A Note on Inclusivity

I provide a safe and affirming space for all partnerships, including:

• Married and unmarried couples
• LGBTQIA+ partnerships
• Partners in consensually non-monogamous (CNM) or open relationships
• Partners exploring relationship dynamics

Move from conflict and confusion to understanding.

When you’re stuck in a negative cycle, it can feel like:

• Uncertain About the Future: Wondering if you should stay and work on it or go your separate ways, and needing clarity and a safe space to figure it out.
• Reeling from Betrayal: Navigating the profound hurt, broken trust, and confusion following emotional or physical infidelity.
• Feeling Lonely in Your Relationship: Sitting in the same room but feeling a million miles apart, missing the connection you once had.
• Sexual Frustration or Disconnection: Experiencing a mismatch in desire, struggling with performance anxiety, or missing the physical intimacy you once shared.
• Criticism & Defensiveness: Conversations quickly spiral into criticism, blame, and becoming defensive, leaving you both feeling attacked and misunderstood.

Understanding the Jargon (What’s Actually Happening?)

In therapy terms, we often work on:

• Infidelity & Betrayal: Healing the trauma from emotional or physical affairs, secrets, or broken promises.
• Communication Breakdown: The negative patterns (like criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling) that prevent productive conversation.
• Attachment Styles: How your early life experiences shape your needs and fears in adult relationships, often triggering each other unintentionally.
• Sexual Dysfunction & Intimacy Issues: Challenges like mismatched libidos, performance anxiety, pain during sex (vaginismus/dyspareunia), or recovering intimacy after betrayal or childbirth.
• Emotional Neglect: The slow drift apart that happens when partners stop sharing their inner worlds with each other.

How We Deal With It in Therapy Together:

I provide a neutral space to help you break old patterns and find clarity. Our work will include:

• Creating a Safe Space for Dialogue: I will act as a facilitator to ensure both partners feel heard and understood, slowing down conversations to prevent escalation.
• Healing From Infidelity: Providing a structured, compassionate process for addressing hurt, rebuilding safety, and restoring trust after emotional or physical betrayal.
• Building New Communication Skills: Learning to express needs without blame, listen with empathy, and de-escalate conflict when it arises.
• Addressing Sexual Intimacy: We create a safe space to discuss sexual needs, desires, and concerns. We work to overcome performance anxiety, heal from sexual shame, and rebuild physical connection and pleasure.
• Fostering Emotional Intimacy: Rebuilding connection and trust through structured exercises and new ways of interacting.

A Little Something to Help Now: 7 Rules for a Softened Startup

How to begin a conversation about a complaint without triggering defensiveness: