10 Benefits of marriage counseling
Relationships are an important part of all of our lives. When you really think about it, everything we do can be connected to relationships. From your marriage, family, friends, or even to buying your coffee in the morning, we are always connected to and interacting with others. But do you really understand the way you have relationships? Do you notice that you and your spouse are consistently having the same problems, the same discussions, and are unable to do anything productive? Marriage counseling and its benefits could help you to be more connected and to have a more fulfilling relationship.
Uncover unhelpful patterns
Do you ever wonder why you keep having the same argument with your spouse? Do you wonder why they always seem to react strongly when you make what you believe is a simple request? Are you confused why you respond with tears or anger at their actions? Marriage counseling can help you to uncover the underlying patterns in your relationship that could be contributing to distress. When you can both recognize those patterns, you will also be able to change them. Perhaps a certain word your spouse uses reminds you subconsciously of the way a former partner or parent talked to you. Maybe their refusal to do the dishes signals to you that they don’t care about you, which makes you feel alone and to lash out with anger. Whatever the pattern might be, marriage counseling can help you to figure out what it is, why it is, and what to do about it.
Understand and learn more about your partner
We think we truly know the person we’ve decided to spend our lives with. We think we’ve got them all figured out. But our partners are complex, unique, and dynamic individuals with more thoughts, feelings, and ideas than we give them credit for! When we think we know someone, we might be missing out on what makes them unique, what makes them tick, and how they’re actually feeling. You might not know if they are actually someone who sometimes feels insecure, or someone whose family history impacts them far more than they let on. Marriage counseling can help you to stop mind reading for your partner and to instead actively listen, which will help them to feel seen, heard, and cherished by you.
Learn communication skills
Communication is a difficult skill to learn, especially when the stakes are as high as they feel in a marriage! What one partner thinks might be a completely normal interaction turns out to be something that makes their spouse feel unloved. Communication skills can help you to understand your partner’s feelings and needs, which will then help them to feel less defensive, angry, or bitter. In turn, you’ll also be able to communicate your own needs. Communication skills in marriage counseling can help you to say the things you’ve been trying to say, but with new words and to emphasize your experience so that your partner can better meet you with empathy and understanding. In marriages, we have to learn the valuable skill of talking more effectively to our partner to create a culture of care, attentiveness, and trust in marriage.
Learn to discuss emotions
Emotions might be the most misunderstood aspect of the human experience, especially in Western culture. Emotions have come to represent something that we fear, especially in a relationship. Marriage counseling can help you to open up about your emotions, to feel safe in exploring yourself with your partner, and to discuss emotions in new ways that feel validating rather than shaming. Emotional intimacy and honesty in marriage can lead to improved connection, reduced loneliness, and a better sex life, so it is vital to learn how to talk about your emotions in marriage counseling!
Process difficult past events
Past trauma can continue playing out in marriage, whether that trauma happened prior to marriage or during your marriage. Events like abuse, relationship trauma, and infidelity have a lasting impact on marriage and are often not processed effectively. When we do not properly address events that happened to us, they will continue to affect our daily lives and marriage without our awareness. It is crucial to become aware of how these events impacted you and to find ways to discuss them with your partner to build safety, trust, and connection through shared pain in marriage counseling.
Build trust
Trusting another person takes so much pressure off of you. The ability to fully trust another allows you to know that you will be taken care of, that your children will be taken care of, and that you do not have to occupy your mind with all the anxieties that come with a lack of trust. Marriage counseling can provide a safe space to slowly build trust with your partner, which will help strengthen your relationship and provide you with new opportunities in your marriage.
Have less intense fights
If you’re tired of long nights of fighting about the same things, marriage counseling can help you change the way you interact with each other. There is often an idea in a marriage that just continuing the argument, finding just the right thing to say, and finding the right time to say it will lead to a resolution that finally stops the fighting. However, 69% of couples conflicts are unsolvable. They do not have an easy solution because of differences of partners’ values, personalities, and goals. Because of this, it is more important to change how you have conflicts, rather than what solutions you can come to. You can develop improved understanding of your partner and their position, including the life stories they hold that make those positions so important to them. That helps to make fighting less intense, as you can talk about your issues in new ways.
Get an educated outsider’s perspective
Having an outside perspective can help make things that feel cloudy, murky, and unclear suddenly make sense. A marriage counseling session can help you to realize the effect on your partner when you criticize, or to help you realize that your partner’s anger reminds you of your father’s anger, which is why it impacts you so strongly. These connections and patterns matter in the quest to change your marriage. It is vital to find a competent and educated counselor to help you figure out what is going on and how to change it. Marriage counseling can help you to re-build your relationship, find understanding, find peace, build trust, have better sex, and change the way you fight with your partner. If those benefits sound appealing, book your first marriage counseling session below!
