The Build Your Relationship TM System

OK, so what exactly do you need to do to get the love you want?

Rebuilding your relationship, and healing and restoring the trust and connection  with your partner begins with understanding what brought you together in the first place, what your major struggles are, and how you process your relationship differences and struggles. Then, it means taking serious action on it. Here's what you need to do:

1. Both of you acknowledge there are flaws in your relationship and be willing to explore and own how both of you are 50% of the problem
2. Make your relationship a top priority in your life
3. Know and explore the three stages of a committed relationship and the hidden reasons you chose your partner
4. Break the negative cycle of communication and turn your frustrations into vehicles for growth and healing
5. Learn skills to appreciate, validate, and build on the positives in your relationship
6. Create your relationship vision and translate it into action

This six step system incorporates and builds upon pivotal and extremely powerful components created by noted relationship experts Harville Hendrix, PhD, and Helen Hunt PhD: the Getting The Love You Want© Weekend Workshop for Couples.  Working through these steps impels dissatisfied couples, such as we once were, to far more fully attain intimacy and tenderness in their relationship. Clients who've applied all these steps and worked through them with us have seen dramatic and lasting results. Couples transform their actual day-to-day, moment-to-moment interactions as they occur by becoming more aware of their reactivity to one another that comes out as blame, defensiveness, and criticism. With this Build Your Relationship™ System, you can expect to learn and implement a set of tools and skills to ensure safety and to rekindle passion in your everyday interactions. You can expect far more than simple information, advice, coping skills, or insights.

Does it work?

Yes. When applied consistently, this 6-step program has over and over again brought lasting and deep changes to committed relationships – For many couples it has transformed their journey together to what it was meant to be – not just respectful and safe, but passionate, fun and exciting. And it can do the same for you. Read what our clients have to say.

Understand, though, that it's not a "quick fix," it's definitely not magic and it may take some time for you to see the seeds you are planting grow and bear fruit. But our couples who have diligently applied all the steps of The Build Your Relationship™ System have reported successful, life-changing improvements to their relationships, in ways that they could not have imagined, let alone achieve on their own.

But we repeat: this success depends upon your willingness and ability to put in the necessary work. This is not for those who are not sufficiently motivated to unlock a grip of negativity, or for skeptics who approach the process with deep resistance or readiness to “jump ship” at the first discomfort, doubt, or difficulty with the steps.

In short, regardless of the circumstances that brought you to this work (whether you are in crisis or simply looking to enrich an already good thing) we are more than ready to work with you if you are super-ready to get going and just want to know exactly what steps to take to rebuild and restore what you have.

A little about our background

Over the first 38 years of our marriage, we often sensed that we were going through the motions. We knew we were experiencing more and more ups and downs than we would have liked. We simply didn’t know how to break the subtle impasses in our relationship. We weren’t in perpetual crisis, but we were definitely stuck.

We were especially discouraged because we had actually tried various approaches – individual counseling, support groups, lots of reading of “how to” books, attempts to “talk it out” on our own.

Then two life changing things happened. One lasted a weekend, the other lasted several years, and in fact still goes on! One was exciting and romantic, the other both romantic and very challenging:

First, we attended a Getting the Love You Want© weekend workshop (that’s now 13 years ago!). We knew immediately that its step-by-step-process approach to dealing with conflict was exactly the foundation we needed to free us from that stuck place and give us the confidence to rebuild for ourselves the safety and excitement in our relationship.

Second, we totally dedicated ourselves to building the building upon the foundation laid by the workshop. Yes, we had immediately come away from our first workshop experience well familiar with concepts and processes, and certainly with a glimpse of what real intimacy looked and felt like, but getting it all to work for our relationship was another matter. That took us many months, and in some places, years. This involved not simply Betsy’s acquiring training and certification as an Imago Therapist and then as a Getting the Love You Want© Couples Workshop Presenter, though that professional training certainly helped. It involved total commitment and actually doing the work, that is to say creating a system to identify and implement specific steps, and then practicing to the point of competence. Out of this challenging and rewarding work came our 6 step Build Your Relationship™ System.

We have now been married for over 50 years and in using this system in our own relationship for close to 15 years we continue to build a stronger, more vibrant connection and relationship year after year. It really does keep getting better and better!

We invite you to read what our clients have to say to learn more about what your results might look like and then sign up for our free email relationship tools by entering you email address in the subscription box at the top of the page.

Betsy and Bruce

The Build Your Relationship™System