Couple Forward, PLLC

Christian specializes in helping couples navigate their relationships. Christian has 20+ years of experience guiding others through their journey. Married To Amber for 30 years, and having raised three daughters has uniquely prepared him for being a reflective therapist with whom clients feel connected. Specifically trained and licensed in Marriage & Family Therapy, Gottman Couples Therapy and Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, Christian combines his creative personality to bring clients lasting solutions. Most couples think communication is the problem. It’s not. The real problem is the pattern underneath every conversation — and the story that pattern keeps telling you about your relationship. Couple Forward isn't about learning how to talk to each other better. This is a complete way to rewire your pattern and reframe the very concept and definition of what long-term relationships are about — and how they can be healthy. At Couple Forward, we approach this through the neurobiology of brain development — understanding how early attachment experiences shape your nervous system, your emotional responses, and the way you connect as an adult. By working at this root level, you gain the key to unlock recurring conflict and dissolve the invisible barriers that keep you from feeling close. Love is a mirror. Love is a mission. Every relationship reflects not just the present moment, but the emotional blueprints and survival styles you developed long before you met each other. Here’s the Couple Forward Roadmap we’ll walk together through in our work — a process that lets you reverse engineer your current relationship challenges into a deeper understanding of their root causes, so you can finally interrupt the loop: individual trigger → a moment mapped in your current relationship that sparks a big reaction and activates something inside you tied to your core and subjective attributions. often felt first as secondary emotions (anger, frustration, defensiveness, shame), these emotions connect to the “masks” we wear and the stories or beliefs we tell ourselves. ↓ relationship patterns & loops → the brain-coded loop between you and your partner, driven by automatic and autonomic attachment styles [fight | flight | freeze | fawn], developed individually in early primary relationships. secondary emotions fuel the visible loop, while primary emotions remain unseen beneath it. ↓ survival strategies + nervous system wiring → protective adaptations written by early unmet needs, stored in the body’s default settings. this is where primary emotions (fear, sadness, grief, joy, love) live as part of the brain and body’s original “source code.” these raw signals shaped the way you learned to manage or avoid connection. ↓ core attachment needs + early coding → connection | attunement | trust | autonomy | love & sexuality — foundational needs that shaped your brain’s patterns for safety and predictability. unmet needs here created the original blueprint for both your survival strategies and attachment style. If you’ve ever felt like you’re having the same fight over and over — just with different words — this work is for you. You will break free from the patterns that keep you stuck: -Finally understand why the same arguments and disconnections keep happening — and trace them all the way back to their roots. -Learn in-the-moment tools to steady yourself when your nervous system is triggered, so conversations don’t spiral out of control. -Shift the stories you tell yourself about your partner (and yourself) so they build trust and closeness instead of defensiveness and distance. -Create a clear, shared path forward so you’re no longer living in the same exhausting loop. Because love isn’t something you just fall into — it’s something you build. And building a relationship that’s reframed and recoded leads to connection that feels safe, alive, and lasting.