Hendrien van der Bijl- Imago Relationship Therapy

Hendrien van der Bijl- Imago Relationship Therapy 🩷Therapist, married millennial, emotional translator. Helping couples stop living like polite strangers. Take the quiz. Get the guide. Do the work.👇

30/11/2025

When your emotional cup isn’t full, it doesn’t just affect one part of your life.
It affects everything:

đź–¤ Conversations feel like work
đź–¤ Playfulness disappears
đź–¤ Touch feels disconnected instead of comforting
đź–¤ Date nights feel forced
đź–¤ Even watching a movie together feels like effort
đź–¤ Going out feels overwhelming
đź–¤ You feel irritated, withdrawn, or numb
🖤 You don’t feel “up for” anything, because your emotional cup isn’t filled
đź–¤ Your patience drops
đź–¤ Your nervous system stays in survival mode

And then you blame it on being “busy” or “exhausted”…
But the truth is: you’re running on reserves.

Your relationship needs more than your leftover emotional energy.
And you can’t pour from an empty cup.

Here’s the real shift:

When you restore emotional safety
When you repair the small ruptures
When you feel seen, supported, and understood
When resentment softens
When your nervous system can finally exhale

Everything changes.
Energy returns.
Connection rebuilds.
Closeness feels natural again.
You start wanting to do things together again, without forcing it.

If this hit home and you want to understand exactly why you’ve been feeling disconnected or “too tired for everything,” comment “QUIZ” and I’ll send you my free Relationship Check-In Quiz, it shows you where your emotional safety is breaking down and what to rebuild first.

Fill your emotional cup, your whole relationship will start flowing naturally again.

Something that comes up again and again in conversations with womenis how easily they slip into carrying everything in t...
27/11/2025

Something that comes up again and again in conversations with women
is how easily they slip into carrying everything in the relationship…
not because they want to,
but because life gets heavy and someone has to keep things moving.

And often, they take on more because they love deeply.
Because they don’t want to add pressure.
Because they’re hoping it’s “just a phase.”

But underneath the surface, something happens that most couples don’t realise:

When one person quietly carries both loads,
their own + their partner’s
the relationship slowly becomes imbalanced.
One person grows tired,
and the other never gets the chance to grow at all.

Not because they’re unwilling,
but because they’re protected from the uncomfortable truth
that would actually help them rise.

It might look peaceful from the outside…
but it’s a fake peace that leaves both partners disconnected.

The real peace, the kind that brings back warmth, teamwork, and emotional closeness,
comes from honesty, shared responsibility,
and both people showing up in the relationship again.

Many couples don’t realise that the “distance” they feel
isn’t the beginning of the end.
It’s the invitation to evolve.
To rebalance.
To reconnect in a way that feels fair and alive again.

If your home feels heavy, quiet, or off lately,
you’re not alone, and you’re not failing.
It’s a sign the relationship is asking for support, not silence.

My 3-Day Imago Couples Intensive is where many couples rebuild that balance,
reset the emotional load,
and find their way back to each other in a way that finally feels good for both.

❤️ DM INTENSIVE if you want details.


26/11/2025

Modern life pushes both partners into constant masculine energy:
working, planning, fixing, producing, surviving.
There’s no space to soften. No space to feel. No space to connect.

That’s why so many millennial marriages feel like:
partners → not lovers
roommates → not a couple
logistics → not emotional intimacy

Not because you’ve fallen out of love.
Because you’re stuck in the same energy.

Healthy relationships need balance
structure and softness, direction and presence.
When polarity disappears, so does the spark.

The good news?
It’s fixable.
When one partner feels safe enough to lead and the other feels safe enough to soften,
everything shifts.
Communication gets easier.
Intimacy returns.
Connection feels natural again.

If your marriage feels tense, distant, or “off”… it’s not you.
You’re just in survival mode.

Comment BALANCE and I’ll send details on my 3-Day Intensive where couples restore connection faster than they ever thought possible.

For a long time, I thought the key to connection was getting better at explaining myself.But the real shift happened whe...
26/11/2025

For a long time, I thought the key to connection was getting better at explaining myself.

But the real shift happened when I stopped trying to be heard… and started trying to understand him.

That’s when things softened.
That’s when the walls came down.
That’s when we stopped fighting to be right, and started finding our way back to each other.

If you’re ready to move from defending to truly connecting, try asking these 3 sentence-shifting questions the next time things get tense:
1. “Can you help me understand what this feels like for you?”

2. “Is there something underneath this that feels hard to name?”

3. “What do you need from me right now that would help you feel safer?”

These aren’t magic. But they’re powerful.
They invite closeness where there used to be walls.

Pro tip: When you shift to curiosity, it’s a lot easier for your partner to shift too.
Safety is contagious, and so is softness.

And if you want to learn how to keep doing this, especially when it’s hard, my guide was made for this exact moment.

Comment “TALK” and I’ll send it to you.
Because connection doesn’t come from louder voices.
It comes from deeper understanding.

22/11/2025

My husband sometimes tells me that I need to be a bit more positive about life.

