About Claire

I was never the marrying kind. In the movie, A Good Woman, Helen Hunt’s character said that being married was like being shut up in a room that got smaller every year. That’s the way I thought for years. And that’s the way it is for too many people.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. If you’re willing to learn the tools and face your own patterns, marriage can be deeply satisfying.

It’s not always easy. Your marriage can get worn down by your job, your children, and just the pace of everyday living. It happens to me all the time. I have a techie husband who works too much (of course); a 14-year-old stepdaughter; and a counseling and training business.

I think the hardest part is that a committed relationship homes in on your emotional triggers like a laser. That’s not comfortable! Your fight or flight response makes it very tempting to lash out in anger and drive your partner away. Or hunker down and refuse to face your own patterns. That’s when the room starts to get smaller.

But if you help each other face and understand your triggers, then life expands. You’re known and supported at your core. There’s really nothing like it.

That’s why after all my experience in mental health–counseling for anxiety and depression, crisis work in emergency rooms, finding homes for foster children, counseling abused women, and mediated parenting agreements between divorced parents–it’s helping people save their marriages that I like the most.