One of the most common things I come across with couples when working through an argument is their dissatisfaction with not seeing “eye to eye”. And I get it, it would be SO much easier if we could solve our relationship problems by looking through the same lens or flat-out agreeing on everything. But the truth is, we don’t. And guess what? That’s ok!
Sometimes it’s difficult to know if therapy is the right choice for you at the stage of your life that you’re in. So, how do we make that decision?
Most people who overthink aren’t doing it because they enjoy worrying. They’re doing it because some part of them believes that if they think hard enough, long enough, or carefully enough, they can prevent pain, rejection, disappointment, or uncertainty.
The longer we go avoiding the obligation, the stronger the pressure becomes. The stronger the pressure, the further away we get from wanting to work on or accomplish the “should”. And in the space between “should” and “done”, anxiety covertly burrows under, expands, and fills the gap like a thick, nasty stink-bomb.
One of the most common things I come across with couples when working through an argument is their dissatisfaction with not seeing “eye to eye”. And I get it, it would be SO much easier if we could solve our relationship problems by looking through the same lens or flat-out agreeing on everything. But the truth is, we don’t. And guess what? That’s ok!
Sometimes it’s difficult to know if therapy is the right choice for you at the stage of your life that you’re in. So, how do we make that decision?
Many couples who work through their resistance to couples therapy ultimately find that the experience becomes a meaningful, weekly ritual of caring for their relationship.
In couples therapy, blame is rarely the whole story. More often, blame is what we reach for when something deeper feels too vulnerable, too uncertain, or too scary to say directly.
The dependency on love to ultimately feel good about ourselves today is sometimes known as codependency or love addiction, and has become normalized in our society, especially in context to monogamous romantic relationships.
Brown’s profound quotes and speeches have made their way into the hearts, minds, and ears of so many different people that they’ve almost become anthropological. (Basic = Popular, and that’s usually for good reason). Rational, researched, and relatable, Brown’s concepts have also found their way into the therapy room, sometimes constituting the language of many psychological principles discussed between therapist and client.
Many people expect that a steady, responsive, emotionally available partner will automatically feel calming. Instead, many people feel tense or suspicious when someone shows up in a genuinely healthy way. This isn’t a personality flaw, it’s a predictable attachment and nervous system response. So why is this?
In all relationships, life occurs, and shifts happen outside of and inside the couple unit. As much as we may want to protect our relationship bubble from outside influences, we are not immune to the climate around us. If we expect to be the same people, with the same life, and the same experiences throughout a long-term relationship, we are actually setting ourselves up to be especially vulnerable to the impact of both external pressures and internal change. Change will happen. The adage of change being the only constant is especially true when navigating relationship changes. So how do we navigate them together, instead of growing apart?
When people think about repair in relationships, they often picture big conversations or emotional apologies. But most repair attempts are quieter than that. They’re easy to miss. They live in moments of tension when one partner reaches out, not with words, but with a shift in tone, a glance, a hesitant gesture.
And often, these moments fail not because they’re rejected, but because they’re unnoticed.
