Overcoming Relationship Resentment and Learning to Trust Intuition to Choose Marriage

Ken creates a magic, and he reunited different parts of me I had lost touch with for years. He has an ability to navigate the challenging dynamics between partnerships in a way no therapist [chuckles] that I've worked with or coach I have met has ever been able to do it. I am Kristen Struble, and I live in Dexter, Michigan, and I am a physician assistant by trade. My partner and I have been dating for two years, I wanna say, which was about the longest relationship I'd had before, at which point it had just self-imploded in the past. And so now when we was hitting that two-year... They talk about the seven-year itch, but for, [chuckles] for me, it's sometimes that two-year, "Oh, this is getting serious." We are repeating patterns and what kind of patterns do we wanna be in? How can we make conscious decisions about this? We had a misunderstanding about a year before that we had never addressed. At the time, we had our uncomfortable conversation about it, moved on, but it was not resolved in my body, and I had never resolved things before with partners. I would just bury it deep and then bring it up in a fight many months later. I feel like getting ready for marriage, I shouldn't be having these types of resentments already built so deeply in my system. And so I was wondering if he was someone I could truly trust with my whole body, my finances, as a roommate, as a future father. My husband, he suggested we work with a coach to really triage our relationship and decide, can we keep going? Can we go deeper? And are we the person for each other? We had interviewed with a few different coaches, and Ken was one of them. My husband, [chuckles] he said that Ken is probably the gold standard. And he said, "But we'll meet with them all to see who you feel the most comfortable with." And even in just the fifteen minutes we had with Ken, when we got off that call, I was practically in tears with excitement, feeling so seen and heard. I had told my partner that whatever we need to do, we need to do to be able to work with Ken, and it's changed my life. [chuckles] He touches my soul. We have tools now, thanks to Ken. He's a wizard. I would say something to Ken. He would translate it to my husband in real-time over just a few seconds. My husband would say, "Well, why didn't you just say that?" I was like, [chuckles] "I have been." Ken has this ability to soak in your body language and morph it into this beautiful tale, I suppose. There's no judgment. He's not attached to the outcome. He just is the essence of pure devotional love and also remains pointed and driven in a way that working with others, it can be tangential and fluff, and we'll get back to this or allows things to get sort of derailed. And Ken is so beautifully focused on the task at hand that we've created and asked for, but also creates space so we can really feel everything we're feeling. I cried, I yelled, [chuckles] I laughed. I felt supported by Ken in a number of ways. More than just on the call, he had talked with us to see what would suit us best. For instance, he'd be the mediator and guide us, so we wouldn't get lost in an argument at each other or frustration. He could feel the pulse of the conversation and lead us safely [chuckles] to where we needed to go next. I'd say my biggest obstacle while I was working with Ken was I was viewing dating in the context for marriage as playing chicken or a little bit of Russian roulette of once I decide, is there going to be something better, and will I have made a mistake? It was one of my biggest fears of choosing wrong. And Ken really broke down the walls around that for me and helped me see there's more fluidity. There's a lot more gray area in life, and to find what true yeses and nos are in your body and respect those. What we really worked on was my intuition. That's what helped me break down the barrier. I did not trust my intuition. It's not even something I really ever thought about. And so now we're living from a, an actual breathing of energy and commitment and love, and that's what led me to, yes, this is my person. My intuition has been screaming yes, but my checklists were afraid, and I'm really glad I listened, and he helped me learn my body intuition. Working with Ken, one of the biggest things I learned is that I can actually ask for what I want in all things, and it doesn't mean I'll be received with a yes, but the power to trust myself to know what it is and then ask for it has changed my life. And so if you were considering thinking working with Ken, I would tell you, first off, do it. I know there's-- could be a lot of hesitancy about time, or is it the right fit or money, which was a big one for us. It's a commitment to yourself and how strongly you show up and honoring what he can do too. He sees all the aspects of you. He works with finances. He works with emotional intelligence, logistics, past trauma, and really just seeing you and meeting you where you are. It's wonderful working with him.