By Stephanie Seidl, MA, LCPC
In early April 2019, Paul and I went on a date. Married nearly 16½ years, we were walking through one of the hardest seasons of our lives — and our marriage. That afternoon, we found ourselves sitting in our 2010 white Chrysler Town and Country, yelling at each other. Back and forth it went, leveling harsh words about each other’s character. No name-calling, but pure negativity. Eventually, we went quiet. I stopped talking to him for the rest of the night and all of the next day.
The following morning, I sent him a text: “I will not continue this conversation outside of a marriage counselor’s office.”Paul agreed to find one. Two weeks later, at 1:00 pm on a workday, we sat together in a counselor’s office. I remember asking myself silently, How did we get here?
What we began to see was the age-old reality of “death by a thousand cuts.” There had been no affair, no major betrayal, no single defining moment. Slowly, over time, our relationship had eroded — little cuts here and there — until we found ourselves squarely in what Dr. John Gottman calls negative sentiment override.
The Gottman Institute defines it this way:
“The residual emotions from every interaction — whether words, gestures, facial expressions, or body language — accumulate over time, becoming a new dimension of the relationship that derails the objectivity of current interactions. A partner silently harbors feelings of being unimportant, unwanted, or uncared for, and now perceives everything through a negative filter.”
In other words, we put on glasses of negativity. Every look, every action, every word got filtered through those glasses.
My glasses told me Paul didn’t care about me. If he came home late from work — proof. If he forgot something — proof. If he didn’t answer my call — more proof. My mind kept building its case that I wasn’t a priority to him. Meanwhile, Paul had his own story: he saw me as mean because of my strong boundaries. We were both deeply entrenched in what we believed about each other.
In therapy, we discovered a tool from Brené Brown — learning to name “the story in my mind.” We also learned a skill I now teach my own clients: get curious before furious. When we’d fall into our negative patterns, one of us would go to the other and say, “The story in my mind is…” and then name it. We gave each other the chance to speak truth into what we were each assuming. More often than not, we were both wrong.
We also began to see that many of these negative beliefs were rooted in our families of origin. We were constantly touching each other’s “raw spots” — a term Dr. Sue Johnson uses — triggering old wounds and reacting out of those wounds rather than truly seeing the person in front of us. The day our counselor looked at me and said, “Stephanie, you have to learn to be responsive, not reactive,” was a turning point. I had to slow down and get curious with myself — to understand why I was feeling what I was feeling, and to learn the difference between wounds from my life story and wounds from my marriage.
As a counselor who works with couples, I see this pattern all the time. People wait until they’re in dire straits before reaching out for help. But you don’t have to wait. Things don’t have to be falling apart before you seek support. Marriage takes consistent attention, connection, and attunement — and asking for help is one of the strongest things you can do for it.
Our process took about a year, with real ups and downs. I won’t pretend it was easy. It required both of us to take an honest look at ourselves without waiting for the other person to change first — something that didn’t come naturally to me as a strong-willed, tenacious woman. There were moments I got genuinely angry with our counselor when truth was spoken to me. But I am so glad we did the work. Seven years later, our marriage is in a completely different place — one of connection, attunement, and more enjoyment of each other than we’ve ever experienced.
If you’re hurting, don’t wait. Reach out. We’re here for you.
Restoration Counseling, PLLC 
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