Reflect for a moment on when you feel at your happiest and most buoyant.  I imagine this might involve a sense of being appreciated, valued, loved or even adored by someone else.  It may even stem from a very small but meaningful gesture that fills you up with an energy that is completely satisfying to the core.

This is the power of true loving connection when someone “sees us” for who we truly are on the inside and communicates to us that we are important to them and that they “like us”.  When we are in a “state” in which we can openly receive this, then we have arrived at a place of wholeness, with a contentedness that rarely needs anything else.

How incredible would it be at this festive time of the year, to know that no material gift could ever come close to this precious feeling of love that you share with your partner.

It really is a privilege to work as a couples therapist in witnessing the amazing transformation of a relationship when two people start to “get” the way this communication works.  All the struggling, trying to get a point across, striving to prove how wrong the other’s view is, getting angry and frustrated, disappointed, helpless, stuck and miserable…can be revealed as pointless, unnecessary, ineffective and mostly a waste of one’s time.

Add to this the extra pressure of Christmas and not wanting to disappoint with gifts, well it’s stressful to the nth degree.  Furthermore, if you are in a relationship where there is a lot of conflict and not much intimacy of any kind, the pressure can become intense.

From my perspective as a couples therapist offering psychological advice on relationships, I feel sad as I witness the difficulty many partners seem locked into.  Long gone are the heady days of being in love and instead they are often full of confusion, blame, anger, fear and dread.

Within the couples therapy helping environment either in clinic or online, it is generally overwhelming for partners to appreciate the reality of their current situation.  This is because they often have a strong feeling of love for each other, even though their behaviours speak otherwise.  Partners who seek advice for married couples often look to a couples therapist  for relationship help, as if they have some kind of blind spot.

Regardless of what might emerge during a session’s exploration of the relationship, partners who commit to a process of change through couples counselling, say they are often surprised by what they can achieve.  With a fresh and effective approach to difficulties they can prevent spirals of spite, hurt and unkindness.

So the title of this article is my gift to you.  If you are reading this and resonating with what I am writing as a couples therapist then you may consider that what you are currently experiencing is not your true reality.  You may feel as if it is but when I share with you the fundamental truth about human behaviour patterns, you, like many of the other clients I support, may experience a transformational shift.  You may then find comfort in realising that the love you feel is “gone” is simply “lost”.

In the first session of meeting, I will demonstrate what you are experiencing and why, and how you can begin to change things straightaway.

Interested?