WHO SHOULD COME TO COUPLE COUNSELING?

If you are having trouble getting along with one another, or if you cannot see eye to eye and you struggle to solve problems, consider couple counseling.

Couple counseling can be very helpful when you recognize that you keep fighting and bickering over seemingly small things. Over the same things again and again.

I get a lot of calls from couples looking for couple counseling when they recognize that they are at a loss as to how to fix their  problems.

They often report that it doesn’t matter what the issue is, it always ends in a disagreement and a fight. Nothing they seem to do can make it better.

They will have a fight and then they won’t talk to each other for a while. Eventually, they find their way back to one another. However, they didn’t resolve the issue. They just swept it under the rug.

THE PATTERN

I see this pattern often in couples counseling, and if it persists, these couples will eventually consider divorce or break up. There is just so much “sweeping under the rug” that a relationship can take before the resentment and hurt feelings start to become impossible to ignore.

HEALTHY COUPLES

Most healthy couples go through a natural cadence of harmony, disharmony, and repair. Healthy couples know how to repair when things get heated or feelings get hurt. They can endure minor disagreements (and even some major ones).

 

However, when a couple lacks an effective mechanism of repair, then despite their endurance, resentment compounds and love grows cold, eventually leading them into my office onto my couch for couples counseling.

WHAT HAPPENS IN COUPLE COUNSELING

In my office I assist couples identify the ways in which they contribute to the problems they are experiencing. I ask my couples to allow me to be direct and honest with them. I ask if they mind that I call it as I see it.

Yes, it is very hard to recognize that it may not be all the other person’s fault and that you may have a part to play in the relational problems you are experiencing.

LEARNED BEHAVIOR

Many relational patterns are long standing. They become knee-jerk reactions acquired unknowingly in response to the environment in which you were raised.

I will often ask my clients, “Who in your family growing up was angry?” or “From whom did you learn to shut down and wall off?” or “Who didn’t take your feelings seriously?”

 

These kinds of questions in couples counseling shed some light on how and why when faced with similar kinds of relational challenges in your current situation you react the way you do.

WHY WE REACT THE WAY WE DO

Someone whose feelings were minimized and invalidated as a child might become enraged at their spouse when they perceive that their feelings are not being taken seriously or dismissed. Or, inversely, they may have learned that the best defense against invalidation is to turn off your feelings and wall off.

 

An adult, who grew up in a home with strict, ridgid, controlling parents may react aggressively to a controlling spouse. 

Another person who may have learned to react differently to similar feelings. Instead of aggression, they may ignore their spouse. They are more capable paying their spouse little mind. Rather than fight, they will wall off. They’ll do whatever they want irrespective of what their spouse wants or doesn’t want, paying them no mind whatsoever.

HOW COUPLE COUNSELING HELPS

In couples counseling we identify the pattern of behavior undermining their ability to maintain a loving and respectful relationship. The work of healing and learning can then begin.

 

Couples counseling can help you and your partner resolve issues and differences. I will show you where you get stuck. I will help you learn what you’re doing wrong, and teach you how to fix it.

NEXT STEPS

Call or text Queens Relationship Counseling  at (917)540-6922. Or go to my website at www.Relationship-Repair.com to learn more about me and how couples counseling can help you.