Couples Therapy
Are You And Your Partner Having Relationship Issues?
Have you and your romantic partner been having difficulty communicating or understanding each other’s needs? Do you find yourself increasingly noticing negative patterns, such as:
- Constant fighting and arguing?
- Emotional distance or withdrawal?
- Trust or intimacy issues?
Maybe this is a recent development in your relationship, and you merely want to be proactive about resolving it. Or perhaps you have been having problems for a while now and you are wondering if couples counseling can help you properly address them.
Couples Can Often Have Trouble Communicating And Connecting
You may find yourself and your partner repeatedly snapping at each other or unable to discuss anything productively without one person getting defensive or feeling attacked. Or you may have noticed that one or both of you have become detached or less present in the relationship.
Perhaps you have disagreements about differences in parenting styles, financial responsibilities, or dynamics with friends or extended family. One or both of you may also be dealing with other overlapping issues like anxiety, depression, addiction, physical illness, or grief. Perhaps you are even on the verge of separation or divorce and are hoping for external help and support.
Thankfully, couples or marriage therapy can help romantic partnerships work out many of the issues they commonly face. By working with Center For Resiliency, both of you can emerge seen, heard, understood—and happier in your relationship together.
Most Couples Will Experience Conflict At Some Point
Despite the popular depictions of romantic relationships in movies and on TV, the reality is that all partnerships consist of ups and downs along the way. And when the pressures of work or parenthood are added to the challenges of emotional intimacy, it is unsurprising that many couples experience conflict or dissatisfaction at some point in their relationship.
According to the Gottman Institute, about 67 percent of new parents experience a significant decline in overall couple satisfaction in the first three years of their baby’s life (1). In addition, 50 percent of marriages that end do so within the first seven years, and 69 percent of conflict in relationships is about being unable to resolve perpetual problems (2) (3).
Busy Lifestyles Often Mean Relationships Take A Back Seat
Unfortunately, modern life often dictates that work comes before personal relationships. On top of this, other outside influences like social media can have a very negative effect on couples by reinforcing unrealistic expectations of how relationships should look or feel.
Couples will often struggle to overcome their ongoing issues in large part because each partner is simply unable to see beyond their own perspective. And even when an argument ends, it often does without the underlying issue ever getting addressed or resolved.
With the help of an engaged couples therapist, though, you can break free from this negative cycle. Together, you and your partner can develop skills for how to better talk and listen to each other, as well as resolve conflicts by breaking patterns of ineffective communication.
(1) https://www.gottman.com/about/
(2) https://www.flourishing-lives.com/dr-john-gottmans-marriage-research-statistics/
(3) https://www.gottman.com/blog/
Couples Therapy Can Help You Repair And Renew Your Bond
When you experience romantic conflict or dissatisfaction, it can be easy to idealize an earlier time when the two of you felt happier and more connected. But relationships are always changing and evolving, which means that you must learn to evolve with those changes.
Couples counseling helps you adapt to those changes and enables you to grow in harmony with the evolution of your relationship. Therapy can also give both of you the opportunity to speak your minds in a safe space where the conversation will be skillfully guided by a couples counselor. Each of you can rest assured that, despite the intensity of emotions that may present, the sessions will remain productive and respectful.
What You And Your Partner Can Expect From Couples Counseling
At the beginning of treatment, your couples counselor will assess how each partner interacts with the other and then provide you both with feedback on any existing patterns of conflict in your relationship. You will also learn some new skills for how to de-escalate these patterns of conflict and improve unproductive communication.
During your actual therapy sessions, you will work on applying these skills to work through any specific past or current issues while reinforcing your bond for the time ahead. The overall focus will be on making small, positive changes in your communication with each other and learning to view each interaction as an opportunity to strengthen your connection.
Treatment Approaches That Fit Your Specific Needs
Your couples therapist will typically employ one of two treatment methods, depending on your specific history and circumstances:
- Emotionally-Focused Couples Therapy – An emotion-driven type of couples therapy, EFT is rooted in attachment theory and empowers couples to rekindle their emotional bonds and learn how to solve their own problems.
- Gottman Method Couples Therapy – A well-researched form of couples therapy, the Gottman Method is rooted in the idea that relationships succeed or fail depending largely on how couples communicate and interact.
Through either of these evidence-based approaches, you and your partner will learn how to use verbal communication more effectively, increase emotional and physical affection, decrease emotional barriers, and build greater respect, empathy, and understanding for one another.
Working together with your couples counselor, you will also expand your ability to communicate and understand each other’s perspectives. The ultimate goals of couples counseling are to reduce the conflict in your relationship, improve communication with your partner, and enable you both to experience a stronger, healthier relationship.
You may still have questions about Couples Therapy
What if the therapist takes my partner’s side over mine?
Our couples therapists will never take sides or point fingers, although some sessions might involve focusing on one partner more than the other; in other sessions, the focus might switch. No matter what, your therapist’s goal is not to gang up on anyone but rather to strengthen the relationship.
We have tried therapy before and it did not help.
Couples counseling requires the full willingness and participation of both parties. If only one or neither of the parties commits to the process, an impasse will be reached quickly. With dual commitment, though, you can make a lot of progress each and every week.
What if couples therapy does not work for us?
Couples therapy actually has between a 70 and 90 percent success rate (4) (5). Certain factors, like interpersonal violence, a lack of commitment from one or both partners, or an unwillingness to examine and change behaviors and dynamics, can interfere with progress. However, when both partners want to see improvement, positive change is not only possible but likely!
(4) https://drrebeccajorgensen.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Lebow-et-al-review-of-couple-research-2012.pdf
(5) https://www.aamft.org/