Reasons People Don’t Start Relationship Coaching Sooner
Marriage as an Elegant System
Marriage operates as an elegant pressure system that makes clear, to you and your partner, where you struggle to live up to your own ideals.
Marriage brings childhood wounds from an unconscious interference into a conscious awareness. From there you have the option of resolving this and freeing yourself from the shadow of childhood overwhelm and powerlessness.
Or you leave your stuff unresolved.
The Elephants in Your Rooms
If you’re living with an elephant in the bedroom, more time won’t shrink that elephant or make it easier to talk about.
A specific disappointment or betrayal that occurred years ago.
An open question about a partner’s investment or devotion to the marriage.
You can spend years looking for words that magically keep your partner’s defensiveness from entering important conversations; there are no magic words.
Time makes the details fuzzy, while the hurt remains present and sharp. Time ramps up sadness and distrust.
“I Wish We Had Done This Sooner.”
Weekly, I hear this from couples I’m coaching through crises into deeper intimacy.
And you may not start relationship coaching for a few reasons:
You hope time and space will resolve your relational wounds.
You feel overwhelmed by the cost of couples’ coaching.
You’re afraid that talking directly about what’s hurting your marriage will be too intense for one or both partners to handle.
A lot of suffering is often required to motivate people to explore the revelations of their marriage.
And there is no perfect time to start.
But I’m confident of this: waiting won’t make you more ready.
Grow in Dignity
I offer the steadying presence of a third party; I hold your dignity while together, you go deeper into knowing each other’s minds. Or you learn how to get clear within yourself. Then you can choose to let your partner’s defensiveness wash over you without joining the dysregulated fray.
I meet you there.