Eliana Zuluaga-Craaybeek

Sometimes the hardest part of a relationship is not knowing whether you are growing apart or simply stuck in a pattern neither of you knows how to change. You may be having the same arguments over and over, feeling more like roommates than partners, struggling to rebuild trust, or wondering why conversations that once felt easy now turn into tension, defensiveness, or distance.

I work with adults and couples who want to strengthen their relationships, improve communication, and feel more connected to one another. My primary focus is marriage counseling and relationship issues, including recurring conflict, emotional disconnection, communication difficulties, trust concerns, life transitions, stress within the relationship, and the impact that anxiety, depression, anger, grief, or substance use can have on a partnership.

I also provide individual therapy when personal concerns are affecting your relationships or overall wellbeing.

I offer therapy in English and Spanish, and my goal is to create a space that feels warm, supportive, and human. You do not have to come in knowing exactly how to fix the relationship. We can start by understanding what keeps happening between you and work from there.

In couples therapy, I am less interested in deciding who is right and more interested in helping you understand the cycle the two of you keep getting caught in. Often, what looks like criticism, withdrawal, defensiveness, or repeated conflict has something deeper underneath it. Together, we can slow those moments down, understand what each partner is experiencing, and practice healthier ways of responding to one another.

I draw from Emotion-Focused Therapy to help couples understand the emotional needs and patterns underneath conflict, and Behavioral Couples Therapy to strengthen communication, problem solving, and day-to-day connection. Solution-Focused Couples Therapy can help us identify what is already working and build practical steps toward the relationship you want.

When individual concerns are affecting the relationship, I may also incorporate Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Behavioral Activation, somatic approaches, and strength-based work. These tools can be helpful for anxiety, depression, stress, anger, grief, substance use, and other concerns that may be influencing how you show up with your partner. The methods are important, but they are secondary to helping the two of you understand each other differently and create meaningful change in the relationship.

Your first session is not about proving who is right or deciding who is to blame. It is about helping me understand what has been happening between you. We will talk about what brought you to couples therapy, the patterns you have noticed, what each of you has already tried, and what you hope will feel different in your relationship.

From there, we will identify goals together. That might mean communicating without every disagreement escalating, rebuilding emotional or physical closeness, strengthening trust, navigating a major transition, understanding how individual mental health or substance use is affecting the relationship, or simply learning how to feel like a team again.

You can expect me to be warm, empowering, and appropriately humorous while also being active in the process. I will ask questions, help you slow down difficult interactions, offer perspective, and give you practical things to work on outside of session. My goal is not to help you avoid every disagreement. It is to help you understand one another better, repair more effectively, and create a relationship that feels more connected, secure, and intentional.