10) You have discussed or fantasized about divorce
What Kind of Relationship Do You Have?
Fulfilled: You are best friends and lovers in every sense of the word. You feel supported by and are supportive of one another. You can’t imagine a sharing your with a different partner.
Friendship: You are a team and may or may not feel like your partner is your best friend. But the passion is gone. It may feel more like you are running a business together than being lovers. There are some simmering resentments underneath that you can’t seem to resolve and your fights may have a repetitive quality to them.
Detached: You feel like two ships passing in the night. While you may each know your roles in keeping the house running there is no sense of teamwork. You have lingering disdain for one another. You are together more out of habit than any sense of passion or love.
One Foot Out the Door: You're planning or fantasizing about your exit.
Couples Counseling: 7 Ways it Can Improve Your Relationship
One of the questions I am most frequently asked is what couples counseling can do to restore a relationship. I can think of a thousand ways marriage counseling can be of use, but then I'm a bit biased and that would make for a mighty long article. So instead here are the top 7 ways couples counseling can benefit you:
Here's what couples counseling can do for you:
1. Develop a Clear Path. Couples approach marriage counseling with a variety of problems - communication, lack of intimacy, affair recovery, anger management in the relationship, etc... Regardless of the presenting problem most people come to therapy feel lost, as if they've tried everything and have no idea on which way to turn. Couples counseling can provide you with the confidence that your relationship is heading in the right direction. From day one I strive to give you a sense that you are on a clear path, not some meandering road that emphasizes the fight of the week instead of why the fights are happening in the first place.
2. Understand Both Sides. You are both right in some ways and you are both wrong in some ways. There are no "bad guys" in my approach to couples counseling. You both had a role in developing and perpetuating the problems that brought you to marriage counseling and the only way to really help you is for me to take an unbiased approach. I urge you to read my white paper report "Marriage Counseling: How to Get the Results Your Want" for more information.
3. Uncover Hidden Issues. There are three levels to communication: the concrete, the emotional, and the impact on your identity. Most people who come to couples counseling are stuck because they focus on the concrete (e.g. money, sex). For most this only leads to a circular argument of the he said/she said type in which you basically say the same things over and over again. In my experience, its not the concrete issue but what it means to your identity. Marriage Counseling makes its fairly easy to figure out what things mean on the identity level. Once you learn to talk about things this way you will find yourselves developing empathy for one another and the power struggles begin to disappear.
4. Avoid Common Mistakes. As someone who has done couples counseling for close to 20 years I've learned that there are a number of common mistakes that most couples who are struggling make. Marriage counseling assists you to identify and avoid these mistakes going forward.
5. Identify and Improve Your Strengths as a Couple. Even though it may not feel much like it to you at times, your relationship has a number of strengths or you probably wouldn't still be together. Most people who seek marriage counseling have lost site of those strengths. Simply rediscovering them can help you to feel much better about things in and of itself. Couples counseling can also teach you a number of very simple things that take only minutes to do that will strengthen and rebuild the bond you felt when you first fell in love.
6. Couples Counseling can Provide a Calm Port in the Storm. My goal in being your marriage counselor to to help you to have a different conversation than the one you have been having over and over at home. I make it a place where you both can really be heard and understood and to begin to purposefully design your life together.
7. Save Time and Pain. How long have your relationship been in trouble? How much progress do you honestly feel you've been making on your own? Do you really think things are going to get better the way you've been doing things. If you answered yes to these questions couples counseling can help you to get out of the painful rut you've been stuck in and help you to move to a better place.
If you would like to learn more about my approach to couples counseling please feel free to give me a call at 301.657.1144 or e-mail me at DrJoe@DrJoeJames.com
