“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
Vince Lombardi
Most relationships follow a clear pattern.
Something like this:
In the beginning, your relationship is lovely and effortless.
You don’t have to work at it.
It’s spontaneous and full of joy.
We call this Face to Face energy.
You make other people around you nauseous with your love.
Eventually, you decide: “This is my person.”
And your partner decides: “This is my person.”
And you start a life together.
This is where your relationship begins to change.
Especially if you have children.
Work, kids, bills, wider family responsibilities, home maintenance, and all that other responsible stuff takes its toll on your face-to-face energy.
You’re tired, you’re pulled in a million different directions, and gradually, over time, you and your partner are in the trenches of life and face-to-face energy turns to side-by-side energy.
This is natural.
This is normal.
This is what happens when you decide to share your life with your person. It’s unreasonable to expect your relationship to be any different.
Now then…
There are actions you can take – evidence-based tools you can use – to make this normal and natural transition relationship enhancing instead of relationship destroying.
It’s what I spend most of my time teaching my couples to do.
Because you’re not taught this stuff in school and it’s not intuitive.
It’s the reason why separation rates for couples are so high.
Good relationship therapy always begins with an assessment of your relationship. You need to discover the areas where you are strong and the areas where you are weak.
Only then can you know what tools you need to get some of that face-to-face energy back.
And this is where more unreasonable expectations crop up.
Let me explain…
Most couples I work with need to master two or three tools in order to feel connected and relational again.
And usually, when I introduce these tools to couples, help them to practice them, and become skilled with them, they quickly understand how powerful they are.
And somehow most couples think that’s it.
They’ve done a few GSU’s with each other, and discovered their needs and wants in order to feel safe, loved, connected with their partner, and so on.
And the unreasonable expectation is that somehow that’s enough.
Job done.
That somehow six or so sessions with me can change the habits of years or decades of relationship neglect.
No.
Wrong.
Ain’t gonna happen.
Those six sessions are the very tip of the iceberg of the work you need to do.
They’re the preparation.
They’re me diagnosing the best tools for your situation and making sure you know how to use them.
But mastering them…
…Using them enough times to change the course of your relationship for the better…
…That takes time.
It takes consistent effort.
To expect otherwise is unreasonable.
So many times my clients leave their sessions feeling pumped, jazzed, and excited for the future.
But that euphoria doesn’t last.
The couples who succeed realise it’s going to take time and effort to change their negative relationship habits.
There will be ups and downs.
They realise their work with me has put them on a proven path back to deeper love, connection, and intimacy.
And they realise that they now have to walk that path together and do the work together.
They have reasonable expectations.
If you’d like to discover the tools and skills necessary to get the face-to-face energy back into your relationship…
