The same things keep coming back. You've talked about them. You've made promises about them. And they return anyway, and you're not quite sure why.

Often one person is left wondering whether they're overreacting. Why does this matter so much? Why does something this small feel this big? And frequently what's small to one person is genuinely large to the other, which makes the argument about the thing and also about whether the thing deserved an argument at all.

Underneath it all is the sense of not getting it right.

What unhelpful couples therapy looks like:

It magnifies the problems. Every session surfaces more material, and the material stays unresolved, so the room starts to feel like a catalog of what's wrong.

The counselor becomes a referee, telling one person to be quiet, telling the other to speak. Exercises in listening turn into a tennis match, back and forth, each person waiting for their turn to be understood. Both people leave more convinced of their own position than when they walked in.

What's actually happening between you:

Both people are growing. They're growing in different directions and at different rates, and neither of those directions is wrong.

This is why the standard advice fails. Nobody should have to compromise their own growth to stay in a relationship. The work isn't finding the midpoint between two people. It's understanding what each person is actually moving toward, and then understanding how two different trajectories can hold each other.

How I work:

I meet with each partner individually first. I want to understand where each person is growing, what's happening in their life, where they come from, and the direction they're already moving in.

By the time the two of you sit down together, I'm not learning about you in front of your partner. I already understand what's happening for each of you, and I can name it in a way that both of you can recognize.

What I find is that people don't end up changing themselves. They don't need to. They learn how to support the other person without deviating from their own growth, and that turns out to be the thing that was missing.

I see couples in person at my Oakland office near Piedmont Avenue, and online throughout California.

**Let's talk

If this sounds like the kind of work you're looking for, I offer a free fifteen minute call to see whether we're a good fit. For couples, ideally both partners join the call together.

*(Book a consultation button here)*