A strong, healthy relationship with your partner is essential for happiness and well-being. Nothing makes you feel better than a caring and understanding partner. However, even the best relationships can have conflicts now and then. If you think your relationship is experiencing a rough patch and you didn’t find a way out, go for couples therapy. Couples therapy can help you and your partner reconnect and get back on track.
What is Couples Therapy?
Couples therapy is a type of psychotherapy also known as relationship therapy or marriage counselling. This therapy specifically focuses on difficulties that most couples face during relationships. Couples therapy aims to discover and resolve conflicts and improve the relationship. An experienced therapist works with you and your partner to address underlying problems in your relationship.
Unlike individual therapy, which focuses on personal issues and growth, couples therapy helps you and your partner better understand each other and learn how to fulfil each other’s needs and feelings. An experienced therapist can provide a space to discuss your relationship openly without judging your partner so you can work together to resolve your problems constructively with the help of a therapist.
Breaking the Misconceptions
One of the biggest myths about couples therapy is that it is only for those relationships that are on the edge of collapse. However, the reality is different; it helps many happy couples strengthen their connection, improve communication, or prepare for big life changes like marriage or parenthood. It is like going to the gym, not because you are weak but because you want to stay strong.
Why Seeking Help Can Be a Game-Changer?
Imagine trying to assemble a complicated piece of furniture without instructions. Frustrating? Relationships can feel the same way. A couples therapist can provide you with that missing manual. They help partners understand each other better and learn what is missing between them, which raises conflicts. Whether you are facing recurring arguments, struggling with emotional distance, or simply want to deepen your bond, couple therapy will help you bring the spark back into your relationship.
When Should Couples Consider Therapy?
Relationships are like road trips with bumps, ups and downs, but sometimes it is impossible to feel those rough patches to smooth out. Couples therapy can help if you and your partner keep having the same argument without any reason or feel you have lost connection with your partner. There are many other reasons why people decide to try couples therapy. Here are some of the most common issues that bring couples into therapy.
Frequent Arguments and Unresolved Conflicts
When you feel you and your partner are stuck in an endless loop of disagreements, couples therapy can find your way out. No matter what, the issue is small, like who should do the dishes, or something bigger, like different views on finances. Unresolved conflicts can create resentment, making seeing each other’s perspective harder. A therapist helps break the cycle by teaching how to resolve conflict easily instead of recalling past incidents.
Lack of Communication or Emotional Connection
Poor communication can lead to misunderstandings, frustration, and even emotional distance. When you had endless conversations with your partner that became short exchanges or silences over time? This will make you and your partner feel less emotionally connected. The couple therapist can help rebuild that connection by improving your listening skills and expressing your needs to each other.
Trust Issues, Including Infidelity
Trust is the foundation of your relationship, like any other healthy relationship. A couple’s therapy can resolve all trust issues that arise from past betrayals, dishonesty, or infidelity.
Life Transitions Causing Stress
Big life changes, even positive ones, can be difficult to accept and can bring stress to a relationship. Getting married, having children, moving to a new city, or changing career shifts, whatever the change is, can all bring unexpected challenges. Therapy can help you adjust to these changes without struggles.
Anxious Attachment Styles in Relationships
Sometimes, deeper attachment patterns can cause struggles in relationships. If one partner constantly seeks reassurance while the other pulls away, it may be linked to anxious attachment styles. Therapy can help you learn about managing anxious attachment styles and make your relationship healthier and stronger.
Types of Couples Therapy
There are many approaches to couples therapy, which can include:
Emotionally focused therapy (EFT)
It focuses on improving the emotional attachment and bonding between you and your partner. The therapist helps you learn about the changes that make you feel emotionally disconnected.
Gottman method
This method addresses conflict areas and helps you and your partner learn problem-solving skills. It aims to improve the friendship and intimacy between you and your partner.
EllenWachtel’ss approach
It focuses on the relationship’s positive aspects, which help make it more firm. It emphasizes self-reflection rather than blame.
Psychodynamic couples therapy
This therapy helps you and your partner explore the underlying hopes and fears and helps you understand each other better.
Behavioural therapy
Also known as behavioural couples therapy (BCT), this form of therapy involves shaping behaviour by reinforcing positive behaviours that promote stability and satisfaction while discouraging behaviours that foster negativity.
