Into the Marriage Votex

I love doing marriage work. It is deeply rewarding to be trusted with a couple’s most valuable resource at a time of fear and hurt. For 15 years I have studied the patterns, the stages relationships go through. I see how they get built, how they break down and how they heal. I ask people to give me months. I have to walk them slowly out of a mess that no one meant to make. Sometimes there is too much damage done and couples need to find another way to be a family but often, what looks hopeless to them looks pretty manageable to me. The couples I work with are too close to the problem. They have lost sight of their strengths. They are responding in the only way it seems possible to respond.

This is what I call the vortex- the negative cycle of destruction that pulls couple’s deeper into the pain.

Every couple’s connection ebbs and flows- it breathes in and out. Moving away when things get busy, moving closer when they have time. We turn towards each other at times and away at others. When the distance hits its outer edge, a good fight actually can bring things back to center. We reconnect over dates or through sex or by collapsing on the couch to watch Netflix or by sharing the stupid/amazing thing our kid just did.

And sometimes the distance gets too far to find our way back. The distance feels like resentment or contempt or judgement. The distance hurts and reaching for your partner feels dangerous. We stop fighting because we know that it brings more pain than resolution. We stop having sex because sex without connection can feel pitiful and lonely. We stop dating because the silence is deafening. And when we stop turning towards each other, we move deeper into the vortex. And as we do the only thing that seems to make sense, attempting to survive and continue, we see our partner make choices that seem mean or insensitive. And how else can we react to the attack but attack back? So goes the vortex.

My mission, when given the chance, is first to stop the descent. I admit that the first step has nothing to do with me- they ask for help. Couples who come to therapy often have been talking about coming for years. Couples who come often have had a prior bad experience with counseling. Couples who come are afraid it is too late and that counseling means the end. Somewhere in there-deep in the heart of the vortex, we find the hope, the commitment and the love. And then we start the journey out.

If you are looking for a good marriage counselor- shoot me an email. I have lots of great referral options.

I have my whole winter schedule posted. I have put together a few tools to share with couples.

8 years ago, my very first workshop was Amazing Marriage 101. It has evolved and grown with the research and my experience but mostly still the stuff I think everyone should know about how marriage works, especially with kids. I love that the feedback I get is that it makes couples feel more positive, more hopeful and way more normal.

I also have Positive Parenting for a Happy Family to help couples get on the same page about discipline.

Trying something new. Good Fighting in the Land of Ole and Lena. Minnesotans kind of suck at fighting and fighting is a necessary marriage skill.

In March I am putting together “Sleep it does a Body Good” with Leann Latus an amazing sleep consultant with Tender Transitions. Details to follow. 

Also rescheduled my Couple’s StrengthFinders Workshop with StrengthsFinder Coach Janelle Jordan for March 19th.