Being in a relationship is deciding to share time, space, emotions, projects, and life with another person. It is a desire to create a bond that is nourished and that grows from two individual worlds that form a whole.
Each of these individual worlds holds experiences, beliefs, principles, values, dreams, personal resources, and wounds. All this baggage will influence what each one can contribute to the other person in a relationship, as well as the challenges that they might face in order to maintain a balance between individuality and life as a couple.
It is common to believe that a couple goes to therapy only when they are in crisis or when their relationship is on the edge of collapsing, of course, this can be the case, but it can also serve as prevention to avoid discomfort and disagreements in the relationship from increasing. Couples therapy is much more than a desperate attempt to save a relationship; it is asking for help when there is a challenging situation in any of the areas of the relationship, and you find it hard to solve with the tools and resources that you already have.
When it Might be Good to go to Couples Counseling
The reasons why you might decide to go to couples counseling can include: when you feel distanced, difficulty breaking with routine and monotony, unexpressed emotional needs, sexual problems, changes in the life cycle of one or both partners, communication problems, mistrust, jealousy, infidelity, differences in the ways of educating children, economic problems, when the decision has been made to separate and you wish to do minimum damage to your children, among others. However, not only arguments can be indicators that something is wrong; also, extreme calm or indifference can be a reflection of lack of communication, and lack of emotional connection. This can result in the couple falling out of love or feeling unloved, which gradually turns into a slow death until it is too late to return.
Couples counseling can help restore communication and bonding by strengthening commitment, trust, intimacy, empathy, assertiveness, sexuality, among others. Sometimes it can be scary to start a couples counseling process because we feel scared about what might happen or what the results might have. So, it is important to know that the therapist is an ally of the couple, where the objectives will be established jointly to restore and improve the relationship in matters of how to create spaces and quality time, achieve emotional openness, assess how you are doing individually and, in the relationship, and carry out activities that help you bond, or work on what the couple needs in particular. The results will depend on the couple, and only they will decide if they wish to work on and improve the relationship, or if they no longer want to be a part of it.
A healthy relationship requires constant work.
A satisfactory and a healthy relationship is all about teamwork that is learned and built little by little. No relationship is perfect, nor does it become healthy automatically or magically. During relationships there will be changes and difficulties that will lead to crises, but if they are taken with a curious, flexible and open attitude, they can become learning opportunities both individually and as a couple. Learning new resources that serve as support to redirect the problem can help strengthen the relationship.
If you think that you would like to learn tools to improve your relationship, or if your relationship is going through a difficult time, this might be a good time to ask for help. At Philia we have mental health professionals who can accompany you and your partner to face these obstacles. Call us today! We will love to be able to help you.
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