“To be human is to need others and this is no flaw or weakness”. Dr. Sue Johnson, Emotion-Focused Therapy for Couples
Together, Yet Miles Apart
Couple therapy helps to improve the quality of your relationship, learn new ways of communicating, and enhance emotional and physical intimacy.
Partners in marriage counselling usually report that they feel not seen or understood and their needs are not met. They may be hurt, lonely, and hopeless of improving their relationship. When couples are not responsive to each other’s emotional and/or physical needs, that’s a sign of partners that are not attuned and they are suffering.
What Is Couples Therapy And Who Is It For?
Couples seek therapy for different reasons. Some of these reasons are emotional injuries, differences in parenting styles, values, changes in life stages, affairs, too many fights for small things, feeling disconnected, and wanting to improve the connection and romance in the relationship.
You may be saying to yourself, “We don’t need counseling. We just need to stop fighting with each other” or “We can get through this on our own.” Couples therapy and marriage counseling are for partners who realize they don’t want to continue to engage in the same patterns of interaction that leave them feeling unhappy.
If you are feeling lonely, distant, and can’t find a way to communicate your needs to your partner, you are not alone. For some spouses, saying ‘yes’ to therapy is hard. There’s a fear of opening up and talking about what does not work. We all come to our marriage and relationships with certain beliefs and expectations. These arise from current and past circumstances, family of origin models, cultural and social messages. Oftentimes, behaviours, and habits that don’t work well in the relationship are difficult to change because they are an attempt to protect parts of ourselves that feel threatened.
The ultimate goal of marriage counseling is to help each partner achieve a sense of safety, satisfaction, and comfort in their relationship. If you’re worried your relationship has reached a point of no return, marriage counseling can be an opportunity to explore and learn new ways of communicating with each other, seeing and being with each other. Through a series of exercises and dialogues, couples learn how to relate in different ways as they work towards creating safety and nurturing a loving and mutually satisfying relationship.
How Soon Is ‘Too Soon’ For Marriage Counseling?
There is no ‘too soon’ for marriage counseling. Nothing is more important in our lives than in our relationships. Therapy can be useful at any stage of a relationship. If you’re at the beginning stages and struggling, or starting a new chapter in your partnership if you are considering having children, are struggling with sexual intimacy, or have disagreements about fundamental beliefs or habits, all these are good reasons to seek out marriage counseling.
If your marriage is being threatened, you have to fight for it. If ‘what’s wrong’ in your relationship is holding you and your partner back from achieving a deeper level of intimacy or bringing unhappiness, that’s not ok. If you’re confused or in pain from your relationship, this can change. Understand where the conflict is coming from and work on it as a team with the help of a caring and skillful therapist.
Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFCT)
Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFCT) is a short-term therapeutic approach, usually between 8 and 20 sessions, that focuses on the emotional needs, negative communication patterns, and the attachment style of the partners.
When people are securely attached, they see their partner as a safe haven that will provide comfort, security, and will help to alleviate stress. The first person that babies attach to is their primary caretaker, such as a parent. Those first learned patterns shape each person’s sense of what they can expect from their significant other in adulthood. Can they rely on the other person when they need them? Are they going to be available, able, and willing to provide comfort or help? The attachment theory allows the couple’s therapist to identify the attachment styles of each partner, their unmet needs, and behaviours.
Couples counseling as it is currently practiced—using Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)—is effective in 75% of the cases including couples who were going through highly stressful situations such as parents of critically ill children, couples with infertility problems, and veterans with PTSD.
EFCT has been used to address relationship problems related to anger, loss of trust, emotional injuries, and betrayals in the relationship (such as infidelities). It is also helpful to treat couples where one or both partners suffer from depression, addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder, and chronic illness, among other conditions. Research studies have found that a majority of couples that do EFCT show significant improvements that are stable and continue over the long term.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) For Couples
CBT for Couples teaches partners how to restructure unhelpful interpretations of their partner’s actions. For example, maybe your sexual intimacy has gone down after your husband or wife experiences a major trauma or is going through a bout of depression. There could be anger between partners or coming from one partner to the other that is creating distance.
Maybe there’s a physical distance between you and your spouse as you travel to work. If one of the partners is struggling with a mental health disorder or personality disorder, it can be very difficult to have a thriving relationship because there are psychological aspects that need to change to stop the dysfunctional patterns. If you yourself feel as if you are not getting the understanding or support you need to be the best ‘you’, CBT for couples can help you identify some ways of interpreting situations that may be at the root of the problems.
Relational Life Therapy
Relational life therapy is a style of therapy developed by Terrence Real in the early 2000s. It’s since gained a lot of popularity among therapists and couples that prefer a straightforward and direct approach to the problems. Relational life therapy engages couples in resolving conflicts, gaining more personal accountability, improving their communications between one another, and ultimately, fostering more intimacy within the relationship. RLT uses a directive approach with the active participation of the therapist.
Marriage counseling may help you to get things back on track, address the underlying problems, and make adjustments to feel that you can rely on your partner in the way that you need. You can work through your relational challenges with the guidance of an experienced marriage counselor at your side.
Additional Readings:
How to Maintain a Healthy Romantic Relationship
4 Tips to Fix Your Relationship
How to Break the Fight Cycles in Relationships
A Small Vital Secret to a Happy Relationship
Book An Appointment
A rewarding relationship is one of the best gifts that you can give to yourself and your partner. If you are ready to take the first step towards a gratifying life-long journey with your partner, our team at CBT Psychology will be there to provide support along the way. For couples or individual therapy, please call 905.597.4404 or fill out the form below and you will be contacted within 24 business hours.
