Blind Spot Quiz
There are five ways women lose themselves in a relationship. Find out which one is yours. Takes two minutes.
Self-abandonment is not the price of love.
Coaching for women who are tired of doing all the work in their relationship.
The real problem isn't the relationship. It's how much of yourself you've given up to keep it going.
You're the one who gives and gives and rarely asks for anything back, the low-maintenance one who always puts everyone else first. You're worn out from overgiving and people pleasing, and you've started to feel like your needs don't matter anymore. Maybe you've even started to wonder if something's wrong with you. If that's you, you're in the right place.
Does this sound familiar?
01
You've stopped saying what you really think because you don't want a fight.
02
You keep replaying the same conversation in your head wondering what you said wrong.
03
You've started Googling things like "is this normal?" at 2am.
04
You can't remember the last time someone asked what you needed and actually meant it.
05
You edit yourself before you say anything, and you hate that you do.
06
You've had the same conversation with yourself dozens of times, and nothing really changes.
Where It Started
Why it's never been about something being wrong with you
Somewhere along the way, you learned that taking care of everyone else and keeping the peace was how you stayed safe and got love. So you became the one who makes sure everyone else is okay, often at your own expense.
You know you give too much, but every time you notice, you turn it into one more thing wrong with you. This isn't about finding one more thing to fix. It's about seeing what's happening and meeting it with compassion instead of criticism.
And underneath all of this is something you've been carrying for a long time: the fear that the real you isn't enough. That love has to be earned. That taking care of yourself is selfish. That you're loved for what you do, not for who you are.
But what if the real shift isn't about fixing yourself?
Maybe it's about giving yourself the same care you've been giving everyone else. Imagine wanting something without apologizing for it. Checking in with yourself with the same empathy you offer others. Not leaving yourself off the list of people to care for.
You don't have to earn your way back to being worth loving. You already are.
Take the quiz →
The first conversation is free.
For 30 minutes, we'll talk honestly about what's really going on for you. No script, no sales pitch. You'll leave feeling understood, lighter, and with a real sense that there's a way forward. Whether we keep working together after that is completely up to you.
1-on-1 Coaching
For women who are done putting themselves last.
You don't want to blow up your life. You want to say what you mean without rehearsing it first, ask for what you need without apologizing, and feel loved for who you are, not just for what you do. That's the work we do together.
Real Women. Real Results.
What choosing yourself looks like.
When I stopped trying to fix him, everything changed. I realized the real work wasn't about him at all. It was about me figuring out my own crap.
I'll admit it, I can be stubborn. But for the first time, I really saw what I was doing and what I needed to do differently.
The hardest and most honest work I've ever done. I came in wanting to save my marriage. What I got back was me.
Coaching and facilitating for over 30 years
A man coaching women?
Yes, and that's exactly the point. Because I'm a man, I understand him. He's not a mystery to me. That's why I know focusing on him won't change anything. What will change things is you. And I'm not going to let you stay stuck feeling like a victim, because that's not who you want to be. The only thing that will really free you is your relationship with yourself, starting with how you take care of yourself. That's the work we do.
Women aren't the only ones who lose themselves like this. Men do it too, and I was one of them.
For years, I was a people-pleaser and I was good at it. I was the giver, the easy-going one who never needed much. The nice guy. Unfortunately, I didn't know who I was when no one needed anything from me. That was my identity, and getting honest about it was hard because I had to see the reason I was doing it. It kept me safe and gave me a feeling of worth and value.
I do this work specifically with women because I grew up watching my mother live with a difficult man for 54 years. She spent most of those years giving up pieces of herself to keep the marriage going, and I watched what that cost her.
When I first started coaching, I thought I could help men like my father, and I worked at it for a while. But sadly I learned that men like my dad rarely want to change. So I turned to coaching the women living with them, the ones doing all the work, carrying the relationship, and sacrificing themselves.
I'm here to help you figure out what you truly want, why you've been settling for less, and what it would take to create the life you want.
My approach isn't therapy and it isn't advice. It's a process of learning to understand your own emotional landscape, why you feel what you feel, what those feelings are protecting, and how to stop being run by them.
"Doug has this silly little rule he calls Rule Number One: you're number one, take care of yourself first, love yourself first. It sounded selfish at first. Then I began to realize that most of the problems in my relationship were happening because I wasn't taking care of myself." — Lisa, coaching client
Most clients come in thinking the problem is their relationship, but what they find is that the real work is with themselves, not in a blame-yourself way, but in a this-is-where-your-power-is way. I'll help you build an honest relationship with yourself, so you can trust your own choices.
If you want to see how I approach this, I've written out the ten principles behind the work.
Training and credentials
- 30 years of coaching experience
- Certified Master Life Coach
- Six months of training with the Memory Reconsolidation Elite Coaching Academy
- Bachelor of Arts in Education
- Methods: memory reconsolidation, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT), and somatic emotional work
You can read how these methods fit together on The Work page.
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