Love. Happiness. Longevity.

Unfortunately, most of us have never received the proper training to create and sustain healthy relationships. Therefore, our adult relationships become the playing field for whatever we saw growing up. To make things even more complicated, each person in the relationship brings a host of emotions, thoughts, projections, and behaviors that are not just one’s own but are also a compilation of residual traumas from our own lives and the lives of our ancestors. Freud used to say when a couple goes to bed together, there are six people in the bed. . . for the couple unconsciously brings along their parents (and their parents’ parents!) as well.

It’s a good thing we have all those scientists out there researching this stuff for us. There are some key behaviors in relationships that science has identified as early precursors to divorce:

• Focusing on Negative Traits of your Partner
• Stonewalling
• Peace-making/Avoidance (instead of authentic expression)
• Contempt
• Criticism
• Emotional Withdrawal/Avoidance

If you and your partner are caught up in any of the traits listed above, all is not lost. Have a little compassion for yourself and your partner because relationships are just plain hard and often disappointing. In fact, one of my mentors used to say, “It’s not IF the partners in a relationship will be disappointed and hurt, it’s really a matter of WHEN.” In other words, if you think you can avoid hurting or being hurt in a relationship, you are living in a fantasy world that is not based in reality. We are all learning and growing every day, and will change over time.

My coaching program will help you face the reality you (as a couple) have created and unwind the damage that has been done. This work teaches you new and highly effective ways to feel heard in your relationship, resolve conflict, tap into vulnerability, create a feeling of freedom, increase sexual desire, meet long-standing unmet needs, and reinvent your “new” relationship so that it can be deeper than the connection you had when you first met. And here’s another bonus: Good relationships improve our physical and mental health! Studies show relationships can either make us healthy or sick depending on the quality of our relationships. Who doesn’t want to feel healthy and vibrant? Of course, we all want to feel good!

You have come to the right place.

All the education my husband and I received in college helped us set the foundation for successful careers, but didn’t do much for us in the relationship department. When I became a wife, I naively thought I had all the answers to keeping my marriage alive and well. After all, I had a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, a Masters Degree in Clinical Social Work, lots of marriage and family post-grad training, and was a successful entrepreneur! However, after 15 years of marriage, I began to see destructive patterns happening in my marriage that both my husband and I witnessed in our own childhoods and it was shocking. Furthermore, as I listened to married clients on the verge of divorce in my private practice, I identified similar destructive patterns in those relationships too. People married with feelings of romance, devotion, and marital bliss, but in a matter of time those same people, who were once so in love, grew to resent one another.

As time went on, I listened to the heartbreak from colleagues and friends as they told me they too were getting divorced. I sat with a heavy heart wondering, “Why do so many marriages end in divorce? Why do so many people stay in unhappy and loveless marriages? How does love suddenly turn into hate? Why do we suffer so much in our most intimate relationships and then suddenly fall out of love?”

“Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
~ Leonard Cohen

I made it my life’s work to learn everything I could about intimacy and relationships. I interviewed people who had been married for 30 years or more, studied families from other countries, took countless classes, and tirelessly worked with couples who were on the verge of ending their marriages. After years of personal introspection and experience, education, working through my own heartbreak, and conducting couples research along with over 20 years in the mental health field, I now realize the reason most relationships fall apart has to do with the issues that went unresolved before getting married. Due to societal or family pressures, past traumas, repressed material, fear of failing, external expectations, people-pleasing, and lack of communcation and emotional intimacy skills, many people go into marriages thinking the marriage will “make everything right.” This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Hold tight. We’re in this together!

I am now inspired to share what I learned with every couple who wants to create a deeply committed and satisfying relationship. I help repair the damage to keep a marraige intact, and I also help repair a broken heart when walking away was the only option. Family, in all its various shapes and sizes, is not only the fabric of our society but is the model for every new generation of children who go on to form their own intimate relationships and families as adults. With greater determination, knowledge, insight, and the right tools, you can create a long-term conscious relationship that provides emotional and physical intimacy for years to come.

Relationship coaching is your key to success!

I work with couples of all identities and orientations. Love is love.