Everything You Need to Know About Couples Therapy
Deciding whether or not to start couples therapy can be a daunting decision. You might be wondering if you are overreacting, if you are blowing your issues out of proportion, or if you can just get through these relationship issues on your own. Maybe you don’t even know what couples therapy is like or what it is supposed to do. I hope this guide to couples therapy is helpful as you try to decide whether you should seek couples therapy or continue working on your own.
What are Some Reasons People Seek Couples Therapy?
People seek couples therapy for a variety of reasons, but some of the most common are affairs and emotional wounds from betrayal, which are difficult to recover from on your own. Sexual difficulties also cause couples to seek therapy, as repairing the erotic component of your relationship is incredibly important, as it tends to be a significant aspect of romantic relationships! Couples dealing with desire discrepancy issues, erectile concerns, trouble with orgasms, poor sexual communication, excessive pornography use, and everything else related to sex seek couples therapy to tend to this important relationship domain. Life transitions, such as dealing with a loss, becoming empty nesters, job changes, moving, etc. tend to create issues between couples as they adjust to their new lives, which can make communication and understanding of each other vital to the relationship. The vast majority of couples cite “communication issues” as their primary reason for seeking therapy, which can be impacted by so many life factors, events, and changes. Ultimately, couples seek couples therapy for many reasons, but the underlying need tends to be restoring a lost or impaired connection between the couple that needs to be nourished.
Can Couples work on their issues without a couples therapist?
If you are a high functioning couple who is just dealing with a simple misunderstanding, then you can try using active listening skills and working through the issue in that way. If you feel that you are both in agreement on how your relationship cycle and patterns work, then you are likely in a good enough place to not need outside assistance. However, if you are even considering couples therapy, it is highly likely that it is needed and can help your relationship. If you feel stuck and you’ve lost that sense of understanding, then re-building your relationship probably needs couples therapy assistance
What Can I expect in my first couples therapy Session?
Generally, you can expect to answer many questions! I like to start a session with the couple’s meeting story, as it usually helps them to remember some positive memories of each other and you can find out what first drew them to each other, which is a helpful reminder and gives a good road map for treatment goals. Most couples therapists will then ask about current issues from each partner’s perspective and maybe even get a demonstration from them to see how they typically argue or deal with a frustration with each other to see their conflict style. There should also be questions about the couple’s sex life, as that is a crucial part of a romantic connection. Basically, we are trying to figure out is: How are you best loved and what is getting in the way of that?
Do Couples Therapists Assign Homework in Between Sessions?
Most couples therapists will give some kind of homework, but that can be formal or informal. Personally, I rarely send couples home with something as concrete as a worksheet to do together, but I will ask them to think about what they need from their partner, to think about how they also contribute to the relationship issues, to practice talking in new ways to each other, and to put an emphasis on expressing appreciation to each other more regularly. Sometimes homework looks like “I want you to spend time thinking this week about what makes you not the easiest person in the world to live with,” which is not a concrete activity, but it primes you to look at your role in your relationship. Those kind of suggestions can be subtle, but significantly helpful in changing your relationship narrative.
What Are Some Popular types of Couples Therapy and How Do they Help?
Gottman Method - an evidence-based approach that teaches communication skills and emphasizes understanding your partner better, more effective communication, and conflict resolution. It can be helpful for any and all couples issues, but might be best for couples who do not have significant emotional wounding.
Emotionally Focused Therapy - a “bottom up” approach, meaning that it focuses on what is going on underneath the surface from an attachment perspective. A simple example would be a couple fighting over doing the dishes. It seems like a simple disagreement, but under the surface is one partner feeling criticized and feeling inadequate in their partner’s eyes while the other feels hurt that their partner is not there for them when asking for a need to be met. The EFT approach focuses on talking about those emotions and building a secure bond rather than simple problem solving.
Imago Relationship Therapy - This approach is a nice combination of skills-based approach and an attachment focus with an emphasis on discussion of and understanding the way you were parented. The theory here is that we all have unmet needs from childhood that we are looking for our partner to meet and by speaking with each other by mirroring, validating, and empathizing, we can find a way to meet each other’s needs and care for each other in the ways that we did not get as children.
Does Couples Therapy Work For Everyone?
It really depends on how you define couples therapy “working.” If you mean will it keep your relationship together, then “maybe” and “hopefully” are the only answers possible. Looking at how high the divorce rate it, then you’re already up against it a bit. But, couples therapy is certainly more effective than anything else and studies typically show that methods like Gottman Method and Emotionally Focused Therapy are successful at keeping couples together. If it does not work for you, there might have been a bad fit for your couples therapist. Or, maybe they were not specifically trained to work with couples and are not as effective as they could be. If you want to try to work on your own, books like Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix, Hold Me Tight by Sue Johnson, and The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman are all great resources.
Hopefully you found this guide to couples therapy helpful! If you are ready to re-build your relationship, get started with couples therapy in Colorado Springs today!
