Rob and Allison were high school sweethearts. Now in their early thirties, they were struggling for quite some time. Allison was spending a lot of time with friends and family, feeling quite dissatisfied with her marriage. Rob loved her but didn’t treat her well. He could be mean at times. Allison was seriously thinking about leaving.

Rob was committed to making his marriage work and made significant changes. Initially, Allison was concerned the changes would be short-lived, but as the months went by, she became slightly more confident.

In our last couple’s counseling session, Rob commented that he felt he was doing all the work. I told him he was doing a lot of work on how he treated Allison, but she was as well. For them to be successful, Allison needed to share her dissatisfactions and how her needs weren’t being met. Previous to couples counseling, she stopped doing this, since she wasn’t being heard. In couples counseling, she took the risk of sharing again. Rob needed her feedback to work on issues that could make a difference. It takes two.