You can seek couples counseling to help you resolve marriage issues, such as communication breakdown and decision-making conflicts. Counseling offers a therapeutic process guided by a trained counselor in a safe, neutral environment. Such sessions aim to resolve conflicts and improve your relationship skills, leading to healthier, more satisfying connections. Here’s what to know about seeking counseling for marriage issues:
Marital Counseling Therapies
Marriage and couples counseling are often used interchangeably but have subtle differences. Couples therapy applies to all romantic relationships, including married spouses, engaged partners, and people dating or living together. Its broad nature focuses on the patterns of interaction and emotional connections between different partners. Marriage counseling focuses on married spouses facing issues. Experienced counselors use various therapies, like cognitive behavioral therapy and solution-focused