I get a lot of calls from partners, both men and women, looking for couples counseling, who recognize that they have trouble getting along with their significant other and they are at a loss as to how to fix the problem.
Oftentimes, they report that it doesn’t matter what the issue is, it always ends in a disagreement and a fight. And nothing they seem to do can make it better. What usually happens is that they will have a fight and then they won’t talk to each other for a little while and then after some time, they eventually find their way back to one another, however, the issue was never really resolved and it basically just got swept under the rug.
I see this pattern often, and if it persists, these couples will eventually consider divorce or breaking up because 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 any longer.
Healthy couples go through a natural cadence of harmony, disharmony, and repair. They can endure minor disagreements (and even some major ones) because they know how to repair when things get heated or feelings get hurt.
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.
Couples in my office are assisted in identifying 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 and to 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.
Many times, the patterns that you are stuck in which contribute to your relational problems are long standing, knee-jerk reactions which you have unknowingly acquired in response to the environment in which you were raised in. 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 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.
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 as a child grows up in a home with strict, ridgid, controlling parents may react quite aggressively believing that their spouse is attempting to control him or her. However, a different person who grew up under similar restrictions may have learned how to ignore and do whatever he or she wants irrespective of what their spouse wants or doesn’t want, paying them no mind whatsoever.
When a couple arrives in my office and we effectively identify the pattern of behavior that is undermining their ability to maintain a loving and respectful relationship, the work of healing and learning can then begin.
If you are finding that you and your partner are getting stuck resolving issues and differences couples counseling can help. I will show you where you are getting stuck, what you’re doing wrong, and teach you how to fix it.
Call or text my Queens Relationship Counseling LCSW, PLLC 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.