Relationship Counseling

Many people struggle with their intimate relationships, whether they are married, living together or considering marriage.

There are many causes of relationship problems. Conflict often arises in dealing with children. The early years of raising children create a lot of stress in relationships. Financial stresses often effect the relationship.

Unfaithfulness creates unique problems to a relationship. In addition to traditional affairs, unfaithfulness can come in a variety of additional flavors. Internet flirting, sexually explicit flirting, and emotional affairs without sexual intercourse are just some of the other ways that partners can be unfaithful.

Substance abuse frequently leads to severe disagreements. Physical violence toward each other is more likely to happen when there is excessive use of alcohol or substances impair judgments.

Previous relationships and unresolved feelings of hurt or abandonment may keep one of the persons from being as open and honest as they need to be.

Anger, hurt, sadness, and withdrawing is often a result of the strains. Each person feels that they are not understood.

Relationship counseling has many challenges:

1. Each person tends to think that the other person needs it more than they do.

2. It is easy to believe that the therapist is taking their partner's side more than their own. And since there seldom two therapists to counsel a couple, the woman may feel outvoted by two men, or the man may feel outvoted by two men.

3. It is difficult to find a therapist that both people trust and feel comfortable with. Sometimes couples need to try more than one therapist.

4. Couples come into counseling wanting to make changes, but at the same time resisting the idea of anyone thinking that they should change.

5. Couples often want very quick change for problems that have simmered for a long time.

6. Many couple's want to get the relationship back to the way it used to me. Unfortunately, the way it used to be may have helped cause some of the crisis. Couples often need to develop new ways of relating.

7. Couples often want the therapist to fix things. However, most of the success of  therapy is based on the work that the couple invests in trying new patterns, being honest with themselves and their partner, and learning to forgive themselves and the other person. 

8. Couples often drop out of counseling when it gets difficult. Or they drop out when there is some improvement, but not a full resolution of the problems.

9. Sometimes the relationship gets worse instead of better for a while. Counseling can stir up unresolved issues that are difficult to face. Increased honesty is not always pleasant to hear.

10. Sometimes one person in the relation has more serious problems than the other other person (often because of genetic influence.) While this often needs to be addressed, they often feel as if they are being told they are the cause of the marriage problems.

11. If there is already a separation, there is a great danger if the person who does not want a separation pressures or forces the other person to reunite. This increases the chance of a second separation when the inevitable arguing returns. And it reduces the likelihood that the relationship will remain intact.  Not many people who want a separation want to try to work on the relationship after 2 or more separations.

How many visits:

It is hard to say how many visits are needed in relationship counseling. However, by six or eight visits, most people have a sense if they feel comfortable with the therapist, feel that they are making progress, or one person has decided that they no longer wish to work on the relationship.

Benefits:

In spite of the challenges of counseling couples, there are many benefits. People learn to communicate better. They learn to listen better. They learn to change their behavior and actions, not just say the right thing. They may address long term issues that have hurt their relationship, such as depression, anger management, conflict regarding parenting, attention deficit disorder, or substance abuse.