Stop the Bleeding: a two week intensive for couples in active pain
Something happened, or something finally broke, and now the tension at home is unbearable. You are fighting daily or not speaking at all. You are not trying to build a five year vision this week. You are trying to get through Thursday.
First you stop the bleeding. Only then does anything else become possible. Six sessions in fourteen days, built to drop the temperature fast enough that you can both breathe and think again.
No pressure and no pitch. Every session is online, from your own couch.
This is the one you book when waiting is not an option
Every other program on this site assumes you have the emotional room to do careful work. This one does not assume that. None of it means your marriage is over. It means the temperature has to come down before anything else can happen.
If you need something tonight before any of this starts, use the free conflict resolution tool. It is short enough to use in the middle of an argument.
Need this to start now? Cut to the chase and book the call Fifteen free minutes, and we can usually start inside a few days.
In 2019 I was losing my marriage, and everything I tried made it louder
My wife and I have been together for 36 years. There was a stretch where we had become strangers in the same house, and I was doing everything I knew how to do, harder and harder, and watching it fail. Five rounds of couples therapy behind us. Every conversation either exploded or evaporated. I remember the specific flavour of panic.
What I know from the inside is that in a fortnight like that you cannot think your way out, because your judgment is the thing that is compromised. What helps is frequency and structure. Somebody who is in it with you three times a week, who is not on anybody’s side, and who can say plainly: that was the fight, and this was the thing underneath it.
Men in particular tend to hit this stage convinced that the correct move is to say less and absorb more. It is a decent instinct and it is the wrong one here. You are not being asked to be more emotional. You are being asked to be more specific.
Six sessions in fourteen days, session by session
Three sessions a week, all online, the same way all my relationship coaching in Santa Monica works. Nothing here is random and nothing waits. Between sessions you have short daily exercises and direct access to me when a moment goes sideways.
- Sessions one and two, week one: map the resentments. Before anything can heal it has to be seen. We surface the backlog that has quietly been running the relationship. Most couples are shocked by how much is in there and how long it has been sitting. Naming it is the beginning of releasing it, and it is also the first hour in months where neither of you is arguing.
- Between sessions: a structure for the house. A daily check in, fifteen or twenty minutes, and an agreed way to pause a fight rather than finish it. This is the part that drops the temperature at home rather than only in session. You also have me on voice message or text when something comes up.
- Sessions three and four, across week one and two: hear each other, really hear each other. Most couples are not fighting about what they think they are fighting about. The airline upgrade is not about money. The dishes are not about chores. We get underneath the surface conflict to the real feeling driving it. When both partners feel genuinely heard, often for the first time in years, the temperature drops immediately and it stays down.
- Sessions five and six, week two: new tools for real conversations. You leave with a different way of having the conversations that used to end in a fight or a wall of silence. Not scripts, not techniques you have to remember mid argument. A genuine shift in what you understand about what your partner needs and how to meet them there.
- The end of program assessment. A clear picture of where you actually are, what changed, what did not, and whether you need anything further. If the answer is no, I will say so. If the answer is the 90 day program, your $1,200 credits toward it.
Six sessions across two weeks. Most couples start to really feel the difference in six to eight hours of work, and this format front loads those hours into the fortnight when you need them most.
Everything that comes with Stop the Bleeding
Two weeks, six sessions, and me on call
- Six sessions over two weeks, three per week
- The REUNITE resentment mapping process, both partners
- Immediate de-escalation tools you use the same day
- A daily check in structure for the house
- Between session homework, 15 to 20 minutes a day
- Direct access to Stephen between sessions, voice message or text
- An end of program assessment of where you actually are
- Healing Resentments Workbook, yours to keep
- Online by video, from your own couch
The between session access is the part people underuse. The free guide on healing resentments explains the method the whole fortnight runs on.
Stop the Bleeding
For couples in active painThis is not the deepest program and it does not pretend to be. It is the one that buys you back the ability to have a conversation, which is the thing every other program assumes you already have.
- Credits toward the 90 day program
- Nobody pays twice for the same work
- No pressure to continue at the end
The credit rule is the same across every program here and it runs forward. What you spend on a smaller piece of work comes off a larger one whenever you decide to go further, and there is no deadline on it.
“I didn’t think my husband would agree to two weeks of anything. But two weeks to see if it helps was something he could say yes to. By session three he was the one who wanted to keep going.”
Client, Los AngelesIf it is not actually loud, do not book this one
Stop the Bleeding is priced and paced for urgency. If you are stuck rather than bleeding, one of the others will do more for you for the same money or less.
- If you are drifting rather than fighting, The Reset goes deeper for $1,000, because it has the room to.
- If you want the smallest honest first step, The Jumpstart is one half day at $500 and credits forward.
- If the crisis is already behind you and you want to rebuild properly, that is Fall Back in Love.
- If there is violence, active addiction, or someone is in danger, coaching is not the right call and I will point you to the right kind of help instead.
Questions people ask in the middle of a bad fortnight
We are in crisis. Is coaching really the right thing?
Sometimes, and sometimes not, and this is the one question I will not soften. If there is violence, if someone is unsafe, if there is untreated addiction or someone is in genuine mental health crisis, coaching is the wrong tool and I will tell you that on the free call and point you somewhere better. That happens and nobody is charged for it.
What coaching is good at is the other kind of crisis, the loud, painful, nobody is in danger but everybody is drowning kind. Structure three times a week, an outside party who takes no sides, and a method for getting underneath the fight. That combination drops the temperature faster than anything you can do on your own at home, and it does it without waiting a month for an intake appointment.
How fast can we start?
Usually within a few days, because the whole point of this program is that a month from now is too late to be useful. The free call is 15 minutes and I will tell you on it whether I have the room in the next fortnight to run it properly. If I do not, I will say so rather than start something I cannot finish.
Will this fix everything in two weeks?
No, and any programme that says otherwise is selling you something. Two weeks stops the bleeding. It gets the temperature down, gets the backlog named, and gets a real conversation back in the house. What it does not do is rebuild intimacy or give you a shared vision, because that work needs calm you do not currently have. Plenty of couples find the reset is enough on its own. Others go further, and the $1,200 credits toward it.
My partner has one foot out the door. Is it worth trying?
Often, yes, and the honest reason is that people with one foot out usually leave a relationship that feels hopeless, not one that feels hard. Two weeks of something structurally different is the fastest way to find out which of those you are in. I have had couples where the reluctant partner became the one pushing to continue by session three, and I have had ones where the fortnight made it clear, kindly, that it was over. Both of those are better than another six months of not knowing.
Does it work online?
Yes, because online is the only way I run them. Six sessions in two weeks is far easier to protect when nobody has to cross a city for it, and people tend to be more honest in their own living room. I work with couples anywhere from Santa Monica.
What if we cancel a session mid program?
Life happens and we reschedule inside the fortnight wherever possible, because the pacing is doing real work. If the two weeks genuinely cannot hold, we talk about whether a different format fits better. I would rather move you to the right program than run this one badly.
You do not have to keep living in this week
Fifteen minutes on the phone. You tell me what is happening at home, I tell you honestly whether two weeks of this is the right move, or whether you need something else entirely.
Free, 15 minutes, no commitment. Online, from your own couch. Or call (424) 264-2200.