Reasons to seek Relationship Therapy
You would not employ a builder to fix a leaking tap would you? You would take time to ensure you have the right help or your leak could turn into a bigger problem… The same applies for Relationship Therapy and psychosexual therapy.
When you are having difficulties in your relationship it is important to get the right help early enough to be able to smooth out any difficulties you have accumulated along the journey of your relationship.
Everything requires maintenance to run smoothly. When your car does not work you take it to a mechanic to get it fixed. The same applies to your relationship. Your relationship is an important area of your life, it affects the smooth running of everything else.
Consider Relationship therapy when:
• You want to learn skills and tools to have a good or even better relationship or marriage.
• When one of you thinks you might benefit from therapy even if your partner does not.
• When you feel stuck and what you have tried on your own is not working
• When you feel emotionally or physically/sexually disconnected and cannot seem to make changes on your own.
• When you frequently fight or withdraw or refuse to address issues of conflict appropriately.
• When you think you might be happier with someone else.
Trying to fix things on your own is a common mistake, often the things that people do to ‘fix’ their relationships ends up pushing people further apart.
The opinions and judgements of family and friends can spell disaster even when the intentions are good.
This does not mean that problems cannot be resolved to become more in line with what you both desire. People tend to try to fix things through the lens of their own experiences which is related to your needs, fears and relational patterns.
This often is the source of the difficulty in the first place. Frequently, one person might appear happy with the status quo while oblivious to problems or sources of discord between the two of you. You may be relatively happy. One person may not be so happy.
If one person is unhappy in the relationship, it is a relationship problem not one person’s problem.
Everybody has wounding to greater and lesser extents. Not everyone has been taught how to be in loving healthy relationships. These patterns and beliefs affect all relationships. Within the context of relationship Therapy and couple’s therapy these will be addressed.
In the process of relationship therapy you will learn how you accidentally get triggered on both sides, and how each of you contributes to distress and the joy in the relationship or marriage. When there is emotional distance or distress in a marriage or relationship both of you will feel dissatisfied. The ways in which a couple try to connect may not always be healthy. If sex wanes, the other partner may try to increase the frequency to alleviate the feelings of disconnection from their partner. You may use alcohol or drugs to feel closer.
A Healthy relationship involves two people taking responsibility for their relationship and the impact they have on each other.
Your life may have become busy with work, children, study and other activities in an attempt to to feel connected. Or you may avoid being alone with the person with whom you feel painfully disconnected from. Intimacy becomes an impossibility with two people are so disconnected from each other.
Many couples have great great communication skills however; you may find it difficult to work through conflict well. You may shout while the other withdraws. Or you both may shout or withdraw when you are triggered. Conflict or the root of the problem does not get resolved. In the grip of emotion often words are exchanged that are hurtful and are denigrating.
Many people think problems will just go away as though nothing has occurred, or that time will work things out. (This is a favourite defence of many partners.) Many attempts at problem solving may result in finding yourselves back at square one repeating old behaviours that created conflict in the relationship in the first place.
Help is given for on the Living from The Heart through Intensive couple’s therapy, Psychosexual therapy, workshops and retreats, where you can both learn tools and skills to work with conflict, individually and together. You will take home the tools and insights you gain in therapy to help you not only in your Love Relationships or Marriage, but all relationships you have.
Unfortunately, many couples attend relationship therapy too late – one person may have become exasperated and gives up. They do not have any more energy for the relationship after a prolonged period of time when they may not have been listened to, perhaps even suggesting relationship therapy to no avail or not taken seriously.
Another frequent scenario occurs when in the face of losing partner, an epiphany reveals that you might lose the person you love. From a place of fear, you may agree to get help and go to Counselling and are willing to work, only to find that the person is exhausted does not want to try anymore.
Couples have turned their relationships and marriages around after years and years of hopeless, distress with the right help. Do not lose your beloved through pride, or failure to take your partner’s unhappiness seriously, or not wanting to spend money. If you value your home or car you spend money on maintaining and repairing why not your relationship or marriage?
Make a change today and find out how a good couples therapist with the appreciate training and experience can help you both turn things around.
