Couples Therapy & Relationship Counseling

Being in relationship or romantic partnership is more than just being friends and more than having a sexual relationship. This union is dynamic and meaningful. When a couple falls in love, they invest a part of themselves in a uniquely common way, which presents vulnerability, intimacy, and safety. 

In relationship people create a container that influences one’s hopes, challenges, and desires. When the relationship thrives, it leads to an immensely fulfilling life with trust, honesty, unconditional support, and sexual vibrancy. However, the relationship does not always continue to thrive. Several components play a role in the breakdown of a relationship. The container begins to feel less secure whether gradually and over time or very suddenly. Ideally, people are able to synchronize with life changes and realign. Realistically, most of us did not receive the handbook on how to communicate effectively and navigate intense relationship challenges. In some cases, the change may feel as if the relationship is broken, and that the foundation is cracked and beyond repair.

Relationship counseling creates an opportunity for understanding one another’s deeper, unconscious blockages, fundamental needs, and patterns in the relationship. This commonly connects to our earliest and most powerful emotional experiences. Discovering these older wounds, how those are being triggered in relationship present day, and through mutual understanding, a couple often finds new strategies for enjoying their relationship and rebuilding intimacy and connection.  

Common Relationship Issues 

• Communication – not communicating at all or ineffective communication

• Disagreements and arguing

• Distance between each other and growing apart 

• Infidelity – emotional and/or sexual

• Broken trust – dishonesty, not following through on agreements

• A sense of unhappiness or hopelessness without knowing exactly why - “I should be happy, but I’m not.”

• Traumas

• Loss and grief - miscarriage, family member death, career, health concerns

• Sexual intimacy – desires incompatible, infrequency, past traumatic experience

• Life transitions

• Finances – conflicts, disputes, insecurities

• Roles – gender specific roles or power play dynamics

• Jealousy 

• Fear of abandonment

• Children – parenting challenges, infertility

• Relationship issues with in-laws 

• Mental illness

• Verbal, physical, sexual abuse and/or emotional abuse

• Lack of taking responsibility and blame 

• Addiction – phone or screens, food, sex, drugs, alcohol, fitness, shopping

• Loss of autonomy or independence within the relationship

• Co-dependency

Couple’s Therapy at Evolve In Nature: What To Expect

Talking to a couple’s therapist takes courage! A relationship specialist provides a place where these issues can be explored and expressed without the world coming to an end. Our role is to offer a safe and informed space in which difficult feelings and thoughts can be explored between the couple without judgment or blame. At times, developing new communication skills transforms a relationship, and at other times what is necessary is deep work to create a new marriage with new agreements and new ways of connecting that were once thought impossible. We encourage and support you stepping into understanding one another, building secure attachment, transparent communication, deep, passionate, and intimate love, and an exploration of your sexuality.

Understanding wants and Needs

Our primary focus is to support you as a couple to understand your deeper wants and needs, determine the disconnect to yourself and/or partner, and teach communication skills and emotional intimacy to deepen your connection. First, we’ll meet and get acquainted. In this first session we will discuss the primary focus, the conscious disconnect between you two, and each person will share a little about their background. Background is essential as so commonly what is showing up in our present-day relationship behaviors is a product of our past. It is important for the therapist to have background information to support making connections with what is old, what might be new, sift through core beliefs, and determine your attachment styles. Also, in this first session each person has the opportunity to share their perspective on the disconnect or primary focus and what intentions one might have for the future together. We find it important for each of you to hear your partner’s perspective in a safe place free of challenge and arguing. It is okay for you to each have a version of what happened or did not happen and why it is occurring. This is the opportunity to tell the truth, which is one of the greatest healing and connecting aspects of a relationship. We will teach you powerful communication skills such as speaking in an unarguable, non-violent way, how to discover your true emotions, connect to your deeper wants, and how to step out of the drama triangle (victim, villain, hero roles) and into your true power. Your homework this first week will likely be noticing when you are tangled up in the drama triangle and blaming either yourself or someone else, most likely your partner. 

Dive Deeper

During our second session we will dive deeper into the disconnection between you two utilizing the newly learned communication skills. Frequently, couples seek support for various reasons of disconnection; this is not an exhaustive list but some are: distancing from one another, decreased emotional or sexual intimacy, lack of autonomy or independence, and ineffective communication. One of the goals of couples therapy is to understand what is not being said or understood, in other words, our withholds. A withhold happens when something occurs in the relationship and is withheld from communication. This incident festers and is projected on the partner and current experiences. For example, getting into an argument about who does the dishes. It is not about the dishes. It could be about something hurtful that was said in an argument two years ago or how one of the individuals are feeling insecure about not doing enough to contribute to the relationship. The negative, suppressed feelings are coming out sideways over the kitchen dishes. Our goal is to uncover what happened way back when and for you each to understand that experience. This is not about rehashing the past but understanding one another’s experiences and getting needs met today that were missed.

Underlying issues

In subsequent sessions we continue working with the underlying issues while practicing the learned skills for effective communication. Working with the underlying issues often lead us into connection with products of our past, core beliefs, and our original attachment styles. By incorporating these components into our work together, you will learn how to accept yourself, your experiences leading up to this current relationship, and how these experiences shape how you show up in your present romantic and platonic relationships. As you both bring the unconscious parts of yourself into your consciousness, together you can understand one another more deeply and find a path of healing. You likely have heard the phrase, “we heal in relationship.” As we understand ourselves and our partner, we are able to speak our truth in relationship and ask for what we need, which establishes a rhythm of turning toward one another again.

Outcomes of Relationship Therapy

• Identify and uncover relationship challenges

• Learn communication skills – speaking in an unarguable, nonviolent way so all people can get what they want

• Connect to self and discover what you are actually feeling, thinking, and wanting – Empowerment

• Establish greater sense of sexuality and attachment style, how these effects your relationships in the present moment

• Understanding one another’s wounds, fears, desires, and needs

• Repair ruptures

• Build a foundation of trust

• Discovering your boundaries and how to communicate them in a compassionate yet effective way

• Curiosity and exploration of sexuality, individual and couple’s desires and fantasies

• Cultivate security within the relationship 

• Make agreements

• Restore connection

Are You Ready To Take The Next Step?

We’re here to help.