We come into our relationships with high hopes. While disappointments are inevitable, they offer us the chance to work together toward an increasingly rich and rewarding relationship. Whether you are seeking premarital counseling, considering divorce, or just in a rough patch, couples therapy can help you build deeper understanding, better teamwork, and greater intimacy.
Too often, forces from outside our partnership - job stress, parenting pressures, 'baggage' from our past - get our relationship stuck in a bad cycle. We start to feel attacked or unappreciated. It becomes increasingly difficult to see how we are contributing to the cycle, or what we can do to get out of it.
Deeply held hopes underlie all ongoing conflicts. Couples conflict is a sign that you have not given up hope of realizing your dreams with your partner. In couples therapy, I can help you 'unlock' your conflicts and build mutual understanding of the hopes that drive them.
I have helped many couples in the Oakland Berkeley area successfully work through issues around sex and intimacy, affairs, partner depression, money problems, anger management, pornography use, drug and alcohol addiction, parenting, divorce, and stepfamily adjustment.
As your couples therapist, I will teach you relationship skills that will allow you to communicate lovingly and effectively. With improved couples communication, you can share your frustrations and needs with your partner safely. Through improved understanding, you can strengthen your partnership, re-awaken the dreams that drew you to each other, and build your future together - again.
To talk more about how we could work together in couples counseling, call me at (510) 652-5253 or email me at DrTedObbard@Gmail.com
I look forward to talking with you.
