3 Steps To A Better Relationship With Relational Life Therapy

3 Steps To A Better Relationship With Relational Life Therapy

Many couples come into therapy feeling stuck in repetitive, painful cycles. Perhaps one partner pursues while the other withdraws, blame flies, defenses rise, and both individuals feel misunderstood and lonely. Relational Life Therapy (RLT), developed by Terry Real, offers couples a powerful roadmap to break free from these patterns. 

Rather than tiptoeing around conflict, RLT invites couples into deep, transformative work in three progressive phases: first we awaken awareness, then heal underlying wounds, and finally, cultivate relational skills that we can use going forward to stay connected.

Let’s explore each of the three parts of Relational Life Therapy for couples and how they help couples build more meaningful, connecting, and lasting relationships.

Step 1: Waking Up

The first task in Relational Life Therapy is to help each partner become conscious of the dysfunctional relational stances or roles they’ve been habitually playing. These are often so familiar that the partners don’t even realize they’re doing them. In this phase, the therapist awakens the person’s inner conscience (“Wise Adult”) by naming, in a direct yet compassionate way, how their patterns are harming the connection.

Loving Confrontation

The therapist notices and points out the patterns, stances, and underlying beliefs that contribute to their behavior in a relationship. It is very common for defenses to come up when this happens. However, once the partner can slow down, understand, and connect with their own role in relational dynamics, space is opened up for change. 

This process is essential because the truth of the matter is: many relational problems remain invisible until someone points them out in a clear way. Unless we see our own patterns, we are much less likely to do the necessary work to change them for the better. In the end, clients can see that they are part of the conflict, which can build readiness, urgency, and ownership for true change.

Learning Our Relationship Stances 

One of the central tools in this awakening work is helping the couple (or individuals) map their relational stances. Instead of simply saying “you’re the pursuer” or “I’m the distancer,” RLT encourages nuance. We seek to more deeply understand what type of pursuer or distancer we are. For example, is one partner an angry distancer or a helpless distancer? Does one partner shut down or storm out violently? Getting to the root of our stances and patterns can help us see how we may be unintentionally sabotaging our goals. 

Step 2: Healing Underlying Wounds With Family Of Origin & Relational Trauma Work

Once awareness is awakened, the next step is to go deeper and explore what lies beneath those patterns. Are there parts of ourselves that exist due to childhood wounds?  In Relational Life Therapy, the psyche is often conceptualized as having three parts.

The Wounded Child is the part that bears the emotional injuries, pain, shame, longing and fear. The Adaptive Child is the version of the child that learned strategies to survive. The Wise Adult is the mature, flexible, and integrated self that cares for the wounded parts, places limits on the adaptive parts, and chooses relationally healthy responses.

Much of the conflict in relationships occurs when triggers cause one or both partners to revert to their wounded or adaptive parts. This step requires re-parenting or getting in touch with the wounded parts by bringing them into awareness. Once they are acknowledged and accepted, it can reduce flooding or defensiveness, ultimately allowing the Wise Adult to be in charge. 

In RLT, this work is not done behind closed doors or in solo work. Instead, it is most often done in the presence of the partner, so that each partner sees and believes what the other is going through.

The Many Benefits of Healing Underlying Wounds In Couples Therapy

When we don’t deal with our past wounds, we can relapse into old patterns when things get rough. We can have all the relationship skills in the world, but they are meaningless if we become flooded or overreact when we are triggered. 

Going through this process with a partner can also allow for more vulnerability and emotional understanding. It can deepen empathy, leading to less blame and more compassion. 

In RLT, couples learn to identify moments in their relationship when they’ve felt overwhelmed, shut down, or reactive – and then identify which child part (wounded or adaptive) was activated when it happened. Couples then learn to witness each other’s experience without trying to fix each other. 

Phase 2 Is Essential Before Step 3

RLT emphasizes that we should not rush into teaching communication skills or tools until the inner work is underway. If skills are taught too early, when clients are still flooded or reactive, they will not stick. The moment of triggering will override the newly learned skills. 

The transformation here is emotional and somatic (felt in the body), preparing the couple for relational change that lasts.

Step 3: Cultivating Relational Skills

Once partners are more centered, less reactive, and more connected to their wise adult selves, phase three is about learning and practicing relational skills that enable intimacy, repair, and ongoing growth. This step puts it all together as a day-to-day practice.

In Relational Life Therapy, this means teaching how to maintain connection even under stress. Couples learn how to speak their truth, listen deeply, take time outs when feeling overwhelmed, repair when things go wrong, and how to think as a couple rather than two isolated selves.

Some Key Relational Skills Include: 

1. Asserting Power Lovingly: Expressing needs and boundaries in a way that honors one’s partner rather than attacking or retreating. It’s combining truth and care. For example, “I’m upset by how that sounded. I want to hear what you meant. Can you say it in a different way so I can listen?
2. Repair and Offering Feedback. This includes apology, acknowledgment, asking, responding, and resetting.
3. Cherishing. Clients learn small daily ways to express appreciation, attentiveness, softness, gratitude, and caring. 
   
4. Having A Team Mindset. Instead of defaulting to their own perspective, partners learn to shift toward “our system.” 
   
5. Empathic Listening and Mirroring. Couples learn how to reflect back what they heard, validating emotional content without being dismissive.
6. Incorporating Boundaries and “Gentle Power.” Partners get a better sense of when to say “no,” when to step in, and how to do so in a way that protects the relationship and each individual.
7. Relational Mindfulness. Together, cultivating moment-to-moment awareness of how one’s internal state is affecting the couple’s dynamic.
   

When these skills become habits, the couple becomes more resilient, as small ruptures are repaired quickly, emotional disconnection is less likely to spiral, and deep intimacy becomes sustainable.

Ready To Try Relational Life Therapy? Consider These Tips First

1. Be patient but persistent. Transformation doesn’t happen instantly. You may cycle back through phases, revisit wounds, and refine relational skills constantly.
2. Own your part. Each partner must take responsibility for their contributions. Blame is a trap.
   
3. Use a therapist who you trust. A skilled practitioner offers loving confrontation, helps track stances, and supports the inner child work.
   
4. Create safe moments for vulnerability. Carve out time when neither  of you are triggered to reflect, share, listen.
   
5. Pay attention to patterns, especially big triggers. The greatest insight often comes from noticing how you both show up when under stress.
   
6. Practice repair quickly. The longer you let rupture linger, the further the disconnection grows.
   
7. Celebrate relational wins and growth. Even small shifts matter deeply!
   
8. Revisit inner work regularly. Wounds require ongoing care. 
   

If you are ready for something new in your relationship, we invite you to reach out to our Client Care team via phone, email, or free 15-minute consultation to learn how Relational Life Therapy with Dr. Mark Simpson might be a good fit for you and your partner.