What Is RLT? A Different Kind of Relationship Work

People often ask me what Relational Life Therapy is, and why I chose to train in it. The short answer: it's the most honest, direct, and practical approach to relationships I've found. It doesn't just help people understand their patterns. It helps them change.

Where RLT Comes From

Relational Life Therapy (RLT) was developed by Terry Real, a family therapist and author of books including I Don't Want to Talk About It, The New Rules of Marriage, and Us. It is taught through the Relational Life Institute. I am trained in this approach, and it is one of the foundations of my work, alongside Ontological Coaching, my Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Change Management Certifications, and decades of work in human rights and social justice.

What Makes RLT Different

Many approaches to relationships focus on communication: better listening, better phrasing, better techniques. Those skills matter. RLT goes further. It asks how we use power, how we tell the truth, and who we become under stress.

1. It speaks directly.

RLT practitioners don't stay neutral and wait for insight to arrive. We tell the truth with care, including the truth about what each person is doing that isn't working. This isn't blame. It's respect: treating people as adults who can hear the truth and grow from it.

2. It looks at how we hold ourselves.

RLT pays attention to two ways we lose our footing. Sometimes we feel less than others and fall into shame. Sometimes we feel better than others and slip into superiority. The goal is to stand on equal ground: neither above nor below, but same-as. This idea sits at the heart of how I work.

3. It names the strategies that don't work.

RLT identifies common losing strategies in relationships: needing to be right, controlling your partner, unbridled self-expression, retaliation, and withdrawal. Most of us use at least one. Most of us learned it early, for good reasons.

4. It distinguishes the adult from the survivor.

RLT describes the adaptive child, the part of us that learned to survive difficult circumstances, and the wise adult, the part that can choose a different response today. Much of the work is learning to notice which one is driving, and how to shift.

5. It's about repair, not just understanding.

Conflict is inevitable in close relationships. What matters is whether we can come back together: take ownership, make amends, and reconnect. RLT teaches concrete skills for this, including how to ask for what you want and how to respond generously when your partner reaches toward you.

How I Bring RLT Into My Work

RLT gave me a rigorous method. My life and earlier work gave me a broader question: what does it mean to be a relationally mature adult?

Most of us were taught how to work, achieve, and endure. Few of us were taught how to repair, share power, or stay connected in conflict. I see this as part of adulthood too. That's the territory I call Relational Maturity, and RLT is one of the most powerful paths into it.

I don't do this work from above. Twenty years of marriage across three languages and cultures have taught me that I'm practicing these skills right alongside the people I work with.

Who This Work Is For

RLT-informed work is for individuals and couples who are ready to stop repeating the same painful patterns. It suits people who want more than insight: those willing to look honestly at themselves, take responsibility, and practice new ways of relating.

You don't need to be in crisis. You just need to be ready to grow.