This page is for the ordinary hard moments between our sessions. If either of you feels unsafe, please reach out now:
Call or text 988 — the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (24/7).
Text HOME to 741741 — the Crisis Text Line.
If you ever feel afraid of your partner or unsafe at home: the National Domestic Violence Hotline — call 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788. Free, confidential, 24/7. Richard: confirm you want this here
Call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room if anyone is in immediate danger.
To reach me directly: [your between-session contact] Richard: add this
Between Sessions · Together
A few things to try together, when I'm not in the room.
No need to read it all. Find where the two of you are right now, and take one small step toward each other. You can come back any time.
What's happening between you right now?
This page is a between-session support, not a substitute for our work together or for emergency care.
Steadying it together
Take the heat down before you sort it out.
When you're both flooded, nothing useful gets decided. You can't problem-solve your way out of a moment like this — you can only lower the temperature first. Drop anchor together, then offer one small repair.
Breathe together. Follow the circle.
A repair to offer — out loud, and mean it
Tap below for something to say.
There's the thing you're fighting about, and then there's the fight about the fight. You can put the second one down any time. Richard: pain-vs-suffering, your voice
Turning back toward each other
Connection is built in singles, not home runs.
You don't close a distance with one grand gesture. You close it with small bids — a touch, a question, a shared joke — and by turning toward the ones your partner offers you. Teammates, not opponents.
Don't just think it — say it. Out loud, today:
One of these a day builds what the research calls a culture of appreciation — the quiet floor a relationship stands on.
Now watch for their next bid — the small "hey, look at this." Turning toward it is the whole game. Richard: bids / turning-toward, your voice
The fight that keeps coming back
Some problems don't get solved. They get handled — together.
Most recurring fights aren't problems to win; they're differences to manage. The goal isn't to come out on top. It's to get on the same side of the thing. And how you start almost decides how it ends — start soft, and you reach somewhere you can't get to by starting hard.
Try opening with this — gently, and without the "you always":
When you catch yourself narrating why they did it, ask not "is my story true?" but "is this story helping us?" Richard: Helpful Heuristic, dyadic
When life presses on you both
Face it as a team, not as two people facing off.
Hard things — loss, stress, a frightening diagnosis — pull couples apart at exactly the moment they most need each other. The move is to meet in the feeling first, before any plan. Sit in it together for a minute. Then look forward, side by side.
Let that be the compass for the next small choice — not "who's right," but "does this move us toward that?"
Picture the two of you on the far side of this, looking back. What would make you proud of how you carried each other? Richard: adaptive prospection, your voice
Growing the good
Good relationships are kept good on purpose.
When things are steady, it's tempting to coast. But the strongest couples keep investing in the good — celebrating each other's wins, naming what they're grateful for, choosing a direction on purpose.
Bring it to your partner with real interest — turn toward the good news, don't just nod at it:
Then ask them to tell you more. Celebrating the good together does as much for a couple as weathering the bad.
Pick one word for the kind of "us" you're building this season. Come back to it. Richard: word-of-the-year / shared values
This page is for the ordinary hard moments between our sessions. If you feel unsafe, or like you might act on thoughts of harming yourself, please reach out now:
Call or text 988 — the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (24/7).
Text HOME to 741741 — the Crisis Text Line.
Call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room if you are in immediate danger.
To reach me directly: [your between-session contact] Richard: add this
Between Sessions
A few things to try when I'm not in the room.
No need to read it all. Just start where you are right now, and take one small step. You can come back any time.
What's pulling at you right now?
This page is a between-session support, not a substitute for our work together or for emergency care.
Unhooking from a thought
A thought is just a thought — even a loud one.
When a thought hooks us, we stop seeing it as a thought and start treating it as the plain truth. You don't have to argue with it or push it away. You just have to notice it for what it is, and ask whether it's any help to you right now.
Try reading it back to yourself this way:
Notice the tiny bit of space that opens up. Now the real question — not is it true? but: if I let this thought run the show right now, does it move me toward the kind of person I want to be? If not, you can let it ride along and still choose your next move.
Still stuck? Picture a good friend saying this exact thing about themselves. What would you say back to them? That's usually closer to the truth than the thought is. Richard: best-friend move, your phrasing
Dropping anchor
Come back to right here.
