Home Page » Relationship Advice

Which of these Five Crimes is

Killing Your Relationship?

If you're serious about saving your marriage you need to read this!

Do you continue to agonise over whether you and your partner are really meant to be together?
Are you exhausted asking yourself whether you should stay or go, and you still don't know the right answer?
Are you tired of having the same conversations about your partner with your friends?
Are you worried you're wasting time in a relationship that will never go anywhere?
Do you feel like you're on an emotional roller coaster of misery?

The 5 Crimes That Are Killing Your Relationship

Would you like to rediscover the person you fell in love with or even have them rediscover their love for you?

Well now you can, even if your situation appears hopeless.

Most couple's I work with are stunned that their love lives are in such a painful state. Once you were the best of friends and magnetically drawn to one another, now you're in the unfortunate position of at least one of you feeling repelled by the other. You find yourselves fighting over so many things, big and small, and wondering if you're just wasting your time being together. It's shocking because deep down you probably love each other and can't believe you've ended up in this place. I hate to say it but you're going to need help because, in the crunch you two are in right now, the only place your love is heading is out the door. You need to know that there are only five things you can be doing that are killing your relationship. Are you or your partner guilty of any of these?

1.    Needing to be right.
2.    Controlling your partner.
3.    Uncontrolled/unbridled self expression.
4.    Retaliation.
5.    Withdrawal or stonewalling.

I'm willing to bet that when you add it up, you and your partner are doing at least three of the things I've listed above. The sad fact is you will continue to do so, no matter how hard you try not to and no matter how clearly someone explains that these things are destroying your marriage!

Your average marriage therapist would just tell you to stop doing them but they are ignoring the fact that deep inside there is a piece of you that makes it impossible to do so. You know this is true because no matter how hard you try to behave better you still manage to behave like a bull in a china shop when you get upset or angry.

The problem is that when you're locked into any one of those five losing strategies you can never win and you can never get what you want. I know it's infuriating and very painful. You've probably tried every other way of getting out of the mess you're in but you still feel trapped! And in a sense you are.

Michael knows exactly how to get a couple out of trouble and is fearless...

Before working with Michael I was very sceptical about therapy for couples and did not believe that any outsider could fully understand me, my partner or our situation well enough to be of help.

At best, I expected clichés and a quick fix that would wear out after a short time.

Michael is different and not at all what I had imagined in my cynical mind.

He knows exactly how to get a couple out of trouble and is fearless, original and talented in his approach.

Michael has provided permanent solutions that have eliminated the stony silences and my dark moods of the past.

My home is once again a place of light, laughter and love – a sanctuary that I genuinely return to with excitement and anticipation.

I can never thank Michael enough – he has saved me from myself and saved my relationship with my best friend and lover.

Chris Turner
Company Director

Who Else Wants To Know How To Stop What's Destroying Your Relationship

Through experience, I can tell you that the most important shift you have to make as a couple is this. You absolutely must gain an awareness of how to work with that vicious 'gremlin', that piece that will never let you change. In order to permanently dismantle the destructive dynamic you throw at each other you need to know it intimately and deflate it. Ending what could be referred to as your forty year war locked in together with the relationship killers.

Let me give you a shortened example of a killer dynamic.

Alexandra get's home to Mark who's sitting at the kitchen table, she realises Mark is a little withdrawn, this makes her slightly nervous so she asks him what's wrong. Mark doesn't want to talk as he's not sure himself about why he's feeling unhappy and it takes him a while to process things.

Alexandra fears he may be having a problem with her so she asks again but now there's a nervous edge to her voice which she isn't even aware of. Mark hears this edge as frustration with his grumpiness and starts to feel angry about her 'demands' on him to talk.

In his 'calmest yet cutting' (which Alexandra experiences as cold and withdrawn) voice says 'nothing dear'. His tone gives Alexandra all the evidence she needs to be certain that Mark is angry with her (which he is now, so in a way she's right) and she starts shouting at him about how if only he'd talk about it they could fix it. Mark now has absolutely no idea what he was originally down about but he's totally sick of Alexandra's 'nagging', he silently rises from the table slamming the door behind him to the sound of Alexandra's fury.

