Couples On The Brink

“From a family therapy point of view, both transformation and dissolution begin with a crisis: they start off looking the same.”
- Terry Real

The Best Step to Give Your Relationship One Last Chance

All relationships go through a natural and continual cycle of harmony, disharmony, and repair. When we are in the initial stage of harmony as we get close to someone, things can seem perfect, and the relationship can feel ideal. But this is not true intimacy. It’s a pseudo-intimacy based on the beliefs, hopes, and fantasies that you have about each other.

Real intimacy develops when the relationship runs into conflict and difficulty, and you both can come back together to share a more vulnerable and flawed part of yourselves while developing a deeper understanding of each other. 

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Unfortunately, few of us come into our relationships knowing how to do this. Most of us ride the waves of our emotions and reactions, allowing the rawest parts of ourselves to take control during difficult and sensitive moments. Over time, this erodes connection and understanding. If we aren’t equipped to adequately attend to and repair them, our relationships become sources of resentment, turmoil, loneliness, and pain instead of authenticity, intimacy, understanding, and growth.

When detachment and decay rot out our relationships, we’re left feeling disconnected, hurt, misunderstood, angry, resentful, and disappointed. We long for a relationship that is intimate, cherishing, and fun. We start to blame our partners and to question our relationships with them. We mistakenly believe that if we had the “right” partner, or if our partners were a “better” version of themself, or like they “used to be” that these types of ruptures wouldn’t occur. We seriously question if we wouldn’t be better off apart.

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When our relationships aren’t meeting our needs, all of these feelings are typical, understandable, and profoundly difficult. For couples whose relationships have become lonely and painful, it may feel like an insurmountable morass. But even profound disconnection and disrepair don’t need to signal the end of a relationship. For many couples, the crisis of bringing their relationship to the brink can actually help them to clarify their priorities, to get in touch with their wants and needs, and, sometimes for the first time, to bring their full selves into their relationship as they learn to stand up to one another with love.

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You can heal the damage and build a truly intimate, connected, and cherishing relationship. 

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If you want to heal the damage that gets in the way of intimate connection, I’d love to help you get there. Reach out. I can help. 

The relationship you wish for is possible, but sometimes skills and tools aren’t enough to get you there. Most of us have times in our lives when we need help to rebuild the passion and connection in our relationships. If this is where you are - reach out. I can help.