Liz Seitz - Psychotherapist / Individuals and Couples

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Liz Seitz - Psychotherapist / Individuals and Couples

Helping individuals and couples achieve healthy, sustainable relationships and live with a renewed sense of purpose and meaning. Liz Seitz, LMSW-ACP, LMFT

12/29/2025

So often in an argument, couples spend way too much time trying to prove their point and not enough time listening to each other’s perspective and feelings. If your emphasis is on being right, then you will always be wrong. When one wins, you both lose. The true way to win in a relationship is to clear up any misunderstanding and repair the hurt.

If you feel your blood pressure rising, your heart racing or your muscles tensing up, let your partner know that you need to take a quick break to calm yourself down because nothing productive can result from that state. It’s critical that you make it clear that you’ll be right back to work things out with them and that you just don’t want to say anything you’ll regret or make things worse.

Use that time wisely and take slow, deep breaths to help yourself reset. Make sure to return to your partner in a reasonable amount of time so they can trust your intentions and see that you really do want things to be resolved.

Make sure to give each other time to talk without interruption and really try to listen without forming your rebuttal.

Remind yourself and each other that even though you may not agree, you’re on the same team. Choose your words carefully. Avoid using the words “always” and “never” and express yourself using “I” messages not “you” so as not to sound accusatory.

Try to find the areas or points where you agree. Give each other the benefit of the doubt. Assume the best intention, not the worst. Join together to attack the problem, not each other. Remember your number one goal is to preserve the connection between you. conflictmanagement

12/24/2025

So often people feel that by validating their partner’s experience in an argument, they’re admitting fault. Validation doesn’t mean agreement or admission of guilt. It’s not saying, “I agree, I screwed up” or “You’re right, I was an as***le earlier.” (Although, that’d be nice!) If you can admit fault, that’s first prize but if you don’t agree with their perception of what happened, you can still validate their experience.
All of us want our feelings to be seen, heard, and understood. It’s not about agreement as much as it is acknowledgement.
Letting them know you heard and understood their feelings goes a long way. Exercising patience, compassion and empathy moves you from feeling like an enemy back to feeling like a friend, and from a place of emotional danger to a place of safety.

12/18/2025

True intimacy is truly letting someone in. Into-me-(you)-see. Granting permission to be your true self and bring your full voice to a relationship is the greatest gift we can give ourselves and those we love. Feeling safe and secure knowing that we are loved for the fullness of who we are, our authentic, true self, with flaws and all, is how deep connections are formed. Ironically, by feeling safe to express all of who we are in a relationship, we feel safe enough to embrace the possibility that there is more of ourselves we have yet to discover.

12/08/2025

When couples fight, they get so caught up in the specifics of arguments rather than the hurt or desire lying underneath.

It’s not really about the topic at hand, it’s about the longing or unmet need that one is trying to express.

Typically, partners are really making a plea for one of the following: respect, appreciation, attention, validation, intimacy and connection.

Try identifying what it is you really want from one another and create some safe space to communicate it.

You can start with something like:

“What I’ve come to understand is that I really want more ………. from you. ”

“If I were able to receive that from you, I would be really grateful and I really think it would bring us closer.”

This comes across as a loving request versus a critique or complaint.

Being specific about what you need is the only way to get it.

12/01/2025

We’ve all been there, either we’re the one who’s done it or we’ve been on the receiving end of it or both. Kitchen-sinking is one of the most common tactics or reflexes used in a relationship when couples are in conflict.

When a couple’s arguing and one partner starts throwing out all the other one’s past mistakes or transgressions, it quickly derails the conversation.

Kitchen-sinking only serves to escalate the tension and delay any opportunity to resolve the issue at hand.

If you’re the one who tends to use this in arguments, please reconsider, as it only leaves people feeling discouraged, resentful, and defeated. And it definitely doesn’t build trust in your ability as a couple to navigate conflict in a productive, effective way.

If you’re partner is the one to do this, calmly say, “Babe, I really want to resolve this with you but I’d really appreciate it if we could stay on task.” If you want, you can add, “If there are issues from the past you think we still need to resolve, I’m happy for us to address those but now is not the time.”

If they persist, you can say, “Please come get me when you’re ready to talk about _______ (fill in the blank with the conflict du jour).”

Ultimately, you want conflicts to be addressed in a way that leaves both parties feeling heard, understood and satisfied with how the issue was resolved. The purpose of conflict is not to dig up all your old arguments but rather to clear away and repair any misunderstanding or hurt so you can preserve and possibly even deepen the connection between you.

11/24/2025

One of the great pain points for couples centers around the cruel reality that what one partner most needs is the very thing that the other partner struggles to provide.

Whether it’s regarding physical intimacy, words of affirmation, compliments, appreciation, patience, empathy or unconditional love, the experience of neglect or denial leads to hurt and resentment.

By understanding more about our own internal struggles or conflicts around a particular issue, we can gain much needed insight into why certain things are difficult for us to give our partner.

Sometimes it’s because what’s being asked of us is something we were never given so we’ve denied the importance of it.

Sometimes it’s because of the messages we’ve learned to associate with the particular thing that our partner desires.

Sometimes without realizing it, we’re recreating a familiar dynamic from childhood of longing and neglect, frustration and loss.

The more we can understand ourselves, the easier it will be to understand our relationships. And the more open we can be to personal growth and healing, the more we can learn to respond differently to our partner’s desire.

