Day: July 1, 2021

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Marriage Counseling: Seek Help for Relationship Concerns

Keeping a committed, long-term serious happy relationship together, like marriage, can be possibly one of the most difficult challenges that two persons can face in life. When people choose to live together, disagreements, fights, and random difficulties become unavoidable and should be expected. However, open communication and trying to understand each other can strengthen relationships amid these inevitable challenges.

Let’s discuss here in this guide to couples therapy what marital counseling is and see how it can help you reinforce better communication skills.

When Do You Need Marriage Counseling?

Don’t wait to seek counseling till you’re ready to give up. Marital stress and problems will not go away by themselves, although many married couples sweep the difficulties under the rug for months or years.

Maintaining a strong marriage is hard. It is unavoidable that your marriage is not doing great. Both of you know it. You really miss the old days and want to end the silence and fix things, but you don’t know how. The treatment works, and it may be your solution to resolve conflicts and rebuild the bond with your spouse. It can also help you decide whether or not being together is still good for you.

 

How Can Marriage Counseling Help?

A few minutes after work, your husband (imagine Carl or Richard Langley) arrives home, heads to the cupboard, and takes his usual bottle of wine. He sits in front of the television and drinks on his own in silence. You haven’t been talking for weeks now. Sex life? You don’t remember having that for some time now! No worries because it can certainly help many couples understand each other better and make quality decisions.

In addition to addressing relationship distress, it may also recommend individual therapy to support emotional health and help couples understand their emotional responses. The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy is a great resource for those seeking a qualified marriage and family therapist. But first, you need relevant knowledge about this treatment.

Marriage counseling focuses on marriage and relationship issues. It is a valuable tool for those who are struggling with relationship concerns and seeking to improve their overall relationship satisfaction. Marriage and family therapists are trained professionals who specialize in helping couples navigate challenges and develop a healthy relationship.

Enhancing Relationship Dynamics

It is often known as a marriage counselor or therapist, and it assists partners – determined or not – in resolving disagreements and enhancing their married life. The therapy process offers strategies and mechanisms that can improve communication skills and problem-solving, meet halfway, and even disagree more healthily and positively to have a healthy marriage.

Marriage counselors offer the same marriage services as other therapists, although with a specialized focus on marriage and family therapy. It is an effective form of therapy that can help married couples work through a variety of issues. One approach is discernment counseling, which is particularly helpful for those who are uncertain about the future of their relationship. It involves individual and joint sessions, where the therapist uses active listening and the Gottman method to help couples understand their different parenting styles and develop new skills for effective communication. The treatment can help both partners understand each other’s perspectives and work towards a common goal, improving overall women’s health and the health of the relationship.

Celebrating Individuality and Finding Harmony in Marriage

Most couples,  especially in married life,  are not perfect at all. The husband or wife shares joy but also opinions, values, personal background, external links, and ideas in the relationship without knowing if they match your spouse’s. The differences you both have do not essentially imply that your marriage is made to fail. In fact, your differences can complement each other – opposites attract. Your differences can also help partners interact, sense, recognize, respect, and embrace opposing moments, lives, and backgrounds.

Marriage counseling is a healthy way for couples from different backgrounds to improve their relationship and find common ground. A study published in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy found that couples therapy work can be effective in helping couples improve their communication and intimacy using different techniques. No matter the specific issues, therapy may benefit them by providing effective ways to communicate and understand each other’s perspectives.

 

Overcoming Disparities and Rediscovering Joy

Married life can be put to the test anytime. Think of it like a movie with no release date in place. Disparities or activities that you previously found enjoyable may no longer be that interesting after you’ve spent some time together.

Occasionally, certain concerns like money, watching movies or film choices, language, success, children, playing, sexual issues, manners, or infidelity cause conflicts in the relationship. Eventually, communication, love, and affection collapse. Whatever the reason is, negativity in a relationship can develop into unnecessary worry, stress, fear, strain, lack of feeling or spirit, and other serious issues.

The Importance Of Timely Marriage Counseling And Common Concerns to Address

You can wait and cross your fingers that your relationship problems will start going on their own to a forgotten house in your head. However, left neglected, an unhealthy relationship may progress and ultimately cause psychological or physical conditions like depression. A messy love story created needs urgent relationship help as it can also cause complications in the workplace and impact other members of the family and even close friends and significant others.

Don’t wait until your marriage is unraveling to seek the treatment.

Below is a list of the common concerns and example problems that the treatment can assist you and your spouse deal with.

      • Financial problem
      • Infidelity
      • Miscommunication due to tone
      • Alcohol or substance abuse
      • Divorce
      • Cultural differences
      • Communication problems
      • Unemployment
      • Infertility
      • Sexual difficulties
      • Conflicts about raising children
      • Anger and other extreme tempers
      • Mental and physical conditions

You don’t necessarily have to have a difficult relationship to seek professional help. It can guide those who desire to build or fortify their bonds and get a better appreciation and respect for one partner for another.

