, we’d be happy to talk to them about their concerns. There is no need for them to commit right away—they’re welcome to come for a session, see how they like it, and make their decision after that. Oftentimes, people are reluctant to go to therapy because they fear that the therapist will take sides. The good news is that our therapists are neutral and unbiased; we know that it takes two to tango, and we’re here to help both of you do your part to make things right.
It’s okay if you don’t know what you want. Many couples come to therapy without really knowing where their difficulties stem from or what they want to focus on. Sometimes they need help working out through the stickiest parts of their relationship before they can define what they want. As long as you’re showing up with the willingness to be vulnerable and learn new skills, we can help you figure the rest out.
A great alternative to weekly sessions is to do a couples weekend intensive. In one weekend, (approximately 12 hours of therapy), you can experience several months of progress. Click here to learn more about our couples intensives.
If you and your significant other want to improve your communication and make your relationship or marriage a place of refuge again, we believe that couples counseling can help you. To get started, you can contact us or schedule an appointment.