I'd refer to this as their 'the more-the more!'. The more Mark becomes withdrawn the more Alexandra starts to pursue, the more Alexandra pursues - the more Mark withdraws. I'm not joking when I say that I've met couple's who've been trapped in the above dynamic for forty years with no idea how it's happening. Initially they spend their time trying to understand it by dissecting each argument which generally sets them off again. Or they do their best to avoid their dynamic by never talking about anything that may trigger it. This creates tons of resentment, which total kills any feelings of intimacy, and your desire for each other is destroyed.

The great news is you only need two really simple tools to stop doing this once you totally understand the dynamic you two are stuck in. It's really simple once you understand your 'the more-the more', the only downside is that it's practically impossible to pin point your own problem so you're going to need help. Let's face it, if you could fix it on your own you would have by now.

If you feel now that this is the right step for you to take, give me a call...

I'll talk you through exactly why this process has worked for thousands of clients and how it can work for you too.

Click on the button below and we'll set up that chat so you can find out more.

Dismantle The Pain, Save Your Marriage...

1. You Deserve The Best Marriage Help There Is.

If you want the Rolls Royce of marriage counselling for you and your partner together, then attend my ½ Day Intensive Couples Therapy Session.

We first visited Michael because we weren’t sure that our marriage was still worth the effort. We’d already tried counselling and had got nowhere, but Michael was different...

He immediately identified our underlying problems. He often says things we don’t want to hear, but balances his insights with humour and compassion. Michael has saved our marriage and has helped us as individuals in the process – we’re happier than we’ve ever been!

Ashley and Bruce in London

2. Using Terrence Real’s Revolutionary Approach, Relational Empowerment...

Hear from one of the world’s best
relationship therapists,
Terrence Real, exactly why
traditional marriage therapy
could destroy your marriage!

I have trained at, and am a faculty member of, the Relational Life Institute in the USA under the personal guidance of its founder Terrence Real. Terrence is one of the world's leading couples' therapists and a bestselling author who has developed a revolutionary new approach to couples therapy called 'Relational Empowerment'. In case you're interested I'm English myself but found the training in the UK to be sadly lacking because it's stuck in an outdated model. I didn't want any part of continuing to facilitate a couple's breakup so I decided to travel for what is, in my opinion and those of the researchers above, better training.

Relational Empowerment therapy shows you the particular dynamic which has been operating specifically in your relationship and why it's going wrong. Meaning you'll leave the session with a set of practical tools for you both to use to get you back on track.

I promise to begin by doing the deeper work required to uncover which of the five losing strategies you’re stuck in which is leading to conflict. I’ll dismantle it, rather than teach you how to live with it.
We’re going to work out the cause of your pain rather than just dealing with your symptoms. You wouldn’t want to live with a runny nose and hacking cough for the rest of your life would you?

A Testimonial from One of the Best Relationship Therapists in the World!

"You Michael, are a real resource in London. You've done extensive training with us. You're a senior person, you know what you're doing, and I feel very lucky to have you on board. I feel perfectly delighted recommending anybody who wants to do this work to contact you.'

Terrence Real founder of 'The Relational Life Institute' and author of
'The New Rules of Marriage.'

3. With Leading Couples Therapy Coach, Michael Myerscough...

Private intensive sessions are held at my office in London and people come to me from as far away as Iran so you don't have to let location limit you. The Half Day Intensive Couples Therapy Session is for you if you are a couple looking to improve or save your relationship. As Terrence states, 'This therapy is unique and extraordinarily effective.'

To find out more about booking a Couples Therapy Session for you and your partner contact us now. We'll get back to you, have a chat over the phone to discuss your unique situation and whether this is the right step for you to take.

Warning! The Truth They Don’t Want You To Know

...About Traditional Marriage Counselling....

