Couples at Crossroads

06/08/2025

05/06/2025

How a couple deals with privacy and secrecy say a lot about how much trust they experience.

Everyone has a right to privacy. Secrecy, on the other hand, is toxic.

08/06/2024

For couples who have been together more than a few months, conflict can be predictable. Here are some ways to make it less destructive.

Couples who have been together for more than a few months can usually tell when conflict is "in the air." Here are four good ways to respond that will keep the conflict from getting out of control.

07/25/2024

Conflict is inevitable but not all conflict is the same. Sometimes it's productive. Here's when it is and when it is really destructive.

Conflict is both inevitable and predictable. To acknowledge its inevitability is to be grounded and realistic about life together. To acknowledge its predictability is to be better at problem solving.

07/17/2024

Understanding is an important part of connecting with your partner but it can fall a little short. There's an additional step...beyond understanding...that can cement the bond in a way that generates growth.

Simply understanding just isn't enough. There's an additional step that can take your understanding to the next level.

06/29/2024

Closeness and intimacy are often considered synonymous. They aren't. Both are an important part of a well-functioning relationship and it can be really useful to know the distinction.

It can be hard to find and maintain the right relationship "temperature."

05/24/2024

There's a lot that happens when we fall in love. It's comforting on the one hand and scary on the other. All in all, it's exhilarating.

For all of its desirability, love can bring some very scary times. Here are two fears that often come with love.

05/14/2024

There's a good reason "dumb" topics created heated arguments for couples.

Or, marriage as an existential struggle. An answer to the question of why couples have such intense arguments over dumb things?

05/03/2024

When it comes to improving your relationship, think less about increasing your communication and think more about creating conversations.

It isn't communication that improves your relationship. It's conversation.

03/23/2024

https://open.substack.com/pub/jakethiessen/p/an-invitation-to-the-dance?r=38d3y&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

There's so much more than meets the eye...

03/20/2024

When I was about 15 (it was the mid-1960’s) my Mom asked if I thought she and my Dad should stay together. It was a totally inappropriate question given my age but she was confused, frustrated and probably a little desperate. We lived in very small town in Central Kansas…one of those places where privacy was almost nonexistent. Everyone knew everyone and most of their business. So, I’m sure there weren't many places she could go with that question. As I recall it, my response was a very self-serving, “Yes, you should stay!” She did and they eventually arrived at a good marriage in their 60’s.

That exchange jumpstarted my interest in couples. Though there have been many twists and turns in my life, I wound up with a full-time private practice as a couple therapist. The twists and turns include a year in France, two years on a Saharan oasis in Algeria, graduate schools, fifteen years as a university professor, two failed marriages, the death of a spouse, three children, two stepchildren and currently an essentially healthy long-term partnership with a wonderful woman.

Long story short… I’ve devoted my career to understanding how couples work and attempting to translate that understanding into useful interventions in the lives of well over a thousand couples. In addition, I’ve personally lived almost every variation on “couple life.”

It might be a bit grandiose, but I think I know what I’m talking about.

What does all this have to do with saving the world?

Well… It seems clear that how we treat each other (particularly those we are closest to) goes a long way toward determining how we are in the universe and, therefore, (in some small way) how the universe unfolds.

In the weekly posts that follow I will offer insights and suggestions for treating those close to you with the kind of respect that underpins the world most of us would like to inhabit. What I will offer is pretty simple… maybe common sense… but it likely won’t be easy. Though simple, it will not gloss over the complexity that intimate relationships naturally bring.

I've been a couple therapist for over 45 years and I've learned a lot. I'm offering some very simple advice for those who want to make the connection they have with their partner the best it can be. The advice is simple but likely not easy. Click to read Simple Advice for Couples, by Jake Thiessen,....

01/05/2024

At its core, a healthy intimate relationship is fluid. Because of its fluidity, the relationship is stable. It’s a bit like riding a bicycle. If you’re pedaling forward, stability is easily achieved. Once you stop pedaling, it is almost impossible not to fall over.

In relationships, finding stability through fluidity is called co-regulation. Emily Butler and Ashley Randall define co-regulation as a "continuous unfolding of individual action that is susceptible to being continuously modified by the continuously changing actions of the partner.”[1]

That’s a mouthful!

Basically, the idea of co-regulation suggests that we can’t reduce a couple’s interaction to the behavior or experience of either individual because each of them is repeatedly regulating the behavior of the other. Their behaviors and experiences are intertwined.

This means that what happens between the two people is more important to the relationship than what happens within each of them. Said another way, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.


To see the beauty in an intimate relationship we must acknowledge and appreciate the ongoing reciprocal movement between partners (co-regulation).

Let’s take something as simple as holding hands.

One partner reaches for the other’s hand. The other responds. That response can be positive and enthusiastic, or neutral and noncommittal, or rejecting and hostile. How the first partner receives the response will influence what or she does next, setting off a series of reciprocating responses. That series can flavor, if not determine, what happens between the two over the ensuing hours.

For instance, each partner can “edit” the sequence. Like a film editor, he or she can frame the series as starting and ending with certain responses to support his or her own perspective or prove a point. Editing offers a partial and biased picture of the interaction. It tends to foster conflict.

Trying to understand what happens between two people by describing the behavior of just one of them will always fall short. It misses the intricacy and complexity of their interaction, because it overlooks the “dance” between them that moves the relationship from point “A” to point “B.”

How you orient yourself when considering your relationship life matters. If you are drawn to the current trend of one partner diagnosing the other (e.g., “He or she is a narcissist”), you will likely overlook your own contribution to the situation. By attending to what happens between you and your partner you open the door to the information essential to creating the kind of relationship you desire.

[1] Butler, E. A., and Randall, A. K. (2013). Emotional Coregulation in Close Relationships. Emotional Review, 5(2), 202-210). http://doi.org/10.1177/1754073912451630