All relationships are tough and even the strongest and healthiest relationships can have periods of conflict and struggle. When these periods of struggle happen couples therapy can help couples negotiate and come out stronger, more connected and more understanding of each other. Here we aim to explore why this is the case and what couples therapy has to offer. By exploring the reasons why couples therapy is so helpful, couples can be more proactive in their relationship and help navigate through the rocky times, making their relationship stronger and more rewarding.
Effective Communication and Conflict Resolution
Improving communication skills and teaching couples strategies to resolve conflicts are two common reasons people come to couples therapy. In a safe and neutral space away from the stressors of everyday life, couples are invited to communicate their needs and emotions in a way that feels supportive rather than accusatory and violent. With the help of a guide, couples can learn how to use good communication or assertiveness skills, and how to actually sort out their differences in healthy and productive ways.
Rebuilding Trust and Healing Wounds
Trust in a relationship provides the safe haven for closeness. The severing of trust can no doubtful, is crossing other boundaries, or committing other treacherous transgressions. Through the safe haven of couples therapy, a couple can identify the causes of the broken trust, develop methods for forgiveness and healing, and eventually rebuild or pave a new path toward deepening trust.
Deepening Emotional Intimacy
Sometimes, when emotional intimacy appears to decline, couples can start to feel more disconnected from one another or even lonely. Exercises and techniques in couples therapy can help partners reconnect more emotionally, better understand each other’s needs and desires, and become more aware of their fears and vulnerabilities.
Navigating Life Transitions
Life is filled with transitions, and all too often these transitions exert pressure on a relationship. Whether you’re preparing to start a family, facing changing roles in your workplace, or moving to a new city, these major life transitions can significantly alter the relationship dynamics. This can create stress, uncertainty and tension around the changing responsibilities of the partners. Couples therapy provides invaluable encouragement and guidance for trying to tackle these transitions together.
And at times of sudden transition – layoffs or moves, new parenting, loss or divorce – couples become busy adapting new roles, renegotiating new expectations, and unlearning old habits under intensified levels of stress. Pairing couples therapy with changing life conditions can play a critical role in better responding to altering expectations and adaptation demands. Trained in couples therapy, therapists can help partners navigate the unique challenges of specific transitions, provide tools for adjusting to new roles, and help couples effectively communicate and support one another.
Starting a family represents one of the greatest transitions you will ever make, bringing the greatest joys into your life but, at the same time, can place real pressure on your relationship. From pregnancy right through to raising children, the dynamics of your relationship can alter significantly. Couples therapy can help partners explore the emotional, physical and practical changes they are about to make in their lives, allowing them to discuss how they will each parent, share responsibilities and ensure that they still have time for each other as partners as well as parents. Couples therapy can provide a space where partners can share their fears, their hopes and their expectations about growing their family, so they can help each other to stay on the same page and, invariably, pull together as a couple as they transition to this new stage in their lives.
A third area of change could be a partner changing their career or job. Whether this entails a promotion, a new work role, or even a complete change in careers, this can be a second big transition in life just after starting or growing a family. This often comes with a change in schedule, work-home boundaries and financial elements that can make this change difficult to navigate in a relationship. Couples therapy can provide a safe place for partners to work out how this change affects the relationship, and what the partners would like to take away from these changes. Therapists can help couples to discuss how to navigate changes in each person’s professional aspirations, how to navigate any resentment for each other’s career advancements, or how to support each other in a new job when one of the partners is dealing with the stresses of their new role in life. Partners in therapy can draw from the support of the therapist to talk out their concerns, express their fears and sadnesses, and work towards a healthy work-home balance so that everyone can be uplifted and motivated in their new, overwhelming, but empowering career paths.
Another life transition can place pressure on a relationship, particularly the transition of relocating to another city or even another country. Meeting new people, getting used to a new environment and a different culture can be difficult for both partners. In couples therapy, partners can express their anxieties and fears, their hopes and dreams about moving, and compare expectations with the experiences. Therapists can help couples cope with the challenges of beginning their new life anew, develop strategies to support one another through the process, and find ways to build resilience and an emotional connection as they journey into developing their life together in another place.
In couples therapy, therapists provide tools, techniques and support to help couples manage these transitions successfully, providing a third-party lens and facilitating conversation between couples in a healthy and supportive way. Therapy allows couples to help each other cope with these adversities, to recognise sources of daily pleasures and to build resilience to weather the storm in the days to come.
Soliciting couples therapy during these transitional times could help partners stay aligned, together and supported as they move through the change, empowered to emerge as the new, strong version of themselves in their united family. Each week, in my couples therapy practice, I watch astonished faces as one of the partners finally has a chance to lay out all their frustrations with their spouse. They finally can communicate how very scared they are for the change and the family and their future together, and I can listen. I can make sure they are being heard. And I can help them put words to their concerns so they can offer and receive help in figuring out how to spend more time together, how to continue to love each other strongly, and how to arrange their lives to support the changes down the road.
With changes such as starting a family, changing jobs or moving to a new house, the path ahead begins to look a little different. Couples therapy is a supportive space for two partners to surf through those moments of transition together. Researchers show that a therapist is a helpful guide, equipping couples with a tool kit of strategies and support needed to navigate those changes in their respective expectations from the relationship. Who will look after the kids now? Who needs to change their working hours? How do we manage our lives as we had not envisaged them? Couples therapists help partners communicate effectively, build a resilient relationship, and strive together to conquer challenges. Enrolling in couple therapy before or during life transitions can make the path easier and lead to a more thriving and strong longevity for partnerships.
Strengthening Long-Term Commitment
Couples therapy is not just for struggling relationships. Psychotherapy can also prevent commonly experienced relationship problems, especially for couples who want to improve their relationships and strengthen their long-term commitment. Early intervention in romantic relationships allows partners to take an evaluative perspective on their values, goals and aspirations, a practice that can have significant benefits on future satisfaction. Through couples therapy, partners can create a shared vision for their future, make explicit their feelings about the relationship, and increase both relationship satisfaction and a sense of shared meaning and purpose.
Conclusion
Couples therapy is a particularly effective way of improving, rekindling and enriching individuals’ relationships. By addressing areas of communication and trust, deepening the quality of emotional connection with a partner, dealing with life changes, and strengthening long-term commitment, couples engage in an investment of their relationship. Couples therapy affords a secure milieu for a couple to create a safe space for exploring difficulties, acquire new skills, and develop a stronger, more satisfying relationship for the future. A commitment to couples therapy is a demonstration of love and couples’ desire to invest in a lasting and healthier relationship.