The Jumpstart: a month of progress in one afternoon
For the couple who has had the same fight so many times you can both recite it, and who is not ready to sign up for six months of anything to make it stop. One afternoon. Two blocks of guided work. You go home with a written plan instead of another argument.
You do not need more time. You need a few uninterrupted hours with someone in the room who will not let either of you disappear.
No pressure and no pitch. Every session is online, part of my relationship coaching in Santa Monica and beyond.
The Jumpstart is built for a very specific afternoon
Not for couples in crisis, and not for couples ready to commit to a season of work. For the ones in between, who need the log jam broken before they can decide anything at all. None of this means your marriage is over.
If three or more of those landed, resentment is already doing the driving. Read the free guide on healing resentments before you book anything.
Already sure? Cut to the chase and book the call Fifteen free minutes. I will tell you straight whether the Jumpstart is the right one.
I sat through five rounds of couples therapy and still nearly lost my marriage
My wife and I have been together for 36 years. In 2019 we were strangers sharing a house, and we had already done the responsible thing five separate times. We sat on couches, we talked about where it came from, we were polite, and then we drove home and the walls went straight back up.
What finally moved us was not another hour a week. It was hours in a row, with nowhere to go, until the thing underneath actually came out. That is the whole reason this program exists in the format it does. An hour a week gives your defenses six days to rebuild. An afternoon does not.
A word to the husbands, because a lot of you are reading this over your wife’s shoulder. Nobody is going to tell you what is wrong with you for three hours. You will be asked what you actually need, probably for the first time in years, and you will get to say it without being interrupted. Men tend to arrive at the Jumpstart braced and leave it relieved.
Hour by hour, here is the afternoon
Nothing about this is open ended. Every block has a job, and you will know at every point what we are doing and why. You will not be sitting on a couch talking about your childhood.
- The first twenty minutes. I ask each of you, separately and in front of each other, what you want to be different by the time you leave. Not the whole marriage. Today. That answer becomes the target, and it is almost never the thing either of you expected to say out loud.
- Block one, ninety minutes: surface the resentments, both sides. Each partner takes a turn working the REUNITE method while the other listens under structure. Not to win, not to prove a point, to finally be heard. You name the specific hurts, the pattern that keeps repeating, and the things you stopped bringing up because it never went anywhere. Partners routinely tell me this is the first time in years they have felt genuinely heard.
- The fifteen minute break. Real, and non negotiable. You stretch, you get water, you do not talk about it. Going straight from surfacing into repair is how good afternoons turn into bad ones.
- Block two, ninety minutes: repair, and what your partner actually needs. Now we work the resentments instead of just naming them. Ownership, empathy, and the kind of apology that lands rather than the performative kind. Then the part most couples have never done: each of you finds out what the other actually needs, as opposed to what you have been assuming for a decade.
- The last twenty minutes: the Repair Roadmap. We write it down together. Specific behaviors each of you is committing to, how you will check in, and what you will do when the old pattern comes back, because it will come back. You leave with a document you both helped write, not a nice feeling that fades on the drive home.
Most couples start to really feel the difference in six to eight hours of work. The Jumpstart is three of them, done in one sitting instead of six separate weeks.
Everything that comes with the Jumpstart
The full half day
- Two 90 minute coaching blocks with a 15 minute break
- Both partners work through resentments using the REUNITE method
- The real fight underneath the surface fight, named out loud
- A written Repair Roadmap, your shared plan forward, before you leave
- The Bullseye check in and language for asking without blame
- One week of direct email access to Stephen after the session
- Online by video, from your own couch
Included when you book: the Healing Resentments Workbook, which is pre session prep and genuinely changes how the first block goes.
The Jumpstart
A month of weekly sessionsThree hours of guided work in one afternoon covers about what a month of weekly appointments covers, without the six days in between for everything to close back up.
- Credits in full toward The Reset
- Credits in full toward Fall Back in Love
- Nobody ever pays for the same work twice
The credit rule is simple and it has no expiry games in it. Whatever you spend on a smaller program comes off the price of a larger one, in full, whenever you decide to go further.
“Three hours felt like it would be too much. It wasn’t enough. In the best possible way, we didn’t want to stop. We left holding hands for the first time in I don’t know how long.”
Couple, Santa MonicaHonestly, sometimes it is not
I would rather you spend your money once, on the right thing. If you are in active pain right now, or if you already know you want the whole rebuild, the Jumpstart is not where you should start.
- If it is loud at home right this week, if the fights are daily and the tension is unbearable, go to Stop the Bleeding. Three hours will not hold that.
- If you need depth plus the space for it to settle, The Reset is two half days two weeks apart, and the gap is the point.
- If what you want is not to stop fighting but to actually feel chosen again, that is Fall Back in Love, and starting there saves you time.
- If what you need is a therapist, I will say so on the free call rather than take your money.
Questions people ask before booking the Jumpstart
Is one afternoon really enough?
Enough for what, is the honest version of that question. Three hours is not enough to rebuild a marriage, and I will not pretend otherwise. It is enough to break the gridlock, get the loudest resentments out of the way, and leave with a plan you both agreed to, which is more than most couples get from a month of weekly appointments.
Most couples start to really feel the difference in six to eight hours of work. The Jumpstart is three of those hours in one sitting. Some couples find that is the reset they needed and they take it from there. Others use it as the first half of a longer piece of work, and every dollar carries forward.
My partner is skeptical. Will this feel like an ambush?
No, and I design against it deliberately. Nobody gets ganged up on, nobody is the patient, and I do not take sides at any point. The reluctant partner gets equal time and equal structure, and usually finds that the format protects them more than it exposes them. One afternoon is also a commitment a skeptic can say yes to without feeling like they signed away their year.
Is this a marriage retreat or a bootcamp?
It is an intensive, not a residential retreat. You are not flying anywhere, staying overnight, or sitting in a room with other couples. It is one half day, just the two of you and me, either in Santa Monica or over video. The results people go looking for from a weekend bootcamp are mostly what happens in those first few uninterrupted hours, which is exactly what this is.
Does the Jumpstart work online?
Yes, and about half of them run that way now. People are often more honest in their own living room than in an unfamiliar office, and the break in the middle is easier to take properly at home. The only thing I ask is that you protect the time the way you would if you had driven somewhere for it.
What happens to my $500 if we decide to keep going?
It credits in full toward The Reset or toward Fall Back in Love. Not a percentage, not a discount code, the whole $500 comes off. You never lose what you invest in a smaller program, which is the point of having a smaller program at all.
How do we know if this is the right fit?
Book the free 15 minute call. You tell me what is going on, I ask a few questions, and I tell you straight whether the Jumpstart fits, whether you need something longer, or whether what you actually need is a therapist. Plenty of those calls end with me pointing someone at a free tool instead of an invoice.
Are you tired enough to finally do something about it?
Start with fifteen minutes on the phone. An honest look at what is happening, and whether one half day is the right size for it. No pitch either way.
Free, 15 minutes, no commitment. Online, from your own couch. Or call (424) 264-2200.