Struggling in your relationship? Couples counseling and relationship therapy can help at any stage. Learn when to start couples therapy and how therapy for couples in California can rebuild trust and connection.
When you and your partner are struggling, and you have been for a long time, it can feel hopeless. The same old arguments, the same cycles of nearly breaking up and trying to make up. You’ve tried date nights, you’ve tried scheduling sex, you’ve tried to forgive and forget, you’ve tried those card decks with deep questions to help you get closer, and you feel like you’ve tried it all.
All, except perhaps couples counseling. But what if you feel like your relationship might have hit a point of no return? Are you worried it’s too late, that couples counseling won’t help?
Take it from a relationship therapist: it’s never too late for couples counseling. Couples counseling is a space to examine your relationship and its challenges, tackling patterns of criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling that are strangling your ability to connect. It’s a place to rebuild the joy, the companionship, and the ability to have healthy disagreements, where you and your partner turn toward each other instead of away.
Wanting to repair your relationship is enough of a reason to try couples counseling
You may be looking at your relationship and thinking, “What’s the point? Should we keep trying? Can we ever be happy?” Let’s take a look at what a will to try can do to help a relationship.
Drs. John and Julie Gottman are preeminent relationship researchers and therapists, and their studies have found that one of the biggest sources of relationship failure is not noticing and attending to each other’s needs, and not responding when a partner makes a bid for connection. This erodes trust, and over time can completely eliminate it. Staring at your phone while your spouse tells you about their workday, or getting a flat, bored answer when you try to share your excitement about a personal interest, are both instances where one partner is trying to connect, and the other isn’t responding.
Wanting to repair your relationship and committing to attending counseling together is a powerful bid for connection. It’s a sign that you are both interested in connecting and building trust, and you’re ready to do it together. Instead of worrying that pursuing counseling might be a sign your relationship is doomed, consider it a sign you and your partner are invested in each other in a meaningful way that shows your relationship still has hope.
Couples therapy is not a last resort; it’s a proactive step that can create positive change
Relationship therapy is not a last-ditch effort, it’s not the last stop before divorce, and it’s not a space where anyone gets ganged up on or blamed for everything that goes wrong, even if that’s been a common communication pattern in your relationship up until now.
In counseling, you invite an expert into your life who will treat you both as equals and act as a neutral, supportive presence in the therapy room, facilitating communication that supports the health of your relationship. Relationship therapy is a space where you and your partner have a chance to radically change how you connect. You can both ask for accountability from your partner and hold yourself accountable. It’s a space where vulnerability is welcomed, and listening is required.
How do you know when to start relationship therapy?
Dr. Gottman estimates that couples wait up to six years after problems arise to seek counseling. This is likely because too many of us have been conditioned to accept, and even expect, a little bit of misery in a relationship, so much so that we may miss signs that things aren’t right. When you’re expecting to get bored, or to end up with a dead bedroom, or you’re used to explosive fights because that’s how your parents handled things, you won’t necessarily realize that your relationship is in real trouble. This will delay you in looking at couples therapy as a viable way to repair your relationship.
In fact, it can even be helpful to go to couples therapy before you think you need it. A neutral, supportive space where you can work on connection and communication together can help strengthen a healthy relationship, too.
Why do people go to couples therapy?
While you don’t have to have a specific reason to pursue couples therapy, some of the most common reasons include:
- Constant arguing
- Major life changes
- Addiction
- Mental health changes
- Chronic dissatisfaction with the relationship
- Emotional or physical intimacy problems
- Communication style clashes
- Household management conflicts
- Daily stress
- Mismatched schedules
- Infidelity
- Financial disagreements
- Stress from parenting
If any of these reasons sound familiar, even if you think they’re a normal part of a relationship, couples counseling may help you find a better way to connect, repair, and find satisfaction again.
Couples counseling can be useful even when a relationship ends
Not all relationships are meant to continue. Whether you decide to end your relationship while pursuing couples counseling, or you’re currently separated but still experiencing high levels of conflict, your counselor can help you even when your relationship is ending.
Instead of trying to grapple with hurt feelings, custody concerns, or financial entanglements on your own, having a couples counselor who can help you notice and change course when either of you is veering into contempt, criticism, defensiveness, or stonewalling can change the entire tone of the end of your relationship.
What is relationship therapy really like?
In your first couples therapy session, both partners will meet with me, and we’ll all discuss the relevant relationship history and current challenges that brought you to therapy. Next, I will meet with each partner individually. These individual sessions help me get a fuller picture of who you are and how you understand and struggle with your relationship.
From then on, you and your partner will work together to rebuild trust and foster intimacy in your relationship. Each couples therapy session will start with a review of the goals set in the last session, and a discussion of anything new and pressing that may have come up during the week. You will take turns speaking and listening, and I’ll ask questions and offer communication skills to try, facilitating constructive conversation and problem-solving for both of you.
During your sessions, I’ll keep an eye out for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as the Gottmans put it, of criticism, contempt, deflection, and if I notice them creeping into communication, I’ll pause and offer you new ways of communicating that foster connection, instead of destroying trust. We will wrap up the session with a review of what has been covered and a goal to pursue between sessions as part of your relationship repair efforts, so the positive impacts of counseling can be sustained throughout the week.
When is couples counseling not a good idea?
There are a few instances where couples counseling is not the best choice. If your relationship contains emotional or physical abuse, or if a partner is experiencing a severe mental health episode, couples counseling can do more harm than good. In these circumstances, you’d be better served through individual mental healthcare support, as well as connecting to domestic violence resources.
Therapy for couples in California can help you and your partner see eye to eye
There are no relationships without conflict, so there’s no reason to think that because you’re experiencing too much conflict, your relationship is doomed. Couples counseling is a unique relationship experience where you and your partner are intentionally pursuing change, and you’re actively hashing out problems and trying solutions with the help of someone who is also prioritizing your relationship. It’s a conscious decision to learn new skills and use them to make your life, and the life of your partner, better.
At Stress Solutions, we welcome you and your partner, no matter how much difficulty you feel you’re experiencing. We invite you to call for a free phone consultation to take that first step toward a healthier, more harmonious approach to your relationship. Remember, it’s never too late to try couples counseling!
