We connect deeply with a partner, with bright hopes for the future. But when doubts and questions about the relationship start building, it can feel like conflict, or avoidance, is never far below the surface. Being connected is key to your wellbeing; negativity in your relationship will seriously damage your wellbeing.

Relationships change, as do your perceptions of your partner’s personality. A partner’s quirks may now be getting more difficult to live with. Affection and trust, so strong at the beginning of the relationship, can wane. Changes happen.  Positive connections and intimacy disappear, replaced sometimes by loneliness, anger, and sadness. Stress levels rise. Careless or hurtful things may be said. A shoulder is now turned away rather than being there to support you.  “Is this relationship good for me? You wonder now.

I am a psychotherapist specialising in couples’ therapy and a registered social worker specializing in assessments in private law proceedings. I have completed over 100 reports to court in cases where partners/parents have separated with unresolved conflict. This impacts each adult, but also the children caught up in such conflict. Unresolved conflict causes continuing damage to everyone affected by it. Gottman therapy starts with an in-depth psychometric assessment of your relationship and the individual ways you and your partner present to each other and to the world.  Therapy draws on evidence-based interventions developed from over forty years of research by Dr. Gottman.  Gottman therapy helps with factors such as drugs and alcohol, affairs, or post-traumatic stress.

Emotional dysregulation is a significant factor in almost all couple conflicts. I use biofeedback technology in sessions to help identify “flooding,” which is when humans experience” fight, flight, or freeze.” This can be even more difficult if one partner has experienced trauma. HEARTMATH techniques and technology are used to change habitual patterns of internal response to stress, so that external behaviour can then change.

Assessment of Neurodiversity is important as it often goes hand in hand with increased anxiety and sometimes trauma. It is a significant factor in escalating couple conflict. I can assess the functional impact such factors have upon the individual and the couple of which they are part. A functional assessment does not lead to a clinical diagnosis. It can however confirm issues of identity and inclusion. Assessments for autism use gold standard  measures including the ADOS 2 and the ADI-R. ADHD  assessments are completed using the DIVA 5  and QbCheck.

Such assessments help couples better understand how neurodiversity influences their relationship. They can help to formulate coaching plans to improve couple interactions and increase structure or flexibility in interactions, as required.  I have an L7 coaching and mentoring diploma which gives me the skills to complete such plans.

If you want to make changes now in your relationship, then email me at grszary@gmail.com arrange a 20-minute online consultation without charge.