For Couples
For Couples

If you have a relationship crisis:
Are you having trouble making your relationship work? Are you concerned about conflicts or anger issues in your relationship?  Have you stopped communicating effectively with each other?  Do you miss the closeness you used to have?
Don’t give up.  Most relationships go through some difficult times.  Although some conflict is normal, it’s important to keep bad habits from becoming engrained.

Conflicts are frequently caused by communication differences, unreasonable expectations or misunderstandings.  Learning to handle conflict in a solution focused way is one of the most important skills you can learn.  Help is here.

More on Relationships…
We are rarely taught how create happy fulfilling relationship.  Yet nothing affects our lives more profoundly than our marriages and other important relationships.

Without realizing it, we pick up a lot of information informally about other people.  We notice how physically fit other people are and we can see what they eat, what they buy at the market, and how they order at restaurants. We observe our neighbors and friends parenting their kids, how they discipline them and when they praise them. If we choose to we learn from such examples.

Something we almost never see is how other people behave up-close in their intimate partnerships. In fact the only training most of us receive in how to “do” marriage is by watching our parent’s marriage.  Unless we consciously decide to do it differently—we often duplicate the styles we saw growing up.  And frankly, how many of us want to have a marriage like our parents?  (And if you do, you are really lucky!)

You CAN learn to do it differently.

We put a lot of thought and energy in to our careers. We learn the right skills. We acquire the training; we learn to use the language and tools of different trades. Many of us spend years in school studying and sometimes we apprentice or intern with someone who has mastery in our field. 

How many of us put even a tenth of that thought or energy in to our relationships?  Yet we expect them to do well on their own, to thrive without knowing or giving them what they need.

The good news is that you don’t have to do the years of study and research. Much of that work has been done.  You just need to learn the skills and apply them.  The last 10 years of research has given us good information coming out of solid scientific studies. These tools can be transformative to couples who are struggling.  It doesn’t have to so hard.  Some of what we know now is working with a knowledgeable psychologist and getting the support you need, can improve your marriage. You can eliminate behaviors and attitudes that don’t work.  You can learn relationship and communication skills that do work.  The first step is picking up the phone to call me at (818) 519-8297.  You don’t have to live in an unhappy marriage.  You can transform it. Give me a call at 818-519-8297 and we can discuss it.