About Me

“We feel like roommates.”

You get home from work, and it is pure chaos. One kid is crying, and the other is bouncing off the walls.

Your wife asks you what you want for dinner. “I don’t care,” you say, thinking you’re helpful and flexible. She gives a huffy sigh. You think, ‘What the hell’s her problem? I just got home.’

You head upstairs to change, and she comes in behind you. “Jackson needs new shoes, and Clara has her recital tomorrow night.”

“Okay,” you say. “Okay? That’s it?” You can tell she’s mad, but you don’t understand why. You don’t want to fight, but don’t think you deserve all this attitude. So, you respond with, “What? Are you mad?”

She says, “Fine! I’ll handle it myself! It’s not like I don’t work full-time, too, or anything!” Ah, so that’s it. She thinks you do nothing around here.

Then, the cycle repeats itself.

“Here we go again. I do nothing, and you do everything, right?” You’re pissed. It’s the same old argument every time. And it goes nowhere! Why can’t she just appreciate what you do? And why does it feel like you guys can’t agree on the smallest of things?

It feels like you’re just roommates, talking about the same mundane shit day after day. It’s all logistics now and minimal feeling. You don’t even remember the last time you kissed.

The rest of the night is a blur. You barely speak to each other unless necessary. “I’m taking the dog for a walk.” It’s a sweet reprieve when you’re out of the house. It’s so tense in there all the time. All business and no fun! You both spend the whole night on your phones, not speaking, not interacting, not even acknowledging the other person’s presence in the room. It sucks.

Finally, she says, “I think we should do couples counseling.” You’re silent. Part of you agrees. You’re desperate for things to change. The other part thinks it’s unnecessary, and you guys should figure it out on your own. But you’ve talked about it over and over, and nothing has changed. You finally concede. “Yeah, I think we should, too.”

Here’s what you don’t want:

You don’t want this to be weird.

You don’t want to have some breathy voiced goofball asking you how you feel every two seconds. You don’t want there to be a ton of crying. You don’t want someone to gang up on you and tell you it’s all your fault.

You don’t want things to get worse. And you don’t want to spend a ton a time and money and have nothing change.

Here’s what you want:

You want practical advice.

You want to feel you accomplished something in each session. You want to talk to someone with whom you can picture yourself being friends.

You want your relationship to improve a lot, and you want that to happen quickly. You want to feel like yourself but better. You want this to be worth it.

You want to talk to someone who knows what they’re doing, not to waste your time.

You’ve come to the right place. I am an experienced marriage therapist. I only do couples counseling, which is rare in the therapy world. Most therapists do a lot of individual counseling, and some couples counseling.

I focused my whole practice on couples counseling because I love it.

Here’s my story.

When I was 16, I purchased a psychology book but didn’t realize the book was about that at the time. Honestly, I bought it because I liked the pictures on the front. But from the moment I read that first book about how people think and behave, I was hooked. From then on, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

As an undergraduate, I majored in psychology and communication disorders. Then, I graduated right at the start of the great recession. This was not a great time to graduate, but I was young and naïve about the actual brevity of the situation.

So, we got married and had two kids back-to-back. I spent some time as an executive recruiter which I liked, but it was an awful time to recruit. (Remember: not a lot of jobs were hiring then.)

Then I got a job working as a psych tech at a hospital in the inpatient psychological unit. That was an intense job, where I quickly learned a lot about people. This unit is where people go when they are in psychosis, extreme depression, suicidal, or just having a tough time. This is where I learned how to de-escalate and keep my cool in any situation.

Not only was that a difficult but rewarding job, but my marriage fell apart during that time. Things got so bad we were considering divorce. Neither of us wanted that, but we didn’t know how to fix what was happening. We saw some different counselors but found all of them disappointing. No one was saying they could help. They wanted us to show up each week and talk about our problems. There never seemed to be a plan.

So honestly, we ended up DIY-ing it. We figured it out ourselves. Slogging through, making changes through trial and error, and reading a lot of relationship books. And we did it. We saved ourselves. After that, I knew I had to return to school to finish what I started: following my passion for becoming a therapist.

Becoming a therapist required training and experience.

After deciding to pursue my dream of becoming a therapist, I enrolled in a graduate program in Marriage and Family Therapy. Rather quickly, I found out that therapists can be super annoying by not being real, hiding who they are from their clients, and not pushing therapy progress forward.

Frankly, we’re, for the most part, taught all that in school. They said to play it safe, go slow, and clients don’t want to know about you.

At my first job after graduating, when I got in front of clients, I would do that. I bit my tongue, holding back, following my instructions to let clients figure it out independently, no matter how long it takes.

Unfortunately, I saw they were frustrated, and I was frustrated. I thought, “I know how to help!” So right away, I said, “Fuck this, I’ll just start my individual practice and actually show people how to fix their relationships.”

After making the decision, I found a type of therapy that does that and have learned everything I can by buying every video, book, and going to every conference. And as a result, that decision for my practice has transformed many people and their relationships.

I like to say, “If two people love each other, nothing is impossible, except deciding where to eat…” because it’s true! I’ve helped so many couples on the verge of divorce turn their relationship around. They now get along, have fun, and enjoy the life they’ve built together. But one thing I’ll never be able to do is to help them figure out what’s for dinner. Some problems are just unsolvable.

This type of therapy offers change quickly and effectively. We like to say it is therapy for a modern couple. It’s about learning how to resolve conflict, develop personal accountability, improve communication, and foster intimacy in your relationship.

Are you ready for your transformation?

Don’t settle for being roommates, passing like two ships in the night. It’s about achieving what you want in a relationship.

While working together, you can achieve communication, cooperation, and love again.