The holidays are meant to bring joy, connection, and gratitude — but for many couples, Thanksgiving and Christmas can also bring stress, tension, and emotional overload. Between juggling family expectations, travel, finances, and those endless decisions about where to spend each holiday, it’s easy for even strong relationships to feel stretched thin. If you’ve ever found yourself arguing about whose family to visit, feeling drained after a few days with relatives, or trying t

Introduction A while back, I wrote a post about narcissistic traits and how they can wreck a marriage relationship. If you are in a relationship with someone who has narcissistic traits–whether it be your spouse, parent, coworker, etc.--they likely use a variety of tactics that can make you doubt yourself and question your reality. One of the main tactics used is gaslighting. Since this term keeps popping up on social media, I thought it would be helpful to explain this type

When new couples come to me, they sometimes have preconceived notions about how counseling is going to work. They sometimes believe that it only takes a couple sessions, and they'll be "all good." They might think that I will wave my magic wand and fix things without considering all the work that they have to put in. Even realistic couples might think that if both people are working on the relationship, they won't experience any setbacks. These ideas are simply not true. To h

Working with couples is so rewarding because positive changes happen quickly. Usually, after just a few sessions of uncovering patterns of communication and learning some tools to better communicate, couples are well on their way to a solid, happy marriage. However, about 20% of the couples I see do not make progress in this way. In fact, they make very little progress at all. In these cases, one of the partners is not able to hear the other or empathize, no matter how many t

Marriages have conflict. It's a part of life. But what those conflicts look like and how they affect the overall health of your...

Sometimes, we do things for our spouse, and it doesn’t quite land. Maybe it’s a cool gift you thought they would love (hello, new...