Is it too late to save our marriage?

Almost never as late as the person asking believes. Timothy Shetter has worked with more than 1,000 couples over 18 years and there is usually a way forward, including from positions further back than most people assume. A willingness by both partners to complete a full relational assessment is itself behavioral evidence of commitment that stated feelings often understate.

Is the Marriage Review counseling or coaching?

Coaching. Timothy Shetter holds a Master of Science in Marriage and Family Therapy and draws on that training, but works as a coach rather than a licensed clinician. There is no diagnosis, no insurance billing, and no treatment records.

What if my spouse does not want to attend?

Reluctance is common and different from unwillingness. Most couples begin with one partner who is not yet convinced. The session takes two hours, involves no taking of sides, and both partners leave understanding their marriage better. If a spouse will not attend at all, contact the practice to discuss alternatives.

Do both partners have to take the assessment?

Yes. The assessment measures the relationship and requires both sets of answers. Each partner takes it on their own in about 45 minutes. The comparison between the two experiences is reviewed together during the session.

Will my spouse see what I wrote on the assessment?

Not word for word. Neither partner receives a copy of the other's answers. Both partners see the report the practitioner builds from those answers, and the practitioner decides what it contains. Scores and the patterns between the partners are reviewed together, since the shared picture is the purpose of the session. One section of the assessment is marked private before it begins, is seen only by the practitioner, and never appears in the report or the joint session.

How long is the Marriage Review session?

90 to 120 minutes, conducted over secure video. Couples should block the full two hours.

What does the Marriage Review cost?

$350 total. One flat fee covering both TRIM Assessments, an hour or more of pre-session review by the practitioner, the full 90 to 120 minute session, and the written road map.

Is ongoing coaching required after the session?

No. The session is complete on its own and the couple keeps their road map. Ongoing 3, 6 and 12-month programs are offered by invitation only.

Marriage Review and Road-Mapping Session

Going back to how things were is not the goal. That is what got you here.

You are not trying to survive your marriage. You are trying to build something with it. In one session I will show you what the two of you are actually building, the pattern that keeps getting in the way, and a road map for moving forward.

$350 Everything included

Two full TRIM Assessments, over 150 questions each
Over an hour of my own time to review your report before we meet
A 90 to 120 minute session, not a 45 minute hour
Your “Marriage Map” designed specifically from your results

That is three hours of my time before you count the reading. One flat fee. An assessment and a session of this length, booked separately, run closer to $650.

Book your session →

18 years. Over 1,000 couples. 4 to 5 new couples a month.

Already have your NaKED Score?

Then you have a number and a rough sense of where you stand. The Review is where it becomes usable. The scan measures one thing. The full TRIM Assessment measures the whole system around it, both of you take it, and you leave knowing what is driving the number and what to do about it.

Have not taken it yet?

The NaKED Scan is free and takes about five minutes. It will give you a starting number and a first look at what it measures. You do not need it to book, but it is a reasonable place to start if you want to see something before you spend anything.

Take the free NaKED Scan

Start with what you are building

When I work with a couple, I have three clients.

You. Your spouse. And the We, which is the thing the two of you are building together.

Both of you need to know that I hear you, that I understand you, and that I have your back. That part is not negotiable. But my primary client is the We. I am not going to be your personal coach at the expense of your marriage, and I am not going to be your spouse's either.

That is also why nobody gets ganged up on in this room. If you have sat in a session before and walked out feeling like it was two against one, that is what I am built to not do.

Most couples work on the first two and never once sit down and describe the third. So they end up negotiating. Two people, two sets of needs, trading concessions until somebody gets tired. That is not a marriage plan. That is a treaty, and treaties do not hold.

The Review starts by getting clear on what you are both actually trying to build, in plain language, out loud, probably for the first time in years. Everything after that is navigation toward it.

What TRIM measures

TRIM stands for the Transformative Relational Intelligence Method. It is the instrument I built, and it goes wide: fourteen dimensions of how your relationship actually functions, nine specific ways connection drains out of a marriage, and the patterns running underneath your conflict.

Your NaKED Score

One measure inside it, and the one closest to how you actually feel. Under every complaint I have heard in 18 years is one of four questions. Am I seen. Am I known. Am I accepted. Am I loved. You each get your own score on all four.

Where your two experiences differ

You are living in the same marriage and having two different experiences of it. The size of that gap, and where it sits, is usually the most useful thing in the room. It is also the thing you cannot see from the inside.

Then find what is in the way

You are not having a hundred different arguments. You are having one, over and over.

Every couple runs a cycle. He does this, so she does that, so he does more of the first thing. It is not about the dishes and it was never about the dishes.

You cannot see your own cycle while you are standing inside it. That is not a failure of intelligence or effort. It is a structural problem, and it is the reason talking about it more has not worked.

The assessment surfaces the cycle out of your own answers. I spend an hour or more with both sets of results before we meet, so we are not spending your session on me catching up. Most sessions I have sat in start with forty five minutes of the coach getting oriented. Ours starts with me already knowing.

Where connection is draining out, and which drain is doing the most damage
Which of you is going quiet, and what that is costing both of you
The gap between what you each think is happening
What is genuinely strong, which is usually more than either of you expects

Then get a way forward

Insight is not the point. Direction is.

