Stephen Bickle: my training, my method, and what to expect.
If you are on this page you are checking whether I am worth an afternoon of your life and a difficult conversation with your spouse. Fair. Here is everything, including the parts that are not credentials.
I am a relationship coach, not a therapist. I will say that more than once on this page, because the difference matters and because plenty of people need the other one.
Free, 15 minutes, no pitch. Every session is online, from your own couch.
My qualification started as a failure
My wife and I have been together 36 years, over 25 of them married. In 2019, after five rounds of couples therapy, we were as close to finished as two people get while still sharing an address. I was doing everything I knew how to do and losing her anyway. Slowly, politely, and then all at once.
What changed it was not another book and not another therapist. I joined a men’s team and did emotional intelligence training, and for the first time I understood what my wife had been asking me for, and how little of it I had ever given her. Not because I was a bad man. Because nobody had taught me, and I had never once asked.
Everything I coach now got tested in that marriage first. The parts that did not work got thrown out. What was left became a model, and that model has helped hundreds of couples since.
So when I say I know what it is like to sit on your side of it, I am not being warm at you. I have been there, and I nearly lost everything doing it my own way.
What I have done, studied and lived through
The work is grounded in real training and in 36 years of real life application. Here it is without the polish.
- Certified Relationship Coach, Fisher Relationship Coach Academy. Completed May 2024 under Dr. Wyatt Fisher, an accredited relationship coaching program carrying ICF Continuing Coach Education units. It is also why the conflict resolution tool on this site credits his work. I trained in it.
- 36 years together, over 25 of them married. Every framework I teach I tested in my own marriage first. The ones that did not hold up got discarded.
- Men’s team and emotional intelligence training. The turning point. Learning to show up as a grounded, present partner rather than a more aggressive or more agreeable one.
- The REUNITE framework. A structured process I developed for surfacing and clearing resentments. It is the backbone of everything I do with couples, and it was built on real couples with real problems, not in a classroom.
- Author of the Healing Resentments eBook and a Medium contributor. I publish the method rather than gate it. You can read the whole thing free and decide for yourself whether I know what I am talking about.
- Based in Santa Monica, every session online. I work with couples anywhere in the country and internationally, by video, from wherever they are.
- Over 35 years designing technology systems. My other work is architecture and technical leadership, including a fractional CTO practice at bicklecto.com. It is not a coaching credential, but it is why I build a plan on paper instead of leaving you with a nice feeling.
What REUNITE actually is
Most couples do not need a new insight. They need a safe structure for a conversation they have already failed at six times. That is all REUNITE is: turn taking with rules, so the thing finally gets said and finally gets heard.
- One partner brings a resentment. Specifically, not generally. What happened, how it felt, what they needed. “I feel” and “I need”, never “you always”.
- The other reflects it back. Out loud, in their own words, until the first one says yes, that is it. No rebuttal is allowed here. This is the step everybody wants to skip and the step that does the work.
- They own their part. Not all of it, not none of it. Their part, without the justification that usually follows it half a second later.
- They offer empathy. Not agreement, not an explanation. Just naming what it must have felt like on the other side of them.
- A real apology. To the impact, not the intention. “I am sorry that what I did made you feel unimportant” lands. “I never meant that” does not.
- Amends and a path forward. One concrete thing they will do differently, small enough to actually happen this week.
- Then you switch. Both people deserve to be understood, and a resentment backlog is almost never one sided.
You can try the short version of this tonight for free. The mini conflict resolution tool, which draws on the work of Dr. Wyatt Fisher, is one page. The full Reunite Tool is the reconnection version for when you are not fighting, just far apart.
In an intensive we run this on the whole backlog rather than one incident, which is why it takes hours instead of minutes, and why most couples start to really feel the difference in six to eight hours of work. Here is how the intensives are structured.
What coaching is not, and when I send you elsewhere
This is the part most coaching pages leave out, and it is the part that should decide whether you book.
- Not therapy, and not a substitute for it
- Not a diagnosis or any kind of clinical treatment
- Not a referee who decides which of you is right
- Not years of working out how you got here
- Not a room where one partner gets fixed while the other watches
- Forward looking work on the relationship itself
- Tools you practice in the room, not concepts you are told
- A written plan you both helped build
- Homework, and someone holding you both to it
- The relationship as the client, always, never one of you
I refer out, and I do it often. If there is active addiction, abuse, or something that needs clinical treatment, a licensed therapist is the right answer and I will say so on the free call rather than take your money. The same goes if one of you is only in the room to be able to say you tried. Coaching needs two people who want something, even if one of them is only at maybe.
If you want to work the difference out for yourself before you call, I wrote the honest comparison of a coach versus a therapist, including the cases where I think therapy wins.
What people want to know before they trust me with this
Are you a licensed therapist?
No. I am a relationship coach. I am a Certified Relationship Coach through the Fisher Relationship Coach Academy, trained under Dr. Wyatt Fisher and completed in May 2024. Alongside that, a men’s team and emotional intelligence work, 36 years in my own marriage, and the REUNITE framework I built and have used with couples since. If you need a licensed therapist I will tell you on the free call.
How many couples have you worked with?
I am careful with this one, because everybody inflates it. What I will say is that this is a model that has helped hundreds of couples, and that the specific work you would do with me has been tested on real people with real backlogs, not written up from a textbook.
What makes an intensive different from weekly counseling?
An hour a week gives your defenses six days to rebuild. An intensive runs in half days, so you get past the surface fight and reach the real one in the same sitting. Most couples start to really feel the difference in six to eight hours of work.
Do you take sides?
No, and I am rigid about it. The relationship is the client. I am not there to back one of you and fix the other, which is usually the thing the more reluctant partner, often the husband, is bracing for when he walks in.
Do you work online?
Online, always. I am in Santa Monica and the work runs by video from wherever you are. That is a deliberate choice. People are more honest on their own couch than in a stranger's office, and there is no drive home afterward to undo what just got built.
Decide after fifteen minutes, not after this page
Reading about someone only gets you so far. Tell me what is happening and I will tell you honestly whether I am the right person for it.
Free, 15 minutes, no commitment. Or call (424) 264-2200.