Turmoil in your relationship can turn your entire world upside down.  Because your partner is such a huge part of your life, anything that upsets your joint harmony can trickle unhappiness down to other aspects of your life.  Your kids, job, hobbies, and relationships with other people can all be affected.  This slippery slope can make you feel like your entire world is falling apart. It does not have to be this way.  There is help available to you through couples counseling. Couples counseling can help your relationship by employing many positive strategies.  In a way, it takes some of the pressure off of each of you because you are no longer spinning your wheels trying to find a solution to your problems. Instead, you are asking a trained professional for help.  That in itself can be a huge stress relief and allow you to be more open to new strategies and changes that need to be made in your relationship.  Once that stress is alleviated, you can begin working on the strategies that your counselor provides to you.

Healthy communication

The root of a strong relationship is healthy communication.  When there is turmoil in a relationship, it is usually due to a lack of communication.  More aptly put, it is a lack of healthy communication.  Arguing often takes over for having conversations.  Feelings are hurt and concerns are taken as accusations.  Instead of expressing how certain actions made you feel, it is very common to place blame on your partner.  Blame leads to resentment, and causes both people to resist communicating just to avoid arguments.  This causes a complete breakdown in communication. Couples counseling breaks the cycle of arguing and allows both partners an opportunity to express their feelings in a safe environment.  Your counselor will help you to express how you feel without blaming your partner for making you feel that way.  They will teach you how to talk to your partner about what’s bothering you, as well as listen to what your partner has to say without taking it personally.  We often listen to what people have to say so we can figure out how to respond.  What we should be doing is listening with the intent to understand what they are trying to express.

 Modify Dysfunctional Behavior

A breakdown in your communication does not happen overnight.  When there is turbulence in your relationship, it is usually exacerbated by the reactions you both have to it.  Your behavior is a determining factor in whether or not the problem will be resolved easily or not.  When it is not resolved easily, resentment builds between you and your partner.  This causes a change not only in the way you both behave, but also in the way you both continue to react to each others behavior. The way that couples counseling can remedy this dysfunctional behavior is to bring all the issues to light and allows your counselor to teach you how to handle the situations better.  You will have the opportunity to discuss how the situation made you feel, how you reacted to it, and how you should have reacted to it.  You will probably be given some role playing exercises to practice the new communication skills you have acquired.  This is extremely beneficial because it allows you to ingrain the tools in your mind by using them, and it also let’s you do it in a safe, non-judgmental environment.

Changes perspective on the relationship

When your relationship is having trouble, it can be very difficult to see past your own frustration.  and feelings repeatedly being hurt tends to cloud our vision.  Instead of focusing on resolving the issues that are causing stress, people tend to blame their partners for their unhappiness.  It can feel like an unending circle of negativity with no end in sight. A couple’s counselor will interview both of you and ask a lot of questions regarding your situation.  The counselor will make note of all the stress in your relationship and determine the difficulties with communication and resentment is coming from.  You will then be given the opportunity to see your relationship objectively.  It is much easier to resolve a problem when you are presented with facts rather than emotional responses.  You will develop a much clearer picture of where your marriage is and how to resolve the current challenges.

Focus on marriage

Disharmony in your relationship comes from both people having different perspectives about a situation and expressing them in a disrespectful manner.  Fighting ensues when feelings get hurt.  When there is no healing and feelings get hurt over and over again, we get very defensive and go into self preservation mode. We begin to think only of ourselves and how to protect ourselves from further hurt.  While self preservation is a natural defense, it takes the focus off of the marriage.When you choose to attend couples counseling, you are choosing to put your marriage first.  It is important to see your marriage as a living thing that is sustained by both partners’ efforts. It can only thrive when it is fed and nurtured by both people.  By focusing on your marriage instead of yourself, you are repairing the broken components of your relationship.  Since your marriage is part of who you are, you are simultaneously repairing yourself as well.  It’s a very positive domino effect.

Choosing to begin couples counseling is a strong way of saying that you are not ready to give up.  It means that you are willing to do whatever it takes to try to make your marriage work.  Couples counselors are a wonderful resource to help you see your marriage from an outside perspective so you can get a much clearer view of what is going on.  With all of the pieces to the puzzle brought out into the open, you will have a much better time reassembling them into a happy marriage.