My partner and I recently realized that after being together for eight years we’ve never really communicated. In fact all we’ve ever done is sweep our issues under the carpet and pretend everything is perfect. We did it so well we even had ourselves fooled. Unfortunately there’s just too much stuff and now the carpet is lumpy. Everything seems to be unraveling. We were advised to try Imago therapy, evidently it’s specifically aimed at couples and creates a safe space for both parties to air the points of view. Neither of us like talking so we thought why not try Margie [Margie Donde, principal of the Kinesiology Centre for International Studies, South Africa] first? She spoke to us for quite a long time (neither of us were very happy) and then she decided to work on us together. It was incredible, we were completely in-sync. At the end she encouraged us to talk (even less happy). We didn’t feel too different when we left and on the way home I suggested that since there was obviously no way around it we’d better seek Imago therapy as I didn’t feel confident enough to do it ourselves. That was Tuesday. Today is Thursday and while we’re nowhere close to perfect the progress in such a short space of time is nothing short of remarkable. We’re communicating confidently and clearly. We’re also having a lot a more small disagreements, which is good because before we wouldn’t say anything at all if something was bugging us. And now when we do disagree it’s over really quickly.