GARRICK D. CONNER

Garrick D. Conner, LPC-S, LMFT-S, CSAT, CMAT

When you love each other—but something between you isn’t working.

Most couples don’t come to therapy because they’ve stopped caring.

Often, it’s just the opposite.

They care deeply, but they’ve become caught in patterns neither person really knows how to change.

The same argument keeps happening. One person pursues while the other pulls away. Conversations that begin innocently somehow turn defensive. Sex and affection become complicated. Resentments accumulate. One or both partners begin to feel lonely—even while sharing the same home.

Sometimes there has been a betrayal that changes everything.

And sometimes there isn’t one dramatic problem at all. You simply look at one another and realize:

We’ve lost something along the way.

Couples therapy gives us a place to slow those patterns down, understand what is happening underneath them, and begin creating a different kind of connection.

The problem is rarely just the problem.

Couples often arrive talking about communication.

And communication certainly matters.

But underneath arguments about money, parenting, sex, household responsibilities, work, extended family, or whose turn it was to do whatever didn’t get done, something deeper is often happening.

Do I matter to you?
Can I count on you?
Do you understand me?
Am I safe with you?
Will you still be there when I need you?

Those are attachment questions.

Our earliest experiences of connection, safety, rejection, inconsistency, abandonment, or emotional availability can influence how we respond to the people we love years later. When those old wounds get touched, couples can become caught in predictable cycles of pursuing, withdrawing, criticizing, defending, controlling, appeasing, shutting down, or disconnecting.

The goal isn’t to decide which partner is “the problem.” It’s to understand the pattern that has become the problem.

More than 25 years of marriage and family therapy experience

Couples work has been an important part of my professional identity for more than two decades.

I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and have been a Clinical Fellow of the American Association for Marriage & Family Therapy (AAMFT) for more than 20 years.

AAMFT’s Clinical Fellow designation represents its credentialed level of professional membership and reflects established standards in marriage-and-family education, supervised clinical experience, and professional practice.

In other words, I don’t approach couples therapy as two individual therapy sessions happening in the same room.

I look at the relationship itself—the patterns between you, the emotional bonds underneath those patterns, and the ways each partner affects and responds to the other.

That systemic perspective matters.

Emotionally Focused Therapy: getting underneath the argument

A significant influence on my couples work is Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT).

EFT is grounded in adult attachment theory and focuses on the emotional bond between partners—particularly the patterns that develop when connection begins to feel threatened. The International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy describes the approach as centered on creating secure, resilient individuals and trusting relationships through emotional connection.

Instead of simply teaching couples to argue more politely, EFT helps us ask:

What is happening underneath this argument?

What fear gets activated?

What does one partner reach for when feeling disconnected?

What does the other do to protect himself or herself?

And how do those understandable responses accidentally reinforce the very disconnection both people hate?

That shift can be powerful.

When couples begin recognizing the cycle rather than seeing each other as the enemy, there is room for greater empathy, emotional responsiveness, and connection.

EFT also provides a particularly useful framework for understanding the relationship between attachment and intimacy, including sexual intimacy. Research and clinical writing within the EFT tradition specifically conceptualize sexuality within the context of the attachment bond between partners.

Restoration Therapy: understanding the patterns we carry

I am also a Level I Restoration Therapist.

Restoration Therapy integrates attachment theory, emotional regulation, and mindfulness to help people recognize deeply ingrained patterns involving identity, emotional safety, and relationships. Its model specifically helps couples identify recurring “pain cycles” and develop more thoughtful, regulated responses rather than simply reacting from old wounds.

I particularly appreciate Restoration Therapy because it gives couples a practical language for something many already intuitively understand:

What happens between us today is sometimes connected to what happened to us long before we met each other.

That doesn’t excuse harmful behavior.

But understanding where our reactions come from can help us take responsibility for them.

And responsibility creates the possibility of change.

Grace and humility matter in marriage.

Some couples come to therapy dealing with something far more painful than ordinary conflict.

An affair has been discovered.

Pornography or compulsive sexual behavior has been exposed.

There has been deception, secrecy, or a significant breach of trust.

In those situations, telling a couple simply to “communicate better” misses the seriousness of what has happened.

Betrayal can be traumatic.

The betrayed partner may experience intrusive thoughts, hypervigilance, anger, fear, sleep disruption, difficulty concentrating, emotional volatility, or an intense need to make sense of what happened.

Meanwhile, the partner who caused the injury may be carrying shame, defensiveness, fear, remorse, or uncertainty about how to begin repairing what has been damaged.

As a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist (CSAT) and Certified Multiple Addictions Therapist (CMAT), I have specialized training that helps me understand these dynamics when pornography, compulsive sexual behavior, infidelity, or addiction has entered the relationship.

Repair requires more than apologies.

It usually involves honesty, accountability, boundaries, emotional safety, grieving what has been lost, understanding the impact of the betrayal, and gradually rebuilding trust through consistent behavior over time.

There are no shortcuts.

But healing is possible.

You don’t have to be considering divorce to benefit from couples therapy.

Couples often come because:

• You keep having the same arguments without resolving anything.
• One of you pursues conversation while the other shuts down or withdraws.
• Emotional or sexual intimacy has diminished.
• You feel more like roommates than partners.
• Parenting, finances, work, extended family, or life transitions are creating strain.
• Resentment has accumulated.
• Trust has been damaged.
• There has been infidelity, pornography use, sexual addiction, or another significant betrayal.
• One or both of you feel lonely in the relationship.
• You still love each other but aren’t sure how to find your way back to one another.

Relationship difficulties can emerge during virtually any stage of a relationship—from early adjustment and raising children to major transitions such as empty nesting.

You don’t have to wait until the relationship is nearly over.

Sometimes couples therapy works best when the question is not:

“Can this marriage be saved?”

but simply:

“How can we take better care of what we have?”

For couples who want it, Christian faith can be thoughtfully integrated into our work.

Marriage often touches some of our deepest beliefs about covenant, forgiveness, sacrifice, sexuality, fidelity, grace, responsibility, and hope.

Those beliefs can become tremendous resources for healing.

They can also become distorted in ways that encourage shame, avoidance, control, or pressure someone to forgive before meaningful safety and accountability have been established.

We can talk about faith honestly.

My goal is not to use Scripture as a shortcut around difficult relational work. It is to allow faith—when you want it included—to become part of thoughtful, clinically sound therapy.

That’s the point.

You may arrive angry.

You may arrive exhausted.

One of you may be much more enthusiastic about therapy than the other.

You may even arrive uncertain whether the relationship can be repaired.

We can start there.

My job is not to take sides or determine who wins the argument.

It is to help us understand what is happening between you, create enough safety for honest conversations, and help each of you take responsibility for the part you can change.

Sometimes that means learning new ways of responding.

Sometimes it means grieving.

Sometimes it means rebuilding trust slowly.

And sometimes it means rediscovering something that has been there all along but has become buried beneath hurt, defensiveness, responsibility, and years of living life.

Ready to talk?

If you’re wondering whether couples therapy might be helpful, you’re welcome to call me at 501-819-3041.

I answer my own line, so if I’m in session or otherwise unavailable, leave me a message and I’ll get back with you as soon as I can.

You can also use my simple contact form, if that feels easier.

No pressure. We can simply have a brief conversation, answer whatever questions you have, and see whether working together makes sense.