For couples serious about staying strong
Eighteen private, research-informed prompts help you recognize what is already working, name what is ready to grow, and keep building a good relationship into an even better one.
✦ Research-informed reflection · not a validated clinical instrument
Nothing can ever be perfect. It can always be better.
Six research-informed constructs
The prompts translate recurring constructs from relationship research into questions about your lived experience.
Can you be free and close?
Do you feel understood and valued?
What happens after the rupture?
Can you carry stress together?
Is commitment clear and observable?
Can two real lives fit?
The evidence base
Across 43 longitudinal couple datasets, these were among the most robust relationship-specific predictors of current relationship quality. Change over time remained difficult to predict.
Joel et al., 2020 · PNAS ↗A synthesis of 57 reports and 17,856 participants found a substantial association between dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction.
Falconier et al., 2015 · Clinical Psychology Review ↗Perceived partner responsiveness was associated with day-to-day couple satisfaction, supporting its role as a core relationship process.
Candel & Turliuc, 2021 · Frontiers in Psychology ↗Negative communication and satisfaction move together within couples, but communication alone does not provide a simple deterministic forecast.
Johnson et al., 2022 · Journal of Family Psychology ↗Each domain contributes equally to a transparent composite. Safety acts as a gate and can cap the overall index. The cutoffs are interpretive guideposts—not empirically validated clinical thresholds. Results reflect one partner’s report and should be read as a conversation map, not a verdict.
Why safety is treated separately · CDC ↗My philosophy of couples therapy
Nothing between two people can ever be perfect. It can always be better.
Hiring a couples therapist is like hiring a personal trainer when you are serious about peak physical fitness.
It is not proof that the relationship is failing. It is proof that you are intent on building the best relationship possible.
I have completed Level 1 training in Gottman Method Couples Therapy. I pair evidence-based relationship practices with creative, individualized strategies—because the best tool is the one the two of you can actually use.
I am not trying to keep couples in weekly therapy indefinitely. My job is to help you understand the pattern, practice better responses, and leave with tools you can use on your own—long after I am no longer in the room.
Strong couples practice on purpose
Choosing couples therapy is proof that the relationship matters to you. I help you strengthen what is already working, understand the patterns you want to improve, and practice tools that hold up in ordinary life. Success means a stronger partnership—and the confidence to keep making it better together, long after therapy ends.
Alexander Emile Marshi, MA · Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist · AMFT #159153 · Employed by Integrated Therapy and Recovery Inc. · Supervised by Alex John Lerza, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, LMFT #83946.
Love gets better on purpose