It was never about the kitchen

It's 9pm.

You've asked him, again, to leave the kitchen tidy.

He hasn't.

And now you're thinking: Why do I have to ask? Why doesn't he just notice? Why doesn't what matters to me matter to him?

He thinks you're making too much of it.

You feel unseen.

And suddenly you're having a fight about the kitchen.

Except you're not.

You're fighting about whether you matter. Whether you can rely on each other. Whether the person you love actually sees you.

How couples get stuck

In 25 years of sitting with couples, I have heard this argument in a hundred versions. The dishes. The phone at dinner. Who called whose mother. The details change. The dance does not.

One reaches.

The other pulls away.

She feels more alone, so she reaches harder.

He feels more criticised, so he pulls further away.

Neither of them is wrong. Both are trying to protect something that matters. And before long, you're both reacting to each other instead of reaching for each other.

The kitchen was never the problem.

The pattern was.

Underneath the argument

Patterns can change. That's the work I do with couples.

We slow things down and look underneath the argument to what's really happening between you. The reaching. The withdrawing. The criticism. The shutting down. And the needs and fears underneath it all.

This is part of why I work with couples here at Casa Eden. Away from the kitchen, the schedules and the 9pm arguments, there is room to see the dance clearly, and to try a different step together.

You can still start

Sometimes your partner isn't ready.

You can still start.

The Relationship Hot Seat. 20 minutes to talk about what's really happening in your relationship. You can come alone, or you can come together.

You bring what's happening.

That's it.