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Time. Time can generate growth, but time is not responsible for growth. Partners are responsible for their growth as a couple. Time is just a witness. Like hearsay, it can influence the process, but it cannot determine per se a favorable outcome. So, what generates growth? Self-doubt causes growth, existential suffering (e.g., getting old), and pain. Pain is a catalyzer of growth, whether adequately processed. Growth is a platform of available solutions for marriage. Good communication is a tree that sprouts out of the excellent soil of growth. For instance, good negotiation blooms in growth and experience. In the field of marriage and family therapy, it is noticeable that couples typically show up at the door or screen of a competent marriage and family therapy way too late. Out of my clinical experience, I would say that most couples wait 3 to 10 years to start treatment, and the results are terrible as expected. A day late and a dollar short. It’s way too late to change their perceptions of each other. It’s way too late to change their relational patterns. Even their sexuality that eventually used to be a refreshing blessing, is now encrusted with resentment. According to Gottman, “the four horsemen from the apocalypse” have already done their work, devastating the defeated relationship. Contempt, stonewalling, criticism and defensiveness rusted what was once trust, hope, and laughs. Some signs that a romantic relationship may benefit from couple’s therapy: Emotional negativity overshadows the value of constructive relational moments; Partners avoid being vulnerable (intimate) with each other; Lack of trust (in your partner’s emotional support/understanding); Performance-sex or no sex. Gottman, J. M. (1999). The marriage clinic: A scientifically based marital therapy. Norton &Company.