MILTON, Ga. — Hasani and Danielle Pettiford, owners of Couples Academy, will soon celebrate 21 years of marriage. But as they sat closely on the couch in their Milton home, they recalled a time when that benchmark felt impossible.
Hasani said couples tend to struggle in five areas — communication, sex, parenting, finances and loss, though communication is the common denominator.
“We suffered from all five of them. All of it,” Hasani said. “Broke, busted and disgusted, didn’t have a pot to pee in, a window to throw it out of … We had to crawl our way out.”
Danielle said she had asked Hasani to go to counseling time and time again, and eventually checked out. But something in him changed one day, she said, and he started watching therapeutic VHS tapes to begin a journey of self-repair.
“We found some therapists that turned everything around and gave us a different experience, where we were working on ourselves,” Danielle said. “… They really helped us center on our own development.”
In the trenches
The Pettifords saved their marriage and began sharing their story with other couples at casual gatherings at their home, laughing and playing cards. But the pair realized some of these couples would pour out their marital issues in search of the same level of happiness they had discovered.
So, Hasani and Danielle decided to take their positions more seriously and become certified as marriage and family coaches.
“Once we became infidelity recovery specialists, it seems like 99 percent of all our clients kind of fit in that category,” Hasani said.
What separates the Pettifords from other marriage counselors is that they deal with crises, those on the verge of divorce, impacted by an affair.
“It’s beyond ‘Hey, have a date night and just learn to communicate better,’” Hasani said. “We get in the trenches, and deal…
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