We all want happiness with our partners. Relationships usually start off strong; fun, exciting, sexy, new… Yet, no relationship is “low maintenance,” no matter how evolved we claim to be. In relationships we experience our most profound emotional experiences. We love yet inevitably hurt one another, and when we aren’t attuned to our partner and don’t understand how to practice quick repair, our wounds turn to scar tissue and we drift apart.
“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without, and know we cannot live within.” -James A. Baldwin
We all want happiness with our partners. Relationships usually start off strong; fun, exciting, sexy, new… Yet, no relationship is “low maintenance,” no matter how evolved we claim to be. In relationships we experience our most profound emotional experiences. We love yet inevitably hurt one another, and when we aren’t attuned to our partner and don’t understand how to practice quick repair, our wounds turn to scar tissue and we drift apart.
“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without, and know we cannot live within.” -James A. Baldwin
Relationships Often Suffer From:
- Lack of understanding how your partner actually works
- Explosive or frozen emotions
- Trauma symptoms experienced by you and/or your partner
- Affairs
- Sexual problems
- Behaviors used to avoid contact with partner
- Lack of passion, fun, and playfulness
- Losing sight of the purpose of the relationship
Areas Of Learning For Couples:
Arousal patterns: Moment-to-moment changes in our bodily stress, sensations, and emotions hugely impact our ability to think and engage socially. How stressed we feel directly impacts what we say, the tone of our voice, and our body language. By identifying these patterns, we can start to talk about them rather than act from them. We can request support around our experience, and offer support to our partner in turn.
Attachment styles: All of us have been programmed from experiences in our family of origin which lead us to respond in our partner in ways that are automatic. Not good, not bad, just to be expected. Part of couples therapy is gaining insight into these attachment patterns- ways we push our partner away and pull them towards, so they can be understood and worked with. Insecurities around intimacy that are shaped by the past can destabilize our partnership, and we need to enlist support from the one who is most available to us, our partner.
Communication: As partners, you tell each other everything, right? This can be a gauge to view how secure a relationship is functioning. Identifying and expressing what we need from our partners will take us far. We all have the need for understanding, security, sex, shared purpose, family, autonomy, honesty, ease, growth, play, etc. Positive emotions flow from our needs being met by our partner and vice versa. Couples therapy helps provide a safe opportunity to communicate our needs and forge a path towards greater mutuality.
How Relationship Coaching Is Different
- Meeting times for couples is longer than individual sessions: About an hour and a half (80 minutes).
- This format creates a needed spaciousness for both partner’s issues to be addressed. Complex and sensitive couples issues are often difficult to unpack, make progress on, and then pack up again in a 50 minute period.
- Couples work often moves more quickly than individual coaching. Insight into individual struggles, traumas, and dysfunctions can be accessed efficiently. Couples learn how their partner (and themselves) behave in real-time, and see how the living, breathing, sacred, pain-in-the-butt, ever-changing being in front of them is the best guide available for creating a happy life together.
Relationship coaching may not be a fit for for some couples. I also offer couples therapy which emphasizes supporting mental health issues and trauma reprocessing.
Client Testimonials
“My experience with Matthew for marriage coaching was excellent. He is great at avoiding confrontational set-ups and never takes sides. Frankly, he probably saved our marriage. If real communication is what you are after, look no further.”
“Raising kids changed everything in our marriage. Matthew helps us not rage at each other, work as a team, and remember the purpose of us being together: Our love for one another.”
“Matthew has helped reduce our fighting by a factor of 50. We run a business together on top of running a family, and we’re negotiating our needs better and speaking more kindly to one another. Name calling and criticism is better under control.”
“Our process of separation has been painful, and Matthew is helping maintain mutual respect and friendship as we go. We’ve both grown in the process and are honoring each other’s grief and need for space.”
“After a breach of trust our emotional connection has been restored. And we co-parent more as equals after working with Matthew. He has given us concrete tools to take away and we enjoy our marriage as a team again.”
“Grouchiness and mutual blame is so much better between the two of us. And now we can talk about hard topics on our own and collaborate together, like the possibility of moving out of state and career changes.”
“Matthew played a critical role in building a strong foundation in my partner and I’s relationship. He helped us before we were married, in our first few years after the wedding and right before childbirth. I’m certain we wouldn’t be where we are today without his incredible help.“
“We continue to be going strong and are so appreciative of our work with Matthew. He truly has helped us get through the toughest part of our relationship.”