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)
It is also known as cognitive behavioural couples therapy (CBCT). CBCT
involves identifying and changing negative thought patterns with positive ones.
The Benefits of Couples Therapy
Couples therapy offers many benefits that can help improve emotional and physical satisfaction in your romantic relationship. Here are some of the top benefits:
Improved Communication and Listening Skills
One of the prime goals of couples therapy is to teach you and your partner how to communicate healthily and constructively. You can easily handle conflicts without escalation by learning how to express your feelings, needs, and concerns properly and how to actively listen.
Increased Intimacy and Affection
Issues with emotional and physical intimacy are common reasons for seeking therapy. A therapist can help identify barriers to intimacy and guide you through techniques to increase closeness and affection.
Better Conflict Resolution
You willgain important conflict resolution skills, such as compromising, validating each other’s perspectives, and arguing respectfully. Applying these skills helps prevent fights over disagreements.
Identifying Unhealthy Patterns
Therapy helps you identify dysfunctional behaviours, thoughts, and interactions that get ingrained in relationships over time.
Improved Trust and Commitment
Couples therapy is designed to help repair broken trust, increase commitment, and make the relationship feel secure again.
Healthier Communication with Children
For couples with children, therapy provides guidance on how to keep
kids away from adult issues and create a low-conflict home environment.
Clarified Roles and Boundaries
This therapy helps spouses define their roles and set reasonable boundaries regarding finances, household responsibilities, and personal needs.
Increased Self-Awareness
Couple therapy helps you and your partner explore your behaviours, emotions, and interaction methods.
Stronger Coping Skills
Therapy equips you with coping skills to better handle relationship stressors, life changes, grief and loss or financial strain.
What to Expect In Couples Therapy?
Most couples therapy sessions are conducted with both partners present. However, with the other’s permission, the therapist can see or contact one partner separately to gain information important to the relationship. Sometimes, an individual seeks couples counselling for change in a troubled relationship. It is most common because their partner is unwilling to participate in therapy. Most therapists recommend consistency with weekly 50-60-minute sessions to maximize progress, but frequency and length can vary depending on your situation.
The therapist will likely ask many questions about each partner’s family and an individual’s beliefs or perspective. Couples therapists do not take sides in conflicts. Still, they may call out individual behaviours that contribute to raising an issue together. Relational science has firmly shown that both partners play a role in a couple’s problems. Therapy usually aims to bring partners closer together emotionally and physically. When resolving dilemmas, partners learn to show their affection for each other.
They also learn ways of constructively managing their own negative and vulnerable emotions, such as sadness, anger, fear, and resentment. With the therapist’s guidance, you and your partner collaborate to develop practical solutions to resolve relationship problems. Between sessions, couples are asked to practice the insights, behaviours, and problem-solving skills they gain in therapy at home. The therapist will regularly check your progress and adjust the approach as needed.
What to Look for in a Couples Therapist?
When you are researching for couples counsellors, look for these important qualifications:
- Licensed in family therapy or clinical social work: Seek a therapist who is fully trained and credentialed in relationship/marriage counselling.
- Experience with couples: Look for a therapist with decent experience conducting couples therapy specifically.
- Accepts your insurance: Check if the therapist takes your insurance plan.
- Specializes in your concerns: Find someone well-versed in handling the specific issues you face in a relationship.
- Compatible therapy style: Ensure the therapist’s approach fits your preferences and personality as a couple.
- Helpful logistics: Consider location, availability, and office environment for your convenience.
Is Couples Therapy Right for You?
Although couples therapy offers many advantages, it is not right for every relationship. Here are a few signs that may show couples therapy may be beneficial for your relationship:
- If you feel your communication has broken down and arguments are increasing.
- Ongoing feelings of disconnection, resentment, or dissatisfaction in the relationship.
- You want to understand your conflicts and improve your relationship but need help.
- Serious relationship issues are present, like infidelity, abuse, or addiction. You are committed to each other but keep repeating destructive patterns. When are you unable to adjust to significant life changes.
However, in some situations, couples therapy may not be advisable, such as:
- One partner is completely disengaged and has no interest in improving the relationship.
- Domestic violence or severe substance abuse is present.
- One partner has already decided to end the relationship.
