We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Raffi Bilek. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Raffi below.

Raffi, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’re complete cheeseballs and so we love asking folks to share the most heartwarming moment from their career – do you have a touching moment you can share with us?

I have worked with many couples over the course of my career. My approach is to take a neutral stance towards their relationship – that is, I am not there to tell them whether they should stay together or break up. I want to help them get the best outcome for them. I tend to bring humor into the therapy room with me, so I often phrase it like this: “I don’t get a toaster for every marriage I save.”

I remember during the pandemic I saw a couple whose marriage was on its last legs. There was a lot of anger and resentment. But they were willing to give it a shot. We spent several weeks pushing through the discomfort and the difficulty, and I watched things slowly improve.

Then one day they came in and said they were confident they were going to be okay. They were going to stay married and felt they had gotten enough from our work together. And they give me a toaster as a parting gift!

Raffi, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’ve been working as a couples counselor for over a decade and have been fortunate to help many people get their relationships back on track. Eventually I decided that I’d really like to try to expand my reach and help more people, so I went ahead and wrote up a book laying out the approach that I use with couples. It’s called “The Couples Communication Handbook: The Skills You Never Learned for the Marriage You Always Wanted.”

The bottom line is, I am all about empathy. To me, empathy is the fundamental component of a successful relationship. Empathy means that I feel things WITH you. It means I can step into your shoes and really understand what your experience is in any given situation (or at least try my best to understand). Without empathy, the best communication techniques can fall flat.

With that outlook, we can begin to build a system for effective communication in couples. It is remarkable how different it feels to deal with difficult issues collaboratively instead of adversarially, as a team instead of at loggerheads. Because at the end of the day, nobody can take all the problems out of your life. What I offer clients instead is a way to move through those problems and still feel connected. That is what makes a marriage! Arguments and disagreements will still happen, but you can make them happen in a way that supports your partnership instead of wearing away at it.

That’s what I like to help people achieve.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

For me, I have found that blogging has been the best approach to reaching more people. I think it’s important to know your strengths; writing is definitely one of mine. And I can tell you that social media is not! I know many people have achieved great results marketing themselves on social media, but I am just old enough that social media is not very natural to me. Every now and then I give it a go, but it really isn’t a fit. Writing blog posts on a regular basis about the issues I know well gives people a chance to understand my approach better and feel a little more comfortable before reaching out for help.

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

I really do like the work that I do. But if I had to do it again, I might be a professional wrestler. I’ve always wanted to do that. I don’t quite have the physique for it. But I think I do have the braggadocio!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thecommunicationbook.com
• Instagram: @the.marriage.mentor
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommunicationbook