Couples Therapy

 Are You Struggling in Your Relationship

Does it seem like you spend so much time locking horns with your partner you have lost the warm feelings you once had for them?  Do couples communication issues keep you and your partner from being able to feel any sense of connection and understanding with each other?  Do you find yourselves mutually isolated in your own home?  You may even think that divorce is a good option at times considering where you are both at.  

Couples Struggles are So Common These Days

With all the stress that Covid has put on families and couples, is it any wonder so many more couples are either contemplating or getting divorced these days.  There has probably never been as great a need for couples therapy as there is now.  The fact is that society had already put a tremendous amount of pressure on having one person to meet most of your needs, and then when the pandemic hit it increased that even more.  

Couples Therapy Can Definitely Help Your Relationship

No matter whether you feel like you’re on the brink of divorce, or just needing to deal with a power struggle within your relationship, couples counseling is a good choice.  Sometimes gaining clarity on where things are breaking down is critical to rescuing a relationship from total disaster.  Even when things aren’t on the brink of collapse, strengthening the bond between you and your partner is always a worthy focus of attention and effort.  As I mentioned earlier, perhaps at no other time has there been so much emphasis and pressure on one relationship being so pivotal to our feelings and fortunes than there is now.  

One of my first priorities is to help you identify couples communication issues that fuel mutually self-defeating patterns in your relationship and establish some ground rules to help the couples therapy process.  Once that is handled we can start to work on the nuts and bolts of repairing and rebuilding a struggling relationship or keeping one that is on the edge of the cliff from falling off.  Both of you provide the source of ultimate goals for our work.  My role is that of an experienced and skilled guide, regardless of where you are at in your relationship.  You each are experts on yourselves, and unfortunately know all too well how to push each other's buttons to get a negative reaction.  I will help you by way of sound relationship principles to learn more about how to become experts with yourselves and each other so you can improve the positive bond you have with each other.    

What Might Prevent You From Trying Couples Therapy?

There are several reasons people don’t pursue therapy help.  One of the most common reasons revolves around the belief that it doesn’t really help.  I’ve seen lots of couples who have made positive strides or even saved their marriages because of couples therapy, so that argument is flat out not true.  Even though there are cases in which a couple have passed the point of no return as far as saving their marriage, and in such cases trying couples therapy can help validate that so there is no doubt the couple should go ahead and split up.  However, if there are simply communication issues that need to be resolved or an ongoing power struggle, couples counseling can help to resolve each of these in such a way that you can go on to a happy life together even if you’ve been mired in strife your entire time together with your partner.  

Another common objection can have to do with the expense.  Either the fees are too much or the time apart from work or other family duties are too pressing, or whatever.  Sure, self-pay couples therapy can be expensive, but there are some therapists that do accept insurance that are quite good.  Also, even if you have to pay a lot of money for therapy together, that can be less expensive by far than lawyers to handle a divorce.  How do you factor in the cost of splitting a family apart or losing a truly priceless relationship? All these considerations surely dwarf the cost of going through couples counseling.  

A final possible reason people don’t go into therapy together is the belief that your partner will never change.  While that certainly may be true, you are short changing both your partner and the possibilities that counseling will increase the intimacy in your relationship and help both them and you change to become better people and better partners.  You both are together for a reason, and often people don’t realize the true purpose of their relationships until they go through tough times together.  You may think relationships exist to make you happy, and while that may or may not be true at any given time, the larger purpose much of the time involves two people who need basically to grow and evolve as human beings and having someone to grow with is tremendously important.  

What Makes Me Qualified to Help You in Couples Therapy

I’ve been helping clients with their relationship issues for my entire social work career.  I also have practice experience in both helping clients learn important relationship skills and implementing them in my own life.  I put an emphasis on helping couples with their communication such that they are able to resolve long standing issues that have dogged them for years.  I can help you increase your level of emotional intimacy with the counseling skills and experience I embody as a seasoned clinician who can speak from a lifetime of experience in helping others and learning from my own life what works and what doesn’t.  

I work with principles and concepts developed through much research by people like John Gottman (Gottman Therapy) and Sue Johnson (Emotionally Focused Therapy) that have proven to be very effective in helping couples recover and thrive over time.  You can take this free quiz to help find out if your relationship could be in danger.  

I’m available for a free 20-minute phone consult so you and/or your partner can get a better idea about whether I can help the two of you.  Just call me at 512-648-3053 or contact me to get started with online therapy or to be seen in my Frederick office and start the process of helping to save your relationship today!

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