You are not fighting more than other couples.
You are just having the same fight over and over, and you have run out of ways to say it differently.

Couples Counseling in Roseville, California

The Course Correction Roadmap is a 90 day program with Lori Hunter, LMFT. Stop carrying all the blame and resentment for the communication, feel steady during conflict, and experience real change. In office off Melody Lane in Roseville, or online anywhere in California.

Gottman Level 3 Trained | LGBTQ+ Affirming

In Person and Virtual | California LMFT #101029

You have tried explaining it better. It did not work.

You rehearse the conversation before you have it. You pick the moment, you soften the opening, you make sure your tone is calm, you get your points in order. And it still goes sideways.

Then you get told you are deflecting. Or bringing up the past. Or making it about you. Or that this is the pattern. So you go back and try again, more carefully this time, because you keep believing that if you could just word it right, it would finally land.

Somewhere in there you stopped feeling like a partner and started feeling like you were on trial.

Maybe you are the one who patches everything back up. Every rupture, every silence, every cold week. You both agree it is preventable. You both know what it would take. Nothing changes. And you are tired of being the only one holding the whole thing together while being told you are the reason it is broken.

Or maybe it is quieter than that. No big betrayal. No screaming. Just a thousand small moments that added up until you were two people sharing a house, splitting logistics, sitting on separate ends of the couch on your phones. You miss laughing. You miss being wanted. You miss looking forward to coming home.

How It Works

A Gottman-informed path forward

Nine steps across three phases, ninety days. Every step is something you can do on your own, whether your partner is in the room or not. That matters, because most people arrive here already exhausted from trying to get their partner to change first.

The Course Correction Roadmap, Lori Hunter’s nine-step couples counseling method

Phase 1

Understand the Pattern

Before you change anything, you have to see it accurately. Not his version, not your version at 11pm after a fight, the actual shape of it. What starts it, what escalates it, how it ends every single time. Most people have never mapped this. They have only lived inside it. This phase also settles the question you have been carrying alone, which is whether this is a rough patch or whether this is how it is going to be.

Couple beginning to map the pattern of their recurring conflict

Step 1

Figure out if this is a rough patch or how it's going to be

• Get a straight answer instead of guessing
• Stop comparing your marriage to what everyone else's looks like from the outside
• Find out if what you're living with is actually normal
• Know what you're working with before you try to fix it

Person reflecting on their own part in a relationship pattern

Step 2

Own your part without carrying theirs too

• Stop the spiral where every problem becomes your fault
• Sort out what you caused from what got assigned to you
• Hold the fact that you're not perfect without making that the whole story
• Set up the ground you'll stand on for the rest of the work

Couple practicing steadiness during a difficult conversation

Step 3

Regulate yourself during conflict to avoid setting each other off

• Stay in your normal voice instead of shrinking or exploding
• Stop bracing for the reaction before you've even said anything
• Build the skill that makes every step after this possible
• Recover from a hard conversation without losing the whole day to it

Phase 2

Rebuild Your Half of It

This is where the weight comes off. You stop defending your intent, your tone, your motives, and your memory, because defending yourself has never once ended an argument in your favor. You start asking for what you need in plain words instead of building up to it for three days. And you put down the resentment of being the only one doing the work, so the real distribution of effort becomes visible to both of you.

Person setting down the need to defend their intentions

Step 4

Stop defending your intent, your tone, your motives, and your memory

• Stop being the one held responsible for every conversation that goes sideways
• Stop being told you're deflecting, playing victim, or proving the point
• Free up the energy you've been spending on self protection
• Let go of the belief that a better explanation was ever going to fix it

Person practicing a clear and direct request

Step 5

Ask directly for what you need

• Say it without a three day windup or rehearsing it first
• Say it in your normal voice, without bracing for the reaction
• Stop the exhaustion of trying to communicate the "right" way
• Find out what actually happens when you just say the thing

Couple making space for shared effort in their relationship

Step 6

Put down the resentment of doing all the work by yourself

• Stop being the only one patching everything back up after every rupture
• Stop carrying the relationship by yourself
• Let the real workload become visible instead of invisible
• Make room for your partner to actually show up

Phase 3

Come Back Together On Purpose

Repair is a skill. Right now a fight costs you two or three days of cold silence and careful movement around each other. In this phase it costs you hours, and eventually less than that. Then you rebuild the parts you actually miss. The point is not to become a different couple. The point is to be partners again instead of two people managing a household.

Couple beginning to repair after a difficult conversation

Step 7

Repair after a fight in hours, not days

• Tell real change from another calm stretch that fades
• Stop the days-long recovery after every disagreement
• Know what real change actually looks like day to day
• Get proof the work is holding, not just a hope that it is

Couple rediscovering warmth, laughter, and connection

Step 8

Get back the things you actually miss, laughing, wanting to come home, being wanted

• Rebuild connection on purpose instead of waiting for it to come back
• Get back to wanting to come home
• Feel like your opinions matter again
• Enjoy each other instead of just getting through the week

Partners standing together with a renewed sense of teamwork

Step 9

Feel like partners again, and not like roommates

• Stop splitting logistics and start sharing a life
• Feel like a team, maybe for the first time in years
• Know you gave this a real, honest effort
• Build the marriage you actually meant to have

Ninety Days From Now, You Have The Map.

Most couples who feel stuck are not lacking love. They are lacking a map. You have been circling the same conversations, carrying the same unresolved weight, working harder and harder on the words. That was never the problem. The Course Correction Roadmap gives you nine steps and three phases, a structured way to see the pattern clearly, put down what was never yours to carry, and rebuild the connection you actually came here for. You will know what starts the loop and you can see it coming. You can say the hard thing in your normal voice. And when it goes badly, you can repair it the same day instead of losing a week.

