Sometimes couples have a goal of increasing connection and communication, healing from betrayal, or they are deciding between divorce and working on the marriage. In couples work, I am trained to be “multi-partial” which means that I validate the history and emotions of each individual in the coupleship while focusing on helping the relationship. We would look deeply into patterns or cycles in the relationship that unintentionally wound the other partner then create new patterns to replace the old, unhelpful ones. The model of therapy I use is called Relational Life Therapy, RLT. It looks directly at the unhealthy patterns and offers ways to increase healthy connection.