A lot of people seek out the help of a counselor because they're experiencing a conflict with their partner and can’t understand the other person’s perspective. They’ll claim marriage issues are coming up because they feel like their partner has changed or has started picking fights out of the blue.

The true reason behind most of these marriage issues, though, is that we go into a relationship with ideas of who a person is, and it’s only later that we begin to see all that person’s complexities. This causes us to realize that they’re not always going to do what we expect or want all the time.

This, as you might imagine, can be an unpleasant surprise.

However, these differences between expectation and reality don’t have to spell the end of a long-term relationship.  It’s possible to work through conflicts with your partner and better understand where they’re coming from.

How? By practicing the skill of mirroring.

What You Need to Understand about Mirroring

Mirroring, in the context of a relationship, involves repeating what your partner says so you can better understand their true meaning. A word of caution, though: This absolutely does not mean doing a sarcastic imitation of your partner or throwing their words back at them in a hurtful way. In fact, if you don’t think you can neutrally repeat your partner’s words in the heat of the moment, you should wait to calm down before practicing mirroring.

If you do feel ready to practice mirroring, here is what you can do:

Listen first. Pay close attention to what your partner is saying; don’t interrupt. This is one of the hardest things to learn, but a relationship counselor can help.

Restate. Tell your partner that you want to make sure you understand what they’re saying, and that repeating what they’ve just said back to them will help. Then ask them if you got the restatement right.

Give your partner a chance to elaborate. If your partner says you got what they said wrong, give them a chance to re-explain. If they say you got it right, gently ask if there’s more they’d like to add.

Share your perspective. Once your partner feels they’ve said all they need to say, explain how you feel about the conflict. Try to be as clear as possible, and don’t just cast blame onto your partner.

Mirroring requires a lot of patience, and it can take time to get good at it. If you and your partner practice this skill, though, you’ll be better prepared to confront marriage issues as they come up.

Want more advice on how to incorporate mirroring into your relationship? Consider visiting a relationship counselor. I would be glad to talk to you and your partner about this form of dialoguing.

Originally published 10/10/13. Updated 3/17/26.

How can you grow more nurturing relationships and troubleshoot difficult ones?

Three types of visitors might particularly enjoy this material:

1. You're having trouble finding/sustaining meaningful relationships.

Maybe you’ve been looking for love, unsuccessfully, and you crave better answers regarding what’s holding you back. Or maybe you're simply having trouble meeting new friends here in Delaware. You want to know: is it you? Is it the people you're meeting? Or is it some combination? This blog will help you find relationships that really work.

2. You're struggling with one or more key relationships.

Maybe you and your spouse have grown distant since the kids were born. Or maybe you and a business partner/long-time friend cannot talk about a work problem without fighting. This blog will serve up useful ideas and strategies to get your communication back on track.

3. You’d like to get more out of an already fulfilling relationship.

Perhaps you want to revitalize your spark in the bedroom; or maybe you crave more meaningful conversations with a parent or close friend who’s been stricken with a disease. Again, this blog will open your mind to positive and resourceful ways of getting more out of your relationships.

If you're interested in connecting with a licensed Delaware counselor and psychologist, give Walt a call today at 302-478-4285 Ext 1.

Originally published 2.8.12. Updated 11.11.25.

See if this sounds familiar: you grew up imagining that you would find your one true soulmate. That the two of you would complete each other. That you would live happily ever after.

Even if those things aren’t one hundred percent true for you, chances are good that – at least in some ways – a part of you has an idealistic view of what a strong relationship should look like. It’s almost impossible not to because we’ve been so saturated with unrealistic depictions of romance in media and society in general.

For most people, reality does not work this way. This doesn’t mean that you will not experience amazing love, but rather that things are rarely as simple as they are in stories. The pressures of life accumulate, leaving even the strongest relationships feeling stagnant or strained. Responsibilities like bills, childcare, chores, and personal pursuits overshadow our connection, fostering feelings of emptiness and distance. Instead of journeying together, we find ourselves walking parallel paths – or worse, paths that are slowly diverging.

This narrative is all too common: the initial spark of romance fades as daily routines take precedence. But it does not have to. You can achieve your dream relationship.

How?

Working Together to Give Your Relationship a Purpose and a Meaning

Without purposeful direction, relationships can drift aimlessly, leading to disjointed attempts at conflict resolution. What once united us in shared dreams may now clash with individual desires, making it challenging to align separate visions into a coherent reality.

What’s the solution?

You need to deliberately craft a shared vision for your relationship with your partner. When you do this, you will be able to refocus on a brighter future, because this collaborative endeavor merges your individual aspirations, values, and needs into a unified vision. This can help both of you in working to make it your conscious reality. 

In other words, each of you came into your relationship with a unique idea of what that perfect relationship – that “dream relationship” would be. But you’re different people with different goals, so if you continue working toward those goals separately, those dreams are practically destined to come into conflict.

But when you work to create a shared vision of your relationship together, you have the opportunity to co-create a new ideal dynamic that works for both of you. It might not replicate your initial “dream,” but in many ways it has the potential to be even better.

Crafting a Shared Relationship Vision

The initial step entails defining individually what each of you desire from your relationship. Reflect on how you want to feel, the activities you want to share, and your vision for various aspects of partnership, from intimacy to finances to parenting. Express these statements in the present tense, as if they're already a part of your reality.

Afterward, set aside time with your partner to exchange these statements. Identify the ones that resonate with both of you and combine them to create a joint "Relationship Vision." Then pledge to recite these statements to each other daily for a month.

Obviously, these are only the initial steps. You are setting your joint intentions for what you want to work toward – you’ll still have to actually put the work in and do it.

But these preliminary actions establish the groundwork for cultivating a relationship that strives to be the one you both envision.