Why Relationships Matter

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Often couples work hard to decrease arguments, increase affection to improve the overall emotional climate.

But often they are being too cautious, not fully honest, leading to feeling stuck and not moving forward.

The keys are addressing underlying needs and visions, and solving problems rather han sweeping under the rug.

You’ve been doing all the right things to improve your relationship: spending more time together and building shared interests, deliberately giving compliments and showing affection, maybe even completing several months of couples therapy. But when all is said and done, something is still missing: there is still low-level, chronic tension; you don’t feel as connected as you hoped you would. What’s going on?

I see many couples like this who say that, although they initially made progress, they are now frustrated: They feel they’ve hit a wall, are stalled, and not moving forward. Sometimes they’ve come on their own; sometimes they’ve been referred by their individual or couple therapist, who’s felt much the same way.

My response in either case is that if you’ve been doing the right things but it’s still not working, there may be one or more underlying problems sabotaging your efforts. Here are the five common culprits:

#1: You're walking on eggshells.

Working hard to make things better is obviously a primary goal, but........

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