Communications Training
Counselling can help you improve and even learn new communications skills leading to better sharing , problem solving, and understanding each other. Couples sometimes cannot get beyond arguing and fighting to discuss, effectively, the issues that are important to them. You may need to learn how to repair the damage created by angry exchanges. You could also benefit by gaining new tools to manage your anger better and develop your own rules for “fair fighting.”

Problem solving
As an impartial third person in the room, I can help you manage a wide variety of issues such as more equitable division of household tasks, reprioritizing your leisure time both together and apart, and improving your intimacy. Homework exercises, readings, and thirty years of learning from my clients can help me put you more in touch with each other.

Difficult decisions
You may also be contemplating whether you want to continue in your relationship. Often it is helpful to spend time with a marital therapist going over the strengths and weaknesses in your bond to help you gather more evidence in this painful process. As a counsellor, I cannot make this decision for you, but I can help you look clearly and more objectively at the factors related to staying or leaving. But - the decision is always yours.

Affair Repair
Yes, there can be a healthy relationship after an affair. When feelings of anger, betrayal, and mistrust come to the forefront, couples can learn to get beyond this life crisis and move their partnership to a healthier level - with a lot of work. Sometimes you will need to make the decision to separate. However, if you have many years invested in your partnership, it is worth the effort to explore saving it, rather than impulsively deciding to part. An informed and careful decision is most important if you are to have no later regrets. If you are the partner having the affair, you will need to look at whether you wish to end it, how to do this effectively, your feelings about the other person, and how to rebuild trust in your present relationship. If you are the betrayed partner, you will need to be able to tell your spouse what you need regarding the way to end the affair, to make suggestions on how trust can be re-established, to learn not to obsess about the physical details, and to temper you anger with forgiveness so that you can move on to a new and better bond together.

Domestic violence
Domestic abuse is all too common in our society. According to a current AAMFT pamphlet, “In almost 20 percent of all marriages, couples slap, shove, hit, or otherwise assault each other. Emotional abuse - verbal threats, humiliating or degrading remarks, and controlling behaviour is even more common.” If this continues for years, as it often does, your self esteem suffers and the abuse enters the cyclical dynamic of violence, remorse, and disappointment. The long term effects on the children who witness this can be devastating. If you or someone you love is in an abusive relationship, you need to courageously stop the cycle of control and violence and call for help. It will not stop by itself. It will only get worse.