Marriage & Couples Counseling

For couples who want to do the work

Most couples who come in aren’t broken. They’re tired, or stuck, or saying the same thing in the same way and getting the same result. You don’t have to be in a crisis to come to couples counseling. You just have to be willing to try something new for an hour a week.

What we might work on

• Communication that keeps breaking down in the same places
• Conflict that has stopped feeling productive
• Rebuilding trust after an affair or a betrayal
• Big life transitions — becoming parents, an empty nest, illness, career shifts
• Parenting disagreements
• Intimacy — emotional and physical
• Reconnecting after a long drift

How I work with couples

I use a Gottman-informed approach — drawing from decades of research by Drs. John and Julie Gottman on what makes long-term relationships work, and what quietly erodes them. In practice, that means we look at the patterns between the two of you — the small moments, the way you turn toward or away from each other, how conflict starts and ends — and we work with the evidence of your real lives, not an abstract ideal.

I stay neutral. I’ll point out what I see, including when I see something one of you is doing that isn’t helping. My job is to be useful to the relationship, not to side with either of you.

What a first session looks like

You’ll come in together. We’ll spend most of the time getting a sense of where you are, what brought you in, and what you’d like to be different. I may ask each of you some questions individually during the first two or three sessions, which is standard for this approach.

Between sessions, I’ll often suggest small things to notice or try. Gottman’s work is unusually practical — you’ll have something concrete to work with each week.

Is couples counseling for us?

A good sign that it’s worth trying: both of you, when you’re honest with yourselves, want the relationship to work. You don’t have to be equally hopeful. You don’t have to agree on what the problem is. But if at least one of you is still willing — it’s worth a conversation.