Twenty years ago I was in a relationship with a woman I dearly loved and it was terrible. We'd spend hours, if not days, trying to figure out if we were really meant to be together. We used to argue in ways I really wasn't proud of and said some truly horrible things to each other. At the suggestion of a well meaning friend we went to an established organisation for marriage counselling. At our counsellors insistence we both worked hard at mastering conflict management, found new and interesting ways to be 'totally honest' with each other and within twelve months we'd destroyed what love we had left for each other. As a result I started to study marriage counselling in detail as I wanted to know how to make a relationship work. In the process I found out several things that are well kept secrets in this country.

It turns out that when it comes to marriage counselling, the best thing most therapists have in mind is to help you break up elegantly - which is what they assume you want. Clearly I'm not talking about all therapists but it's a pretty common inside joke. This horrified me so I did some research and it became obvious that a lot of what was taken as gospel in marriage counselling just isn't true.

You don't have to take my word for it; Dr. John Gottman has done research over decades and demonstrated that traditional marriage therapy doesn't work. The moment your therapist starts talking about active listening or conflict resolution you should run for the hills. After studying 650 couples and tracking them for upwards of 14 years it became clear to him that successful conflict resolution isn't what makes a marriage succeed. In fact, most of the happiest couple's rarely do anything that resembles conflict management. It turns out, the only reason it appeared to these counsellors that most couple's wanted to break up, is that a break up was the typical result of that kind of therapy.

it's Hard To Ignore The Facts

1. Consumer Reports did a survey of Psychotherapists and most got very high satisfaction marks - except for marriage counselling which got tragically poor ratings.

2. A Munich based study found that after employing 'active listening' type skills the typical couple was still in pain. The few couple's that did benefit relapsed within a year.

3. Neil Jacobson, PHD of the University of Washington found that 'conflict resolution' based therapies have a very high relapse rate, it started out with a 35 percent success rate but within a year, half of that group, a tiny 18 percent of couples who entered therapy, retain those results.

Consider The Cost

Now, those statistics may read like numbers to everyone else but I'm hoping that you and I are clear that we're talking broken hearts, broken families and massive financial cost here.

Did you know that according to a survey by the Norwich Union, your average divorce will cost you £13,000 (Just double that for dollars!). In fact when you add in things like both having to find new places to live it jumps to £28,000. So if the pain you're in right now isn't enough for you to get real marriage counselling, then you may want to consider the implications of financial hardship. As I said earlier, I'm not interested in helping you break up; my focus is on saving your marriage, if at all possible.

What this therapy is not...

It's not traditional counselling. Whoever thought that sitting next to your partner sharing the things you hate about them and then hearing the same vitriol back from your partner was going to help your relationship?! Practically the only differences between traditional counselling and your normal arguments is that you have someone watching you do it, it's done at a lower volume and you get longer to think about how bad it feels for you! I know it didn't work for me and I'm pretty sure it won't work for you either.

The truth for a lot of couples is that one or both of you have learned behaviours in your life that, when you get together in a relationship with your partner, are destructive.

You need a relationship expert to pinpoint the behaviours at the source of your issues and help you not only understand them yourself, but to learn and integrate winning strategies that will allow you and your partner to totally transform your relationship.

Many of my clients find me after working with two or more traditional marriage counsellors without being able to stop their pain and the steady slide towards divorce.

'Fixed A Marriage I Thought Was Over'

Michael saved both my marriage and myself. I had a crush on another woman which was splitting our marriage. Within two sessions, I realized that firstly I was suffering from depression and two that my crush on this other woman was my way of escaping the bleakness. This was helpful because I was able to let go of the crush and return emotionally to my wife.

My wife is probably even happier with Michael than I am. She has received a husband who is much more emotionally literate, able to handle intimacy and who is working his way out of the gloom that was murdering our marriage. I hated the idea of long months in the therapy chair working on my childhood issues but this was much clearer. Of course we did look at my past, but mainly we looked at solutions for my present state. We travelled in from Munich and Michael fixed a marriage I thought was over. He’s brilliant and I highly recommend him. A big thanks to Michael!

Gary in Munich

Read the Full Version here...

Close [X]

It was a unusual set of circumstances that led me to Michael. I had a crush on another woman which was splitting our marriage. This was unusual because I was really happy in my marriage although outside of this I had, had a large business upset that was dragging me down. My wife and I came to see Michael about saving our marriage following a recommendation from a friend. It ended up that Michael saved both my marriage and myself.

