Couples Therapy

If your relationship is in crisis or feels hopelessly stuck, then couples therapy can help. However, your relationship doesn’t have to get to that point before you seek marriage counseling. In fact, couples counseling can help people at any stage of their relationship.

If you are seeking information about couples therapy because your relationship feels broken or stalled, then you aren’t alone. Being in a relationship is wonderful but it is also very challenging. The wounds from our childhood and past relationships can show up in our current relationships. Therefore, the pain you’re feeling now may be magnified because it is built upon the pain of the past. You might feel a big range of troubling emotions, and you might not even know for sure where some of them are coming from.

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Don’t Let Minor Problems Become Big Issues

It is heartbreaking to be in a state of pain and conflict in one of your most important relationships. When your marriage feels like it’s falling apart, it can seem like your entire world is shattering. Moreover, the partner who is supposed to be there by your side through everything is the one person who seems completely incapable of helping you through this tough time. It’s no wonder that people struggle to cope during times of relationship strife.

Even though it might feel like you’re falling apart, you can get through this. In fact, you and your partner might be able to get through it with your relationship intact. Couples therapy can help each of you to better understand your relationship and how to work through the challenges that you’re facing. You can improve your communication so that the two of you more fully understand where each person is coming from.

In addition to communication work, couples therapy also helps you to understand and improve the nonverbal parts of your relationship as well. Instead of standing on opposite sides of an issue, battling to be the one who wins, you can come together to combat the issue as a team.

Of course, not every relationship will last forever. Does that mean you shouldn’t try couples counseling? Not at all. Even if the two of you decide that it’s time to end the relationship, therapy can help. It can provide you with the tools necessary to understand what happened, work together to split up amicably, take the best memories from the relationship, and then gain closure. This allows each of you to move forward in the healthiest way so that you can be well-prepared for a new, more satisfying relationship in the future.

On the other hand, you might not be at that point at all. In fact, you don’t have to be fighting about anything, yet, to benefit from couples therapy. For example, some people come to therapy for pre-marital counseling. They’re in the bliss and excitement of planning their lives together, yet they realize that they need help navigating the big milestones that are still to come. Whether or not you’re planning a wedding, you can benefit from periodic check-ins with a couples therapist to help the two of you get and stay on the same page as you move forward in your shared life. By attending couples therapy early, you avoid letting the minor problems become bigger issues.

What is Couples Counseling?

So, what should you expect from couples therapy? Each therapist has their own approach and will work with your unique needs as a couple to find the methods that work best for you. In general, though, here are some things that you can expect to happen in couples counseling:

A safe space where you can share your authentic feelings with your partner
Learning to speak in ways that communicate your truth without shaming or blaming the other person
Learning to listen to your partner with curiosity, non-judgment, and an open mind
Assistance to fully understand one another’s communication around big issues
Practicing skills, techniques, and exercise to build communication, intimacy, and trust

In other words, you’ll do a lot of talking in therapy as well as a lot of listening. You’ll work to improve your communication, using research-based methods that have been shown to help couples make a marriage work.

Is Couples Counseling Right for You?

If you’re still on the fence about going to couples counseling, here are some of the times in life when couples might attend therapy together:

Before a wedding, after the empty nest, or in any significant life transition
During any communication breakdown
Throughout parenting to discuss stressors in the family
After infidelity or a loss of trust
When negotiating boundaries in open or polyamorous relationships

One of the interesting things that you’ll discover in therapy is that you have a lot of strengths as an individual and as a couple. Even when things feel like they are at their worst, you are able to channel your strengths to get through those tough times. Your therapist can help empower you to recognize, use, and benefit from those strengths.

Your therapist will work with you together as a couple. We’re on the side of the relationship, not on either person’s side. Therefore, we will listen to each of you fully and non-judgmentally, helping you to see each other’s point of view, and helping both of you to see the bigger picture that can help improve your relationship.

We’ll provide you with a variety of skills to improve communication, increase intimacy, build trust, work through challenges, and make decisions for the present and future life you wish to have. We have experience in working with all types of couples in all types of relationships (regardless of orientation, marital status, monogamy beliefs, etc.) We believe that you know what is right for you, and we work with you to identify and articulate your needs so that you can get those needs met.

Contact us today if you’re interested in a couples therapy consultation.