Sydney and Andrew

My wife and I had been married 22 years when we came to Well Marriage Center for help.  Sydney is a night-owl and has always liked reading in bed until late.  I had found a new job that forced me to be up early in the morning.  I started sleeping in our guest room and bringing my clothes with me for the next morning.  Before we knew it, I was pretty much living in the other room and we were stuck in a rut.  We had been sleeping apart for about 3 years.  This destroyed our intimacy and had us both feeling very disconnected with each other.  I don’t think I realized how alone each of us felt in our marriage until Sydney told me she didn’t know if our marriage would make it.  She described it as a “catastrophic disconnection.”  We needed help.  What we appreciated about Michael Fronce from the very beginning was his confident and warm demeanor.  He spent the first meeting learning all about what had initially attracted us to each other and what had allowed us so much marital success before now.  I swear we left that first session feeling really upbeat and hopeful.  That set the tone for all the work we were about to do.  Michael worked with us on the concept of “us” and the concept of “team.”  He helped us explore some pretty deep attachments we had formed and how they had been injured, damaged or rerouted over the previous few years.  He wanted me to be honest with this write-up, so let me just say, it’s really vulnerable work.  Good marriage counseling probably doesn’t work unless you are both able to humble yourselves.  But when you start to feel that trust come back and that safety come back…it’s worth it!  Sydney and I together decided to redesign our bedroom and create a space we could both feel good about and comfortable in.  We had equal say and worked through it with Michael.  Over the past several months we’ve broken out of our ruts and have changed our routines.  We’re feeling truly excited to have our connection back.  Bottom line: we felt really confident in Michael from the very beginning which was a big deal for both of us considering we had friends who had bad marriage counseling experiences.  We could tell he knew what he was doing.  I’d recommend him to all my friends.  Both Sydney and I have told Michael that his support, knowing we weren’t alone, had made all the difference in the world.