You're engaged, newly wed, or a good few years into your marriage - and you know you this is your forever person.

But with a hovering mother-in-law inserting her two cents into your relationship, adding kids to the picture, and elderly family members passing on, tensions can start to run high and impact your romantic relationship. 

The numbers don’t lie. 50% of couples divorce in the first two years after marriage. Other couples realize they have grown apart 5-7 years down the line. And 17% of couples don't even get married after engagement. 

As someone who values self-development through therapy, life coaching, yoga and wellness practices, and even systems for greater self-understanding like astrology, human design, Myers-Briggs, the Enneagram, etc., you're open to and willing to work on yourself and your relationship to ensure this doesn't happen to you and your beloved. 

Does this sound familiar?

Let's talk about finances, communication challenges, and changing family dynamics as loved ones enter or leave the picture.

Whether to spend $700 on a new espresso machine or spend it on a weekend away, just the two of you. Or whether you should use the money you’ve saved up for a downpayment on a house or a big wedding with all your friends and family. Or how you are planning for your children’s many, evolving needs! 

And speaking of kids - let’s not forget how the world entirely changes when they enter the picture. Or how your and your partner’s world shifts when a family member passes on. 

All of these things can lead to stress in the relationship and a breakdown of communication in an intimate relationship container, as we're navigating the big changes around us and how we have changed as a result. 

Maybe you've done your best to communicate with each other about the situations as they arise - but find you're not really getting anywhere near solving the problem.

Or maybe you're not really sharing how you're feeling at all. Maybe you find that you're having the same argument over and over again and feel so exhausted by it all, or maybe you're avoiding expressing how disconnected you feel from your partner since you haven't taken a couples weekend away together in quite a while because you know they've been super stressed out at work.

But not expressing how you feel is eating away at you from the inside.

(And here's the thing - it's slowing eating away at your relationship, too.)

What you need to do to solve the problem is learn how to be yourself and live your truth in relationship, no matter what circumstances come your way.

What this really means is understanding as a baseline that your happy marriage requires that you get to know who you are as an individual as you grow and change over the years - 

And from that place, learn better communication skills around what you want in your marriage container, learn how to talk about money issues, how to talk about family dynamics, etc. 

Because the only constant in life is change...

What you need to do to solve the problem is learn how to be yourself and live your truth in relationship, no matter what circumstances come your way.

What this really means is understanding as a baseline that your happy marriage requires that you get to know who you are as an individual as you grow and change over the years - 

And from that place, learn better communication skills around what you want in your marriage container, learn how to talk about money issues, how to talk about family dynamics, etc. 

Because the only constant in life is change...

A knowledge of shared legal, financial, and healthcare responsibilities of marriage that can lead to some of the greatest relational challenges, such as - what to do when your parents or your partner's parents need medical care or to move in with you; whether you'd like to to protect your partner from your own debts, or insulate your partner from liability if you have your own business and are ever sued; etc.

How to truly connect and communicate with one another by learning foundational relationship skills education and more advanced “shadow” or "parts" work that facilitates self-knowledge on a deeper level and the ability to identify patterns in common conflicts in your existing relationship (so that you know how to avoid them in the future);

How to find agreed-upon solutions to shared marital challenges, such as how to hold boundaries with your own family and in-laws; how to spend money in a way that honors both of your individual and collective desires; or how to support one another in showing up in a way that honors your relationships with their nuclear family while continuing to prioritize your relationship; etc. 

Through learning relationship skills and engaging in "parts" work to better understand and resolve relational conflict, you and your partner will feel closer to one another than ever before. These relationship skills include relationship strategies for navigating the difficult times; "parts" work that focuses on getting to know your different cast of internal characters that are uniquely yours and your partners', and how they interact particularly in relationship conflict - and how they can help you resolve conflict with more love, grace, and healing; and, if you and your partner so choose, self-discovery modalities such as astrology, human design, yoga philosophy, etc.

Learning these skills is crucial to allow you and your partner to have a shared set of tools to evaluate and re-evaluate your evolving selves and your evolving connection throughout your marriage.

Learn the foundations in legal education around long-term topics that arise in a marriage that usually cause the most problems (and how to avoid those problems!), including traditional prenup conversations, estate and financial planning, long-term care for aging parents, spouses, and children, financial health and wellbeing, etc.

Using your new relationship skills, understanding of your "parts" and other self-discovery modalities, and understanding of legal, financial, and long-term healthcare education in hand, you and your partner will join hands in finding your own, unique solutions to 1-3 key marital challenges of your choosing. During this part of the experience, I combine my skills and expertise in relationship coaching, legal education, and mediation to guide you in discovering those solutions that are unique to your marriage - and that will make your marriage work for both of you. At the end of the experience, I will draft a pre-marriage agreement that outlines the topics we've discussed together and your agreed-upon solutions as to how you'd like to handle the big challenges that will come your way in your marriage. (PS - if you do decide to get a prenup, this experience will not only give you an educational foundation to make the decisions best for you both as a couple, but it will also save you valuable time and money you might otherwise spend learning this at an attorney's hourly rate!)

In the first two weeks, we learn the relating skills to come even closer together in your marriage - from basic relating skills to encourage empathy, listening, and understanding, to getting to know different "parts" of yourself - how some of these parts might show up in conflict, and how to soothe those parts and/or bring in different parts to find connection and resolution in your relationship. 

In the next two weeks, we learn the foundations of a successful marriage, and how to have the smart conversations now to avoid the serious ones later!

The health of the marriage is dependent on having a solid understanding of these foundations, including legal and financial basics (like how money is spent, handled, saved; whether you should get a pre-nup or post-nup, etc.); 

In the last two weeks, we learn how to discover solutions to the big issues in your marriage (finances, long-term healthcare for your aging family members, kids, legal, in-law dynamics, etc.!).

With me as your guide, and your new tools from Weeks 1-4 in hand, we discuss and work through these big touchstone moments in your marriage in a way that brings even greater safety, security, and connection to your already loving relationship. I then draft a document memorializing your discussions for you to refer to and revisit at any time throughout your marriage. 

At the end of it all, you and your forever person will walk away with peace of mind that you have covered the biggest and most challenging conversations leading into a marriage, and the experience of transforming conflict into connection and building greater self-trust and trust in the relationship. Please note that I only work with a limited number of couples per cycle. If you're not able to join in one round, I'm happy to have you schedule for our next round!