11/17/2025

Someone with an avoidant attachment style isn’t born with a tough exterior but they develop one in response to childhood experiences where their emotional needs were unmet.

Due to their fear of rejection and abandonment, they use emotional and physical distance as a way to feel safe. Like a turtle, they retreat into their shell when they feel threatened or overwhelmed.

They want to be close but they fear it at the same time. Many avoidants have convinced themselves they don’t need anyone and that they’re better off alone. This feels like a safer scenario than needing someone who could hurt you or leave you.

The “soft center” is there but it’s difficult for the avoidant to acknowledge and it’s definitely difficult for their partner to access.

Being an avoidant can be very lonely and unsatisfying and being in a relationship with an avoidant can be extremely painful.

If you’re an avoidant, know that you come by this honestly and based on your history, your fear of vulnerability makes perfect sense. Also know that it doesn’t always have to be like this. If you’re willing to do the work, you can learn how to heal the past and manage your fears in a different way.

And if you’re in a relationship with an avoidant, as much as it may feel like it, this is not personal. With patience, grace and a willing partner, you can learn how to navigate this together.

11/12/2025

The old saying goes: “Women marry men hoping that they’ll change. Men marry women hoping they’ll never change. And they both end up disappointed.”

There is definitely some truth to this. Hoping someone will change is never a good idea. We can’t be more invested in someone being a certain kind of way than they are.

As Maya Angelou used to say, “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”

If what you want and need to see and feel isn’t what you’re seeing and feeling, then call a spade a spade and say what’s true.

If the person responds with sensitivity and compassion and seems genuinely willing to work on things, that’s a great sign. But if they minimize, deny or dismiss your feelings or experience, then you don’t have a partner, you have a project.

Wanting something from someone that they don’t want for themselves is a recipe for disaster.

All relationships require effort and work but it shouldn’t be so hard that you’re feeling depleted, depressed, dismissed or disappointed on a regular basis.

Make sure that the things that most matter to you are already there.

11/05/2025

Be careful not to want something so badly that you ignore signs that this person isn’t it. What I see so many of my clients do (and we’ve all probably done at one time or another, I know I have) is to ignore red flags or even subtle warning signs because they want a relationship to work out.

Overlooking things that don’t work for you or don’t sit well with you will only set you up for disappointment and heartache. When we make excuses for someone’s behavior or minimize the effect it has on us, we’re enabling our own hurt.

Convincing yourself that something isn’t a big deal when deep in your gut you know it is may buy you some time but it won’t lead to the result you want.

When we want something so badly, we tend to see what we want to see and ignore everything else. The wanting can cloud our judgment.

Be clear about what really matters to you in a partner and tell yourself the truth about whether or not you have it.

10/28/2025

It’s so important to remember that whenever we get emotionally activated in a relationship, all our critical thinking skills are greatly compromised and basically nonexistent.

Next time you’re feeling triggered in a conversation with your partner, take a deep breath and call for a time-out.

Taking a break to cool down, breathing slowly and deeply until you feel your blood pressure lower and your heart rate slow will buy you time to rejoin your partner with a nervous system that is calm versus activated.
Before you return to them, make sure you remind yourself that that this is not your enemy, despite how it may feel in the moment.

Find a comfortable place to sit, look into each other’s eyes and remind each other that you’re on the same team.

State your intention to understand each other better while, at the same time time, preserving the connection between you.

10/21/2025

We all have moments when anxiety and stress can overwhelm us and wreak havoc on our nervous system, if we let it.

Instead of letting the overwhelm overtake you, put your hand on your heart, take some slow, deep breaths and tell yourself this very simple mantra:
“I’m ok, I’m safe, I’m loved and I can do this.”

Repeat it as many times as you need until you feel the stress begin to melt away and the anxiety release its hold on you. You’ve got this!

10/14/2025

It’s often our knee-jerk reaction to respond to our partner’s complaint or disappointment with defensiveness or counter-attack. This rarely, if ever, goes well.

If instead, you can pause to reflect on what’s being said and really sit with it for a moment, it not only buys you time but it also makes your partner feel you care.

You can mirror back what you hear them saying without adding commentary of your own. You might say, “So what I hear you saying is when I’m looking at my phone while you’re telling me something, it makes you feel that what you have to say isn’t important to me. Is that right?”

The first part is just acknowledging what you heard and the second part is you checking with them to make sure you got it right.

If you can deliver this without any sarcasm or frustration in your voice, it can have a powerful effect on your partner.

Once confirmed that you heard them correctly, you can say, “That makes sense that you’d feel that way. I’m really sorry. That’s definitely not the message I want to send to you.”

And then you can follow it up with something like, “I’ll make a conscious effort to make sure I put down my phone when you want to tell me something. And if I’m in the middle of responding to a text or email, I’ll let you know that I just need to send it real quickly and that as soon as I hit send, you’ll have my full attention. Will that work?”

Hopefully your partner will appreciate that message and find the qualifier to be reasonable. If not, then it’s up to them to say how they might wish to tweak it.

We’re all entitled to ask for what we need or desire in a relationship. It’s no guarantee that we’ll get it but the hope is that we feel comfortable to ask and we ask in a way that comes across as a request versus a demand.

And, of course, you hope that your partner has a genuine desire to grant that request, as long as it feels reasonable and doable. If not, then ideally some healthy negotiation can follow and there can be a mutually-agreed upon compromise that feels good to both of you.

Address

Houston, TX

Telephone

+17135234477

Website

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/liz-k-seitz-houston-tx/74342

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