What I can help with
Communication and Conflict
Do you want to communicate about more than just the functional stuff — get back to enjoying conversation about music, friends, travel, life itself? Do you have rows more than you'd like? Are these arguments explosive on occasion, or more a background grumble, a constant low-level sniping at each other?
Do you sometimes feel you're being scolded by your partner — as if they were the parent and you were the child? Do you catch yourself telling your partner off?
These behaviours are really common in couples. It is far less common to scold or be scolded by a friend, family member, or colleague.
Something about the particular emotional needs of the couple — which are different from other relationships — helps explain this. In no other relationship do we bring quite the same combination of need, vulnerability, and expectation. And when those needs go unmet, or unspoken, they tend to come out sideways.
You may find the repetitious nature of much of this frustrating: as if you are locked in a dance you can't escape. The same argument, slightly different clothes. You may also notice that many of these arguments are ostensibly about trivial things — the dishwasher, whose turn it is, a tone of voice — things that in any other context simply wouldn't matter. That is usually a sign that the argument is about something else entirely.
If you can understand the hidden meaning of these exchanges, you have the key to change. Most conflict in couples is not really about what it appears to be about.
Beneath the surface, there is usually an unmet need, an unexpressed fear, or a long-standing pattern that both partners have quietly agreed to repeat.
I will work with you to explore how to get back to fun, rather than merely transactional conversations; how to understand and prevent the scolding and telling-off dynamic; how to understand and deal with anger; how to listen, and feel heard; and how to stop the cycle of blame.
All couples disagree at times. But you can express yourself without anger, and without the parent-child dynamic that makes conflict feel so wounding and so stuck.