There is a moment most people describe the same way. You are in the middle of a conversation, defending something small, and you realize you cannot remember the last time you were believed at face value.

That is not a communication problem. That is what happens after years of every conversation being about what you really meant.

You have been disappearing slowly. Not all at once. First you stopped bringing up small things because they were not worth the fallout. Then you stopped voicing a different opinion because it always turned into an argument. Then you started editing yourself before you spoke, watching your inflection, keeping it concise, making sure you did not ask two questions at once. Then you started wondering if you should just not talk at all.

Nobody notices themselves going quiet. You only notice the exhaustion.

Here is what I want you to picture instead. Six months from now, you say something honest at dinner without doing the math first. It lands imperfectly. There is a moment of friction. And then it passes, and you are still sitting at the same table, still fine.

You come home and something in your chest goes down instead of up. Somebody laughs at something you said, and it is not polite.

You get to be a person in your own house again. Not a case being argued. Not the one who fixes everything. Not the designated problem. And if you have kids, they get to grow up watching two adults handle something hard without either one of them disappearing. That is not a small thing. That is the whole thing.

What We're Going to Cover

Ninety days, structured around the roadmap. Some of this is understanding. Most of it is practice. All of it is built for someone who cannot control what their partner does. Weekly sessions are the standard path. Some couples start with a two or three day intensive instead, which covers in one weekend what usually takes a couple of months, then move into regular sessions from there.

Couple working through a difficult conversation

Seeing What's Actually Happening

•How to map your specific cycle, what starts it, what escalates it, and the exact point where it becomes unwinnable
•How to tell a rough season from a structural problem, so you stop asking the internet whether this is normal
•How to own your part cleanly, without the spiral where every problem becomes your fault
•How to stop measuring your marriage against what everyone else's looks like from the outside

Therapist helping a couple have a clear conversation

Putting Down What Was Never Yours

•How to stop defending your intent, your tone, your motives, and your memory in every conversation
•What to do when your words get twisted and you get told you are deflecting, playing victim, or proving the point
•How to ask directly for what you need without a three day windup or rehearsing it in the shower
•How to stop being the only one patching it back up after every rupture

Couple reconnecting with support from a therapist

Getting Back What You Actually Miss

•How to repair after a fight in hours instead of days of cold distance
•How to tell real change from a calm stretch that fades once things feel easier
•How to rebuild physical and emotional closeness when it has been dead for years
•How to stop living like roommates who split logistics and start operating like partners again

Lori Hunter Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, LMFT

Hi, I'm Lori. I'm a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Roseville, LMFT #101029, Gottman Level 3 trained and EMDR Level 2 trained. I have been counseling couples, families, and individuals for 14 years. Before that I spent 20 years in the corporate world, which is a long way of saying I came to this as a second career and I have some idea what it is like to be a person carrying a full load before you ever get to the marriage.

Most people who find me have already tried. They have had the honest conversation. They have read the book. Some have sat in another therapist's office and left feeling like they were both just taking turns making their case. What they usually have not had is a map, which is why the same fight keeps coming back looking slightly different every time.

I built The Course Correction Roadmap because I got tired of watching good people work harder and harder on the wrong thing. You cannot word your way out of a pattern. You have to see the pattern, put down the parts of it that were never yours, and then rebuild from steadier ground.

The Gottman Method is the backbone of the couples work. It is research based, it is specific, and it gives us something better to go on than opinions about who is right.

I will be direct with you about what I see. I am not going to tell you your partner is the villain, and I am not going to tell you that you are. My job is to help you find your own answer, not hand you mine. If you are the only one willing to start, that is workable. A lot of this program is built for exactly that.

I see clients in person at my office on Melody Lane in Roseville, and online for people elsewhere in California. LGBTQIA+ informed.

You got questions? We have answers!

How does this program work?

The Course Correction Roadmap runs over ninety days. You move through the nine steps in order, phase by phase. Each session has a specific focus, something to practice in between, and a way to check whether it is actually working. Sessions happen in person in Roseville or by telehealth anywhere in California.

What's covered in the program?

We cover mapping the cycle that keeps repeating, putting down blame and resentment that was never yours, learning to regulate yourself in conflict, and rebuilding the connection you actually miss. It moves from seeing the pattern clearly to changing how you handle it to building something new.

Who is this for, and not for?

This is for couples or individuals who are exhausted by the same fight on repeat and want a structured path instead of another open ended conversation. It works even if only one partner is willing to start. It is not the right fit if there is active violence or an immediate safety concern, which needs a different kind of support first.

What if I'm not sure this will work for us?

That uncertainty is normal, and it does not need to be resolved before you reach out. The first step is a free 45 minute consultation, which is a conversation, not a commitment. You will get a straight answer about whether this is a fit.

My partner will not come. Is this pointless?

No. Every one of the nine steps is something you do on your own. None of them require your partner to agree a problem exists. Some partners join in once they see something shifting. Some never do, and the work still changes what your daily life feels like.

What is an intensive, and is that different from the 90 day program?

An intensive is a concentrated two or three day block instead of spreading the work across weekly sessions. It works well for couples at a decision point, or who have started and stopped counseling too many times to want to go slowly. Some couples do an intensive first and then move into the ninety day program. We will talk through what fits on the consultation call.

You do not need better words. You need a different map.

Fill out the form and we will set up a free 45 minute consultation. No pressure and no commitment, just a straight conversation about what is actually going on and whether this is the right fit. My calendar has openings this month.

Request Consultation

We'll follow up within 1 business day to schedule a free 30-minute consultation.