When everything's swirling, you can't always calm the storm — but you can drop an anchor and steady the boat. Follow the circle. Breathe with it.
Making room
You can stop wrestling the feeling.
There's the pain itself — and then there's the exhausting fight against it. We can't always choose the first. We get a lot of say over the second. Making room doesn't mean you like the feeling. It means you stop spending all your strength trying to force it out.
A feeling you make room for can move through. A feeling you barricade against tends to stick around and knock louder. Richard: pain-vs-suffering, your voice
Back to your why
When you're lost, check your compass.
Stuck usually means we've lost sight of what we're moving toward. Not a goal you can tick off — a direction. The kind of person you want to be in this, whatever happens.
What is the smallest thing you could do in the next hour that points that way? It doesn't have to fix anything. It just has to point.
The smallest step
You don't have to feel ready. You just have to start small.
Waiting to feel motivated is a trap — the motivation usually shows up after you move, not before. So we shrink the step until it's almost too easy to skip.
Forget the whole thing. For the next two minutes only, your job is just to begin:
Quick check: is starting this a step toward the life you want, or a move away from something uncomfortable? Toward-moves count, even tiny ones.
Stepping back
You are not the harsh story about you.
There's the part of you having a rough time — and there's the part of you that can notice all of it, calmly, the way you've noticed a thousand other passing moods. That noticing part has never been damaged. It's been there the whole time.
Richard: observer-self + self-compassion, your voice
This page is for the ordinary hard moments between our sessions. If either of you feels unsafe, please reach out now:
Call or text 988 — the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (24/7).
Text HOME to 741741 — the Crisis Text Line.
If you ever feel afraid of your partner or unsafe at home: the National Domestic Violence Hotline — call 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788. Free, confidential, 24/7.
Call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room if anyone is in immediate danger.
To reach me directly: 919-891-0937 — call or text
Between Sessions · Together
A few things to try together, when I'm not in the room.
No need to read it all. Find where the two of you are right now, and take one small step toward each other. You can come back any time.
What's happening between you right now?
This page is a between-session support, not a substitute for our work together or for emergency care.
Steadying it together
Take the heat down before you sort it out.
When you're both flooded, nothing useful gets decided. You can't problem-solve your way out of a moment like this — you can only lower the temperature first. Drop anchor together, then offer one small repair.
Breathe together. Follow the circle.
A repair to offer — out loud, and mean it
Tap below for something to say.
There's the thing you're fighting about, and then there's the fight about the fight. You can put the second one down any time.
Turning back toward each other
Connection is built in singles, not home runs.
You don't close a distance with one grand gesture. You close it with small bids — a touch, a question, a shared joke — and by turning toward the ones your partner offers you. Teammates, not opponents.
Don't just think it — say it. Out loud, today:
One of these a day builds what the research calls a culture of appreciation — the quiet floor a relationship stands on.
Now watch for their next bid — the small "hey, look at this." Turning toward it is the whole game.
The fight that keeps coming back
Some problems don't get solved. They get handled — together.
Most recurring fights aren't problems to win; they're differences to manage. The goal isn't to come out on top. It's to get on the same side of the thing. And how you start almost decides how it ends — start soft, and you reach somewhere you can't get to by starting hard.
Try opening with this — gently, and without the "you always":
When you catch yourself narrating why they did it, ask not "is my story true?" but "is this story helping us?"
When life presses on you both
Face it as a team, not as two people facing off.
Hard things — loss, stress, a frightening diagnosis — pull couples apart at exactly the moment they most need each other. The move is to meet in the feeling first, before any plan. Sit in it together for a minute. Then look forward, side by side.
Let that be the compass for the next small choice — not "who's right," but "does this move us toward that?"
Picture the two of you on the far side of this, looking back. What would make you proud of how you carried each other?
Growing the good
Good relationships are kept good on purpose.
When things are steady, it's tempting to coast. But the strongest couples keep investing in the good — celebrating each other's wins, naming what they're grateful for, choosing a direction on purpose.
Bring it to your partner with real interest — turn toward the good news, don't just nod at it:
Then ask them to tell you more. Celebrating the good together does as much for a couple as weathering the bad.
Pick one word for the kind of "us" you're building this season. Come back to it.