Don’t get me wrong, life is all about perspective. There is so much beauty in the world. And so much to be thankful for.

Maybe my content can sometimes come across as being or focusing on the negative. Picking at things that does not need picking.

But toxic positivity also does not sit right with me.

I am tired of hearing how great everyone has it. And how well it is going. And how easy they have it.

Because I do not feel that. At least not all of the time.

Life is hard. And doing relationships is hard. Not just marriage. But with kids, at work, with friends with family.

I would like to create a space where you don’t just have to be positive and polite because being anything else makes you negative and ungrateful.

It is all about balance… at least for me.

I would like to be able to laugh.
But also to cry.
I want to get angry, but to know when to be soft.
I want to talk. But I want to hear you too.
I want to dream. But also get to work hard.

It is not always easy to nurture and express all of who we are. And sometimes it reaches a point where it feels like it will just be easier to let that part go. To suppress not to express.

But I hope I can rather look back one day and know that I LIVED.

If you also experience this calling towards LIVING life, welcome. I am glad you are here. This page is all about using relationship to get people to experience life completely.

If this made you feel something, drop a ❤️ below.

Being in love is a lot like being drunk.Everything feels easy, magical, effortless,and you can’t imagine ever feeling di...
21/11/2025

Being in love is a lot like being drunk.
Everything feels easy, magical, effortless,
and you can’t imagine ever feeling different.

It’s like being at a great party:
you’re laughing, you’re dancing, you keep sipping because you feel amazing…
And when someone warns you,
“Careful, you’re going to feel that tomorrow,”
you don’t believe them.
Because right now feels perfect.

That’s what early love does.
It convinces you nothing can go wrong.
That you don’t need tools.
That premarital counselling is “for other couples.”
That marriage will just naturally stay this good.

But the truth is:
love stays magical because you prepare for the moments when life gets real.

When the stress comes.
When triggers show up.
When communication gets messy.
When the “hangover” hits, not from alcohol,
but from the emotional load and responsibilities of real life.

Premarital work isn’t about fixing problems.
It’s about preventing the patterns that end marriages later.

Couples who do premarital counselling have:
🔹 higher relationship satisfaction
🔹 fewer communication breakdowns
🔹 stronger emotional safety
🔹 a significantly lower divorce rate

My 9-Week Start Right Marriage Preparation Program teaches exactly that:
• communication skills for couples
• conflict resolution tools
• emotional safety
• triggers & attachment patterns
• intimacy foundations
• expectations, roles + boundaries
• how to build a strong marriage from day one

Your wedding is one day.
Your marriage is the whole story.
Start it right.

đź’› DM START to join the program.
Your future selves will thank you.

20/11/2025

So many men think their wives are “unhappy” because the relationship needs more romance…
But for most women, the thing they’re starving for isn’t romance, it’s relief.

Women carry invisible lists in their heads all day long:
What’s for dinner? Did the kids pack their books? Should we book the dentist? When last did we have time together? How do I keep everyone okay?
And then we wonder why she’s too tired to connect, to open up, to desire, to soften.

It’s because she hasn’t had a moment where her brain gets to switch off.

That’s why the smallest things can feel like the biggest love.
Not because she can’t do them,
but because for once… she doesn’t have to think.

Try these simple “take it off her mind” moments:

1. Order dinner without asking 15 questions.
Don’t ask what she wants. Just pick her favourite.

2. Run her a bath + take the kids for a walk.
Thirty minutes of silence can save a marriage.

3. Plan a whole evening.
Babysitter, dinner, details, handled. She just gets to show up.

4. Handle one ongoing task she hates.
Groceries. Lunchboxes. Paying the bills. One thing = huge relief.

5. Say: “I’ve got this. Go rest.”
And mean it.

These things aren’t small.
For an overwhelmed woman, they’re intimacy.

If you want to rebuild connection, safety, and actual desire in your marriage, this is exactly what we work on inside my Couples Intensive.
Comment “RELIEF” and I’ll send you details. ❤️


Sometimes marriages don’t fall apart from lack of love…they fall apart from all the love that never got expressed,all th...
18/11/2025

Sometimes marriages don’t fall apart from lack of love…
they fall apart from all the love that never got expressed,
all the needs that never felt safe to say,
and all the moments where life pulled you apart
faster than you knew how to find each other again.

If your relationship feels numb, distant, or quiet in all the wrong ways…
it doesn’t mean you’re done.
It means you’re hurting.
And hurt can be healed.

My Couples Intensive is where reconnection happens, where numb turns into clarity,
distance turns into safety,
and two people remember why they chose each other.

If you want that transformation…
DM “INTENSIVE.”
This could be your turning point.




Address

106 Shirley Avenue
Pretoria
0081

Opening Hours

Monday 09:00 - 17:00
Tuesday 09:00 - 17:00
Wednesday 09:00 - 17:00
Thursday 09:00 - 17:00
Friday 09:00 - 16:00

Telephone

+27836102892

Website

https://www.imago.joburg/SRSRQUIZ

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