Macarthur Relationship Counselling

20/07/2025

When I ask people what it is they most want to work on in their relationship most people will tell me it's communication. We're not doing it well, we fight over "silly" things. Like all therapists, I can guide you through communication. However, I'm an RLT therapist and we like to look at the behaviour below the communication. Why do you react like you do? Why is one or of you, or both of you, avoidant. Why is one of you, or both of you, blatant, or grandiose, when you communicate? I want to help you be aware, to use your Prefrontal Cortex, or your Wise Adult, to help keep you centred instead of triggered or feeling like you don't know why you react like you do. Why, at times, you can react or feel as if your partner is the "enemy." Communication is layered and starts with awareness and connecting the dots to what's happening inside of you that makes you say the things you later regret, or you don't bother to say at all.

20/07/2025

I've been married over 40 years and I agree with Terry. We get hurt. We make mistakes. We stumble, but we learn how to deal with our behaviours that aren't serving us well. We communicate in a healthy, open, meaningful way, and we repair. It takes humility, along with accountability, love, and to cherish one another and know when to yield.

26/05/2025

Acquiescence never allows us to have our preferences, choices, needs heard. It takes courage but stand up for you.

You shrug. You laugh nervously. You say “it's fine” when it isn't.

Those aren't just habits. They're cues, and they train the people around you.

If you’re putting up with behavior that leaves you feeling small, hurt, or unseen, know this:

You’re not just enduring it — you’re teaching it.

We don’t like to think of it that way. We tell ourselves we’re being patient. Mature. That it’s not worth the fight.

But make no mistake — what you don’t address, you participate in.

You may think you’re avoiding conflict, but what you’re actually avoiding is the discomfort of standing up for yourself. And that comes at a cost: your fulfillment, your self-worth, and the vitality of the relationship itself.

This doesn’t mean you explode and start attacking those around you.
It means you stop colluding with dynamics that hurt you.

Nothing will change until 𝘺𝘰𝘶 do.

14/05/2025

Speaking up in a solid, clear way is important within healthy couples. Does it sometimes risk the safety of the relationship, yes, it does. And by safety I mean it risks the other partner not liking it and potentially leaving. However, safety in relationship that looks like "better the devil you know" is not a healthy, loving relationship outlook. It's generally fear-based. It's stable ambiguity through to stable misery, neither is solid relational ground.

01/05/2025

Boundaries are important. They speak to what you won't accept.

15/04/2025

The relationship dance, I see it everyday. "My position is... "
"I'm right, you're wrong."
"I believe," and (the other says) "I believe..."
No movement anywhere in stance, stance dance.

15/04/2025

Healthy couples do regulate each other. Healthy couples set boundaries, and are clear- both verbalising AND listening

14/04/2025

This is the truth. You can be the change that helps your life, your relationship with your partner, and with your children. I do Family of Origin work with my clients to bring awareness and change.

Before my father passed, he made a wish:

“May nothing in my past, or in the family’s past, in any way hold you back or weigh you down.”

As a parent, you know your children will encounter pain. As hard as it is to watch, you know they must learn to handle life’s sufferings.

But unlike the wish my father made to me, I take great comfort in knowing that the pain they encounter in life will be theirs alone.

The violence, rage, and depression of my father ended with me.

My two sons, now both in their 30s, are free from the chain of pain that linked me to my father and his father before him.

Of course, heal for yourself and bring peace to your ancestors, but you can also heal for your children and the generations that follow. For it is the greatest gift you could ever give them.

14/04/2025

"How can we work through this together, as a team?" It's so important. Fighting is often about what's underneath. Not the topic of the fight.
I don't put a Band-Aid over the top of conflict or communication. I help uncover the "underneath" of poor communication and heightened conflict.

01/04/2025

And I agree with Terry Real, "you can be right, or you can be married." I'd rather have good communication and know when to time out and come back in my adult self, ready to make nice. Clearly there is more to conflict resolution but this is a good place to start. Bring the emotional temperature down. Fighting is draining and constant conflict is soul destroying.

01/04/2025

Communication tips

25/03/2025

When in resentment it can be the hardest thing to budge