married couples get divorced, and about one in five marriages experience distress at some time. Challenges with affection, communication, disagreements, and fears of divorce are some of the most common reasons couples reach out for help. Couples who are dissatisfied with their relationship may turn to a variety of sources for help including online courses, self-help books, retreats, workshops, and couples counseling. Before a relationship between individuals can begin to be understood, it is important to recognize and acknowledge that each person, including the counselor, has a unique personality, perception, opinions, set of values, and history. Individuals in the relationship may adhere to different and unexamined value systems. Institutional and societal variables (like a social or religious group, and other collective factors) which shape a person's nature and behavior, are considered in the process of counseling and therapy. A tenet of relationship counseling, is that it is intrinsically beneficial for all the participants to interact with each other, and with society at large with optimal amounts of conflict. A couple's conflict resolution skills seem to predict divorce rates. Most relationships will experience strain at some point, resulting in a failure to function optimally, and causing self-reinforcing, maladaptive patterns to form. These patterns may be called "negative interaction cycles." There are many possible reasons for this, including insecure attachment, ego, arrogance, jealousy, anger, greed, poor communication/understanding or problem solving, ill health, third parties, and so on. Changes in situations, like financial state, physical health, and the influence of other family members can have a profound influence on the conduct, responses, and actions of the individuals in a relationship. Often, it is an interaction between two or more factors, and frequently, it is not just one of the people who have been involved that exhibit such traits. Relationship influences are reciprocal: it takes each person involved to cause problems, as well as manage them. A viable solution to the problem, and setting these relationships back on track, may be to reorient the individuals' perceptions and emotions - how one looks at or responds to situations, and how one feels about them. Perceptions of, and emotional responses to, a relationship are contained within an often unexamined mental map of the relationship, also called a 'love map' by John Gottman. These can be explored collaboratively and discussed openly. The core values they comprise can then be understood and respected, or changed when no longer