Well Michael showed me clearly what was going on although he did it in a very helpful way. I mean, if he had just told me on day one and I am pretty sure he could have, that would have been too much for me. He surely and safely cut through the confusion and made things very clear for me. Nonetheless, it was really unexpected. Being a typical guy with no real sense of my "inner" emotional life, I was doing one thing while another was going on inside. But before I tell you what was happening let me tell you how Michael worked.

Of course there were the intensive sessions with him but there was also homework. He had me memorize a short list of emotions, and then he had me work through them feeling each one of them so that I knew what they were.

In this way I developed a better language to express what was going on inside - and crucially, the knowledge of what was happening since I had really been unaware before this.

It was fun, kind of like a project on myself. Then Michael showed me specific models of 'relational' behaviour and asked me to work out how I operated. Now I was expecting him to do that for me! I think Michael with all his experience pretty much knew what was going on with me but he wanted me to learn by practicing looking at myself with a new set of tools.

Quite quickly, within two sessions, I realized that firstly I was suffering from a mild depression and two that my crush on this other woman was my way of escaping the bleakness. This was helpful because I was able to let go of the crush and return emotionally to my wife.

As a bonus, Michael gave my wife and I a number of wonderful tools to increase our intimacy and love for each other back home in Germany. At the same time he had me working on my depression using a few very simple techniques.

The whole process with Michael amazed me. My wife is probably even happier with Michael than I am...

She has received a husband who is much more emotionally literate, able to handle intimacy and who is working his way out of the gloom that was murdering our marriage. Of course there is still work to do but Michael has given me the tools to do this on my own and I feel empowered and enlightened. We travelled in from Munich and Michael fixed a marriage I thought was over. He's brilliant and I highly recommend him. A big thanks to Michael!

Build A Relationship That's Even Better Than It Was

Couples Counselling - marriage guidance What would your relationship be like if the arguments you have now, never occurred again? If when you feel angry or hurt in your relationship you and your partner know how to deal with the source of it, in a way that actually strengthens your relationship over time?

If you are like a lot of my clients, you're often stuck in conflicts that are the equivalent of throwing petrol at the fire in order to put it out. When you're fed up with doing that in your relationship let me show you where the petrol tap is, how to turn it off and how to relight your passion for each other instead.

The truth is, when you're mired deep in the depths of a relationship gone wrong it's not easy to see what you should be doing. I will teach you how to use specific tools, so that not only will you get the help you need in the session, but you can also take something away with you to rebuild and strengthen your relationship on an ongoing basis.

Wouldn't you think if a counsellor knew how to guide you out of your problems it would be remiss of them to sit there and wait till you find your own solution? Personally I think it's borderline abusive! Who knows, perhaps you've already gone through traditional marriage counselling and found it fairly disappointing for sorting out your problems.

I sometimes liken traditional counselling to a British Airways pilot inviting you and your partner into the cockpit of his 747 and saying, "Look, we're all equal here. I'm just going to sit here while you work out how to fly this plane. But don't worry, I'll ask you lots of questions about how you feel when it's all going horribly wrong!" Sorry, but I think that's just terrible and I think you deserve better from a trained professional.

Don't Make This Painful Mistake

Half of all marriages that end do so in the first 7 years, and the statistics for your second marriage are actually worse. Most couple’s wait around 6 years before seeking professional help which means they’ve been living in misery far too long. Your marriage doesn’t have to die! The sad fact is that it’s often only when the divorce papers have been signed, the contents of your home split and you’re sitting alone in your new place that reality sinks in. Only then will you realise the depth of what you gave up on when you gave up on each other.

As Seen On...

If Michael can’t save your marriage, then it may not be salvageable.

Michael is fantastic! Thanks to him, our marriage has been saved and our passion for each other has been renewed.

At first his insight was a little alarming, but it is so well balanced with compassion and humour and we quickly realized it was going to be ok. We knew exactly what we needed to change, and how to go about it, within the first session. It’s been an incredible journey for us both and we couldn’t be more pleased or grateful.