Present Hope Counseling
Couples Therapy
Couples Therapy
Connection. Acceptance. Intimacy. Security.
"The determining factor in whether wives feel satisfied with sex, romance, and passion in their marriage is, by 70 percent, the quality of the couple's friendship. For men, the determining factor is, by 70 percent, the quality of the couple's friendship. So men and women come from the same planet after all."
John Gottman, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, (p. 17)
Infidelity
"Infidelity is like a wildfire that destroys a preserve and all living things in it. But a wildfire also burns away the debris and the underbrush choking the forest's new growth. Though infidelity initially devastates a relationship, a marriage can not only recover from adultery, but flourish at it."
Dave Carder, Torn Asunder (p.7)
Fidelity and trust are essential to healthy and flourishing relationships. When trust is betrayed, whether you are physically separated or together, the journey of processing the hurt is helpful. You can overcome an emotional and/or physical betrayal. The journey is painful and difficult, but healing comes through the journey.
Disconnection-Disengagement to
Reconnection-Reengagement
"In order to truly thrive, we all need someone to depend on, a loved one who can offer reliable emotional connection and comfort. This partnership is the natural antidote to humanity's greatest pain: being alone in the face of the uncertainty of life."
Sue Johnson, Created for Connection (p. 6)
Reclaim the connection, security, and attachment. Learn how to connect through the good times and the struggles, issues, and conflict. Learn the meaning of attachment and friendship. Identify the music for which you dance together, and how that dance brings you towards or away from each other. Find hope in friendship, connection, and intimacy.
Create your own fairytale story. It is never too late to live happily ever after.
Communication Skills
"The notion that you can save your marriage just by learning to communicate more sensitively is probably the most widely held misconception about happy marriages.....Friendship fuels the flames of romance because it offers the best protection against feeling adversarial toward your spouse."
John Gottman, The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work (p.11 and p. 20)
Communication is not only what you say with words, but also what you say without saying a word. Learning "how to communicate" is helpful but not the solution to "happily ever after." Communication is a part of the whole. It is more like a natural byproduct to being. However, identifying communication and behavioral interaction patterns, positive and negative, trigger your emotional response to the other. This interactional feedback loop, in turn, results in you moving away from each other or to moving towards each other. Learn how to communicate through the journey to connection.
Premarital Therapy
Before you say "I do."
Increase your awareness, access your relationship, reduce your risk for divorce, increase preliminary discussion, and enhance your relationship skills by being Prepared.
Walk through the journey of PREPARE/ENRICH.
Marital Enrichment
This will benefit you whether your relationship struggles every day life, competing attachments, lifespan transitions, external obstacles, stress, oppositions, and/or you feel like you are "just missing each other." Discover hidden issues that may be laden with potential, enhance connectedness, transition through the lifespan, and move from good to great!