Plenty of couples have paid good money to understand their problems in detail and change nothing. Understanding is where the work starts, not where it ends.

You leave with a written road map. What to work on first, what can wait, and what the next ninety days should look like. It lives in your own portal, so you are not relying on what you remember from a two hour conversation.

Priority order

Ten things are probably off. Two of them are load-bearing. You will know which two.

Plain language

No psycho-babble and no diagnosing either of you. If you cannot repeat it to each other in the car afterward, I have not done my job.

Yours to keep

The map and your results stay in your portal whether or not we ever work together again.

If that is what you are after, you do not need to read the rest of this page.

Book your Marriage Review →

$350 · 90 to 120 minutes · Both partners

If you are the one who went looking

Usually one person books this. The other one is not sure it is necessary.

If that is your situation, you are not the exception. You are the pattern. One of you has been carrying a feeling for a long time. The other one thinks things are basically fine, or is tired of talking about it, or is bracing to be told that all of this is their fault.

Here is what I would say to the reluctant one. This is not counseling and nobody is getting put on trial. You each answer an assessment on your own. We look at the results together. You will spend two hours on it and you will know more about your own marriage at the end than you did at the start. That is the whole ask.

I have yet to have a reluctant spouse tell me afterward that it was what they expected. Use those words with them if they help.

Who you will be sitting with

Timothy Shetter, M.S.

Master of Science, Marriage and Family Therapy

I have spent 18 years and more than a thousand couples on this work, most of them successful people whose marriages were quietly running out of road while everything else looked fine from the outside.

I am pro-marriage and I am not neutral about yours. That does not mean I will tell you what you want to hear. It means I am on the side of the We rather than on his side or her side, and I will hold hope for what you are building on the days you cannot.

Along the way I developed the Transformative Relational Intelligence Method, or TRIM, and the TRIM Suite of Assessment Tools that came out of it. I built them because the off-the-shelf instruments did not measure what I kept seeing in the room.

Instrument author

Timothy Shetter, M.S. is the developer of the Transformative Relational Intelligence Method (TRIM) and the TRIM Suite of Assessment Tools. Read more about the method.

After the session

Some couples need one conversation. Some need a season.

If the Review is all you need to get moving again, that is a good outcome and I am rooting for you. If you want to go further, I run 3, 6 and 12-month Strategic Partnership programs by invitation. I take on four to five new couples a month, so this session doubles as the conversation where we both find out whether it is a fit.

There is no pitch inside the session. If I think you are a fit, I will say so afterward.

Straight answers

Questions couples ask before booking

Is it too late for us?

Almost never as late as the person asking thinks it is.

I am not going to promise you everything will be fine. I do not know that yet and neither do you. What I can tell you is that I have walked this terrain for 18 years with more than a thousand couples, and there is usually a way through it, including from further back than where you are standing right now.

One more thing worth hearing. If the two of you are willing to sit down and answer a couple hundred questions about your marriage, you have already shown me something your feelings may not be telling you. People who are finished do not do that.

Is this counseling or coaching?

Coaching. I hold a Master of Science in Marriage and Family Therapy and I draw on that training every day, but I work as a coach rather than a licensed clinician. No diagnosis, no insurance, no treatment records. It also means we move faster and spend our time on what you build next instead of on what is wrong with either of you.

My spouse does not want to do this. Now what?

Reluctant is not the same as unwilling, and most of the couples I see started with one person who was not convinced. Tell them what it actually is. Two hours, no trial, nobody taking sides, and they will know more about their own marriage at the end of it.

If they truly will not come, reach out anyway and we will talk about what makes sense. The assessment measures the relationship, so it does need both of you, but there are other ways to begin.

Do we both have to take the assessment?

Yes. It measures the relationship, and it only works with both sets of answers. You each take it on your own, about 45 minutes, without looking over each other's shoulder. The comparison between your two experiences is usually the most valuable thing in the session.

Will my spouse see what I wrote?

Not word for word. Neither of you gets a copy of the other's answers. What you both see is the report I build from them, and I decide what goes into it.

Your scores and the patterns between you are meant to be looked at together. That shared picture is the point of the session, so expect the results themselves to be on the screen for both of you. One section of the assessment works differently. It is marked private before you begin it, it is for me alone, and it never appears in your report or in the joint session.

If you are unsure whether something you want to say will be shared, ask me before you answer it. I would rather you ask than guess.

How long is it and where does it happen?

90 to 120 minutes on secure video, from wherever the two of you are comfortable. Block the full two hours. We finish when we are finished rather than when a clock says so.

What does it cost?

$350 total. One flat fee covering both TRIM Assessments, an hour or more of my review before we meet, the full session, and your written road map. There is nothing else to buy afterward unless you decide you want to keep working together.

Do we have to keep working with you afterward?

No. The Review is complete on its own and the road map is yours either way. Ongoing programs are by invitation, and I only extend one when I think it is genuinely the right fit for both of us.

Money is replaceable.
Time is not.

You do not need the old marriage back. You need a better one than you have ever had.

That is buildable, and it starts with seeing clearly. Two hours, both of you, and a map you can actually follow.