Preparing For Marriage Through Counseling And Open Dialogue

It also helps couples who are planning to get married. They can seek advice to reach an understanding and fix disparities before marriage. But they should have realistic expectations. It usually brings spouses and couples together for joint sessions.

It helps identify and acknowledge the high-quality sources of marriage disagreements and strives to fix them. You and your spouse scrutinize both the bad and good aspects of your relationship.

Problem-Solving, Communication, and Conflict Resolution

A licensed family therapist can help strengthen relationships through new abilities and strategies. These family therapy sessions include problem-solving, open communication, and rational discussion for marriage conflict resolution. In some situations, like substance abuse or a family mental health disorder, online couples therapy or counseling can work with other healthcare professionals to give …

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What I Learned About My Partner Through Couples Counseling

 

Source: rawpixel.com

 

I recall vividly the first few sessions I had with my counselor when I was telling her that my marriage was failing, and I think it’s really over between my partner and me. I sought counseling on my own because I didn’t even have the courage or the eagerness to invite my partner to come with me. My counselor then allowed me to open up to her and express my sadness, frustration, and disappointment. There was very little hope left in me, and Alba, my counselor, was merely there to be a sounding board to listen to the whole gamut of feelings and issues that I had.

After a few months of counseling, I slowly instilled hope in myself, and I decided to ask my partner if he was willing to try and fix our marriage. Surprisingly, he wanted to. That was the beginning of the end of our constant blaming and arguing. We eventually came to look forward to our visits with Alba, as everything we learned about forgiving, understanding, and accepting, we learned from counseling.

One crucial thing that I want to share with you is that my partner and I – just like you and your partner – have numerous differences. Perhaps like us, you too will come to learn how to recognize and embrace each other’s differences.

Below are some things that I learned about my partner:

  • His Way Of Communicating. We have our unique ways of connecting with others, both close to us and those with whom we are just establishing relationships. We communicate with each other, and how we deal with our partners and their desires is vital in keeping a positive and healthy marriage.

 

  • His Way Of Handling Conflict. As with communication style, we have various ways of handling conflict, but often we don’t exert enough effort and time to understand how our partners deal with conflict. In couples counseling, the third party (the counselor) observes and determines methods to handle conflict and meet each other halfway to avoid misunderstanding.

Source: rawpixel.com

  • He Is Not Perfect. You might be wondering, “It’s obvious why they need to see a counselor.” However, we frequently have high standards for our partners that we do not even extend them with the patience and kindness that they have earned. In our sessions, I realized that my partner is not perfect, but so am I. But despite the imperfection, we must only find ways to fill each other’s flaws so that the marriage is ‘perfectly’ established.

 

  • Differences Are Not Insufficiencies. I sometimes hear people say that they are the exact opposite of their partner. Realistically, we are all uniquely and wonderfully made. My partner and I have distinct personalities, beliefs, and values, as we were raised from different backgrounds. We committed to work through our various personalities and learned strategies to help us avoid conflict.

 

  • He Has His Own Love Language. My partner knows that he easily sways me when he buys me plants to add to my garden, and a short back massage can change my most unpleasant mood. A healthy serving of my baked chicken with gravy, on the other hand, pacifies him. Indeed, my partner and I have a different love language, and I am thankful that we learned that through counseling.

 

  • We Don’t Connect In The Same Way. As a couple, we often struggle to look for ways to connect, which was a major factor that led to conflict. Through counseling, I learned that my partner would rather talk it out in person because he hates texting or chatting, but I don’t really mind if I talk with him on the phone for hours. It seems that I can’t get enough of him when he’s not home!

 

  • He Has Other Priorities – And That’s Okay. Going to my parents’ house on weekends is a priority for me outside of my marriage. However, my partner makes it a point to go fishing twice a week, and I used to find it impractical and costly. I learned, though, that it was his way of relaxing and spending time for himself. It keeps his mental and physical well-being at bay.

Source: freepik.com

  • He Needs Me For Most Things. Before we went to counseling, I always thought my partner was too clingy and dependent on me. However, I didn’t think I was too selfish when I obliged him to keep me company when I went shopping because I didn’t want to drive – and he does it anyway. Counseling helped us realize that we had different needs from each other and whether they were relatively simple or complicated, they are needs that we both can provide as partners – because we loved and respected each other.

Conclusion

Couples counseling has played a tremendous role in saving my marriage and helping my partner and me establish a healthy and positive relationship. Are you having problems with your marriage? Try to consult a counselor in your area. He might be what you and your partner need.

 

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