There’s no company out there that runs without some kind of management meeting.
Yours has never held one.
So the complaints surface whenever they surface. Same with the money, the holidays, whose parents get which weekend, what color the kitchen ends up.
None of it gets an hour of its own, so it takes every hour.
Conflict comes small and it comes really big. What matters is how the two of you handle it.
Handled badly, it turns into fighting. Or into two days of ignoring each other.
Or into contempt, which is the one that leaves marks.
And you can’t clock out of it. Whatever happened at seven is still in the house at eleven.
You listen differently too, so the sentence your partner sends isn’t the sentence that arrives.
By the time either of you is halfway through, the other one has already decided what it means.
Most couples I see have tried to fix this before. Couples work that didn’t hold, or individual therapy that helped one of you and not the pair of you.
You’ll run a management meeting once a week, without me in it.
Complaints, budget, calendar, kitchen. It goes there, and it stays there.
You’ll take one date night a week too. The same things you did when you first met. Save the negative talk for your best friend.
Start this before you’ve got a problem and it still works. Premarital counseling is counseling before you identify you have one.
Email Me and We’ll Set the First Session
The other half is a sequence, and it’s specific on purpose.
It’s a skill I lifted out of DBT, called DEAR MAN, built for people who read the world as right or wrong. Inside a couple, that’s usually what’s running.
The more specific you get, the less there is for either of you to argue with.
Most couples are with me for about six months. Some three, some nine.
Once you’re talking again and the skills are doing their work, away you go.
You’ll raise a hard thing on Tuesday and still like each other on Wednesday. The wounds from the fighting mend.
You’ll count on each other when something goes wrong, and you’ll enjoy each other’s company again.
I can’t take a side, and I’ll tell you that on day one. My job in that room is structure.
While we work, I’ll push both of you to get your own individual therapist. Somebody entirely in your corner, whose job is to challenge you.
Write to me and say who you are, and whether your partner knows you’re writing. Either answer is fine.
A short free consultation is on the table if you want one. Tell me roughly what’s going on and when the two of you are free.
You've been using it on people who decided what you meant before you finished. Use it on somebody whose whole job is hearing the end of your sentence.
Send me an email. Tell me what's going on, in whatever words you've got. Ask how I can help you.
If you'd rather talk first, say so. The consultation is free, by video or phone.