Relationships have their difficulties.
Taking care to listen and to nurture your relationship does not always prevent the feeling of emotional disconnect. You can still have misunderstandings and disagreements with your partner.
Sometimes there are manifest issues you are both aware of.
These can be differences regarding children, trust, money, or work. Other issues can be differences in your idea of a fulfilling relationship.
You may notice an absence of physical intimacy.
You may feel as though your partner is being unfaithful or have differing ideas about the appropriate boundaries regarding relatives.
You may notice an absence of communication.
Little things can turn big. You may feel as though your partner is always criticizing you. Your partner may feel as though you are doing nothing to communicate or give feedback.
You love and want to be with this person, but things feel different and difficult.
Therapy can help teach you and your partner how to better communicate and interact with one another.
You do not have to be on the verge of separation to go to therapy. Many couples want to maintain the emotional closeness they have with one another and go to therapy to help them do just that.
Couples Therapy Is Not About Being Right
People are often anxious about couples therapy because they believe the therapist will decide who is wrong and who is right.
This is definitely not the goal of therapy.
There are no lawyers and judges in this session.
A therapist is not there to decide who lost an argument.
The goal is not to figure out who the “good” or “bad” partner is.
A therapist is there to help people identify the reasons for the repetitive negative patterns in their interactions.
In couples therapy, identifying these negative interaction patterns can often be more beneficial than focusing on resolving the reasons for the couple’s fighting.
Repeated negative interactions can often leave both partners feeling frustrated and/or helpless and unable to communicate their true feelings.
Couples therapy helps bring these frustrations to the forefront of a relationship where they can be constructively expressed and dealt with.
Communication Troubles Are Usually not Lack of Word Choices
Most people can speak. Many cannot communicate effectively when things get emotional.
It is not always easy to explain your feelings and concerns, and it can be tempting to shift the focus of the conversation to negative feelings associated with blame.
“You never listen to me.”
“You do this all the time.”
“You don’t care about me.”
“Why talk to you if you’re not even going to listen?”
When a conversation gets to this point, an individual becomes preoccupied with building a case against his or her partner, and defending him or herself.
There is no longer focus on the initial concern.
Couples therapy can help create awareness about these behaviors, and break negative communication patterns.
As a result, individuals are more likely to express concerns and needs without becoming offensive and attacking, and learn to respond to complaints without instantly feeling threatened and becoming defensive.
This does not prevent people from disagreeing, arguing, or getting emotional. This helps transform unproductive, offensive, and threatening communication into something more constructive.
Therapy Allows You To Peel Back The Layers And Identify Root Causes Of Conflict
There are few, if any, recurring arguments within a relationship that are actually about the surface level issues that are being discussed.
Loads of arguments are about control. This includes the classic example of who is responsible for doing the dishes.
Coming home late can be an issue of trust. Leaving the house at the right time can be a way to signal you are not going to be controlling.
Therapy helps peel back the layers. If there is a repeated argument about money, there is likely a deeper rooted insecurity about being control/responsible.
Therapy helps identify unconscious thoughts. Many times, unconscious thoughts and feelings are the cause of conflicts.
Many times, the issue isn’t actually the partner. The issue may be with the person having the unconscious thought/feeling.
One partner may think “you never help with the dishes.” The real thought may be “you never help and I feel unappreciated because I always do everything.”
Therapy helps give language to thoughts and feelings. It helps provide a deeper understanding of the feelings that are actually causing the conflict.
Most couples repeatedly have the same kinds of conflicts.
Though conflicts in couple relationships may appear to be random, and while differences may occur from one situation to the other, a close analysis usually reveals similarities.
For instance, a situation may begin with a husband coming home and his wife complaining about being left alone to deal with the children. The husband may defend himself by saying he had to work overtime, and in the process, may bring up the wife’s complaining about having to take care of the children all by herself. The wife, feeling the husband is not answering the question, may tell him to stop changing the topic. The husband may feel attacked and may withdraw. The wife, getting madder, may discuss all the times in the past when she felt he withdrew from her.
As a result of this, the couple may remain angry for some time and may not talk to each other. However, the same thing may happen a week later.
Therapy helps identify these repeating conflicts and orbits, and to turn from reacting against each other to working together to break the repeating orbits.
Learning to Listen Differently Can Help
Listening appears to be a simple task, but it can be difficult to truly listen, especially if you are upset with your partner. It can be tempting to plan what you will say next while your partner is speaking.
It can also lead you to interrupt your partner if you think they are providing the wrong information.
It can also lead you to disregard everything your partner is saying and focus on one particular point that you do not agree with. It takes practice to be able to listen to your partner without immediately giving your opinion and/or correcting your partner.
This can be done through couples therapy. This type of therapy benefits couples by allowing them to work through issues if one partner is able to provide information regarding their partner’s experience that they previously did not know.
It is also beneficial to couples because it can help resolve conflicts that are occurring due to a lack of understanding rather than a lack of information. Understanding your partner and giving them the opportunity to feel as though you empathize with them can help alleviate some of the tension that is present in the relationship.
Emotional Disconnection in Couples
Disconnect in a relationship does not resemble disconnect in a fight.
In some cases, the complete absence of connection is more problematic.
Disconnect may result in a loss of passion and companionship, and couples may begin to feel more like roommates.
Significant communication concerning shared responsibilities and children may dominate.
Discussions concerning the relationship may have ceased.
Passion may have completely ceased.
Nights may consist of couples sitting next to each other, occupied by a different media stimulus.
Relationships may have lost their emotional closeness without any notable, large events occurring.
The absence of emotional closeness may have incrementally increased over time.
The role of a relationship may have largely remained the same.
Therapy may help clients pinpoint when emotional distance started to increase.
Often, both individuals may have failed to acknowledge and verbalize their loneliness.
Therapy Can Improve Partner Communication
Many people assume that their partner should be able to pick up on what they need without having it explicitly expressed. “They should just know!” is something we’ve all probably said or heard at some point. The truth is, there are a lot of things that partners just won’t know, and assuming your partner should know makes for some unpleasant surprises.
What gives one person reassurance may not work for another. The same goes for affection.
All of these things may vary from person to person, and even from relationship to relationship. The problem is that if a person has all of these unmet needs, they’re eventually going to get frustrated.
Therapy can be of great assistance here. Therapy aims to help individuals change the way they communicate. Rather than expressing dissatisfaction via criticism, therapy can help change this to expressing desires via suggestion.
Being able to express what you want in this manner is a great step forward for many relationships. Therapy improves the odds that your needs will be met, rather than continuing to operate in the dark.
Couples Therapy for Infidelity and Other Trust Issues
Trust can suffer because of many different actions. There are several examples beyond infidelity.
These actions can include:
- Lying
- Secretive Financial Decisions
- Promise Breaking
- Emotional Withdrawal
- Substance Use
- violating Agreement
- Secrets
- Repeating the Above
- Trauma from the Past
There are many ways to break trust. Often trust can’t be easily or immediately repaired.
After trust has been broken, many people have the expectation that an apology will repair the relationship.
This is often not the case.
People often feel the need to ask for repeated reassurance and may become frustrated with the need to continually explain the situation to the other person.
Many people are encouraged to seek therapy to address relationship issues because repairing relationships takes time.
In many cases, relationships often reach a stalemate and therapy is encouraged to help break the stalemate.
Therapy is helpful because it often breaks the stalemate and helps couples better understand how to proceed.
How Couples Counseling Helps With Life’s Transitions
There are a number of different transition that happen in the course of a relationship. The strength of a relationship may be tested with outside changes.
Some of these changes can include having children, moving, changing jobs, losing a job, taking care of parents, blending families, money problems, personal health problems, death, children leaving home, and many others.
Often times the roles and expectations of a relationship can change with these external transitions. Sometimes the changes can include an increase or a decrease of emotional and physical closeness.
A relationship can include a number of differing views and approaches to the changes and problems the relationship can face. The individual views can often times compliment each other, but the lack of communication can ultimately lead to an emotional separation.
It is often beneficial to seek outside help. The help can often times be in the form of couples therapy.
Parenting often brings out the differences in partner relationships.
Of course, people are free to have their own beliefs and ideas, but things can quickly become frustrating when partners disagree.
Discipline, rules, screen time, bed times, and family relationships can all quickly escalate into arguments.
Often, partners are just trying to do what they believe is right for the kids, and both need to look past the rules to really help the kids.
In the process of doing this, couples can benefit from identifying their core beliefs in regards to family and coming to a mutual understanding of some issues in order to prevent constant conflict.
Normal Changes in Relationships
Emotional and physical intimacy usually ebbs and flows throughout a relationship.
Parenting, work, and family problems, conflicts and concerns with body image can ultimately increase or decrease the desire for physical and emotional closeness.
Sometimes people withdraw and other times people become too aggressive, all while not really knowing why.
Intimacy and emotional closeness go hand and hand.
Even if a couple is not intimate physically, they are often so emotionally.
The purpose of couples therapy is not to force physical intimacy, but to help a couple identify and communicate the concerns that are preventing emotional closeness.
Therapy Can Help Couples Overcome Years of Resentment
Resentment takes time to build.
Often, small, unsettled grievances occur repeatedly over time.
Your partner may have felt unsupported during times when they needed support the most.
You may have felt that you always had more to do than your partner, year after year.
Your partner may have promised they would do something and broken that promise many times.
Ultimately, past, unresolved grievances build up and become stored emotional baggage.
An unrelated, more recent argument serves as a trigger to bring out all of that stored emotional baggage.
You may find yourself bringing up grievances that occurred many years prior and disagreeing about things you have no control over changing.
Therapy is helpful in bringing out that old, unresolved baggage. Therapy teaches individuals the grievances they have that remain unresolved and whether or not there is the potential for healing.
Resentment often lessens when an individual feels that their experience has been about understanding their experience.
Preventive Nature of Couples Therapy
Significant relationship issues are not the only issues for which couples should seek therapy. Some people choose to see a counselor as a way to develop communications skills, which they may wish to use while married. Others go to couples counseling to learn to resolve the kinds of issues that often lead to conflict within a marriage. Still others attend therapy to learn to deal with the emotional and physical changes and stresses brought on by the addition of a new child to the family.
Couples therapy is designed to minimize issues that have the potential to negatively impact a relationship. Improving communication is an important aspect of numerous, if not all, relationships. Learning to communicate in ways that deal with, and perhaps resolve, minor issues can help reduce the likelihood that minor issues will turn into major conflicts.
What Happens During Couples Therapy?
Therapists often help couples work through the issues that led them to seek therapy by looking at the positives and negatives of the relationship. The therapist may ask couples:
- What attracted each of you to the other?
- What are the positives and strengths of your relationship?
- What are the negatives and concerns of your relationship?
- What are the areas of conflict?
- How do disagreements occur and what leads to them?
- What are the major events in your relationship?
- What are your expectations and goals for therapy?
During the course of the therapy the couple will engage in various communication-related activities. The goal of the therapist is to help the couple identify areas of concern and work toward making behavioral changes to address those concerns. This may include dealing with emotionally charged issues that have not been resolved. It is the couple that does the work; the therapist is more of a coach or facilitator.
What If Your Partner Does Not Want To Come?
It happens often where one person is more enthusiastic about therapy.
Often, the hesitant person believes that they will be accused of wrongdoing.
Therapy implies that the relationship is doomed to fail.
It may be awkward for them to discuss personal issues with an individual they have never met before.
They may be worried about some of the reasons you want counseling. If your partner is uncomfortable about any of this, you can tell them the reasons that you want counseling without being threatening or accusing.
You don’t want your partner to feel like you are threatening them when you say things like, “You are the problem and that’s why we need therapy” do you?
It is probably better to say something more like “I think we need to address our communication issues, because we keep getting stuck in the same repeated arguments and I don’t think we can get beyond them on our own”.
It is a good idea to look into relationship patterns and your communication styles through individual therapy if your partner still is not willing to undergo therapy with you. You can’t control your partner, but you can change how you communicate.
There are many reasons where individual therapy before couples therapy is the best course of action. This is especially the case if there is any kind of abuse happening. Don’t put yourself in an unsafe situation, and do what you can to take care of yourself.
What is the Implication of Pursuing Relationship Counseling?
Not all couples go counseling with the same goal.
Some want to preserve their relationship.
Others are still deciding.
Counseling allows couples to analyze their relationship to determine why it has broken down, what is essential for each partner to feel secure and supported in the relationship, and what areas of the relationship require improvement.
Counseling can foster positive communication.
In some cases, couples are able to repair the distance in their relationship; in others, counseling helps couples realize that the relationship is distant and that it would be healthier for them to separate.
Are “Naturally” Good Relationships Hard Work?
Yes. People often think that the best relationships are effortless.
While there may be elements of a relationship that are effortless, healthy relationships typically require the couple to be intentional and committed to ongoing communication to bring adaptability and flexibility to the relationship.
Repair and rebuilding trust are often essential to a lasting relationship.
Two people may love each other very much. However, they may be emotionally unavailable to each other, and consequently, support each other in behaving in ways that ultimately bring harm to the other.
As soon as a couple decides that their relationship is worth working on, they should seek help to repair and heal their relationship. Help does not mean the relationship has failed.
Final Thoughts
Insiders can’t always break the cycle that is damaging to their relationship.
Disagreements are repeated.
Defences are repeated.
Neither feels truly listened to.
Patronizingly, one partner may begin to feel increasingly closed off.
Therapy helps slow and break this cycle. This offers the couple the opportunity to modify how they talk to one another, get a better understanding of each other’s feelings, deepen and strengthen their emotional bond.
This also provides the opportunity to acknowledge and react to feelings and needs that are otherwise unaddressed and unexpressed.
At Serenity Psychotherapy, PLLC, this help is offered through couples counseling.
You don’t need to be ashamed of what you’ve been saying or doing in your relationship to seek help.
You don’t need to be at the breaking point of your relationship to seek the tools to heal it.
Many relationships can benefit from therapy long before this is recognized.
