We can be easily put off by the idea of seeing a counsellor (for anything), that we miss out on all of the ordinary ways that seeing someone can help you in everyday life.
Being part of a couple means that you closely depend on and communicate with another human being – with thoughts and feelings and actions completely different to your own.
You can’t control them and you can’t read their minds.
So even if things are ok in your relationship, it is completely normal that you may not be connecting or you may sometimes misunderstand your partner’s wants and needs. This becomes even harder if you throw in kids, work, financial worries, in-laws and any kind of stressful time like moving or renovating.
Don’t consider couple’s counselling as the last resort.
Couple’s counselling can help in many ways through the everyday trials and tribulations of being in a partnership – to stop you from getting to a point of no return.
Once you get to the place of not being interested in hearing from your partner, you are already in dangerous waters. You may find it too hard to care about the other person’s feelings or have any empathy for them. Relationship counselling before you get to this stage can help you sort out whether you want to put the effort into this relationship or is it really over.
Counselling from an experienced, independent and un-biased person can help both people to better listen to each other and to own how they may have contributed to the current situation.
Relationship or couples counselling can be very effective if you use it to ‘fine tune’ your relationship, a bit like having a regular dental check or car maintenance. It can help in making sure you are both on the same page and not ignoring issues that can gradually become bigger and start to create resentment.
No intimate relationship is without sad moments or difficult times. If a relationship is important to you then it is worth taking that extra step to help it. Talking to a counsellor can help you remember why you fell in love in the first place, as well as renegotiate your commitments to each other – you may be very different to the people you were when you first met. But this doesn’t mean the relationship has to end, you may just need to move the goalposts a little.
Seeing a therapist for couple’s counselling can help because:
- You will have an external, objective opinion to help you connect with each other
- You will have access to a toolbox of strategies and tips for dealing with problems that you wouldn’t have thought of
- Problems like difficulty in communication, money stresses and problems with sex or intimacy can be resolved by listening to each other and being willing to compromise on the issues you know you can move on
- It can help you each as individuals as well – improving your own self-confidence and helping you to find happiness again.
- It can be very helpful to have someone acknowledge and normalise what you’re going through – your relationship isn’t that weird after all!
Some basic, everyday issues that relationship counselling may be able to help with:
- Pre-living together sessions to sort out your core values and know you are both aligned on these
- Same sex relationships and societal, family responses and pressures
- Parenting and intimacy
- Separation in a respectful way
- Separation and co-parenting
- Blended families
- Managing physical or mental illness
- Infertility
- Lack of intimacy
- Ageing parents
A couple in any kind of conflict extends further than just them, and can affect your family, children, and work as well.
Seeing a counsellor brings any conflict into a safe appropriate space and helps you to keep the conflict separate from the children and provides support for the other areas of your life as well.
For more information or to make an appointment contact Perth Counselling & Psychotherapy.
