One of you shuts down when things get overwhelming — not because you don’t care, but because your nervous system taps out before your mouth can catch up. The other one reads that silence as “you don’t care.” Neither of you is wrong. Nobody ever actually taught either of you how to feel a feeling, name it, and say it out loud in a way the other person can hear.
That’s not a character flaw. It’s a skills gap. And skills gaps are, refreshingly, fixable. This work is about building the real thing — understanding what your partner is actually trying to say, and responding to that, instead of the version your nervous system just made up on the spot.
And what each of you learned to expect from other people came from somewhere. If you grew up where asking for things went badly — ignored, punished, or met with a mood you then had to manage — you didn’t just remember that. You adapted around it. Maybe you got very good at needing nothing out loud. Maybe you got very good at reading a room before anyone spoke. Those were sensible responses at the time, and they tend to show up in the relationship long before either of you has consciously decided anything.
Which is why two people can be in the same conversation and not be in the same conversation at all. One hears a question about dinner plans; the other hears a test they’re about to fail. One asks for closeness the only way that ever felt safe — sideways, half-joking, easy to take back. The other misses it entirely, because that isn’t what asking looks like to them. Neither of you is making it up. You’re each responding accurately to a history the other person wasn’t there for.
Naming that history out loud often changes what the fight is about. Not because the past gets fixed, but because “you don’t care” starts to look more like “we’re each protecting something old” — usually a more workable problem than the one you came in with.
Sessions: 50 or 80 minutes, in-person in Newmarket or virtual anywhere in Ontario. Not sure it’s the right fit yet? Start with the free consult, no pressure.
Couples counselling is a form of psychotherapy — how it goes depends on the couple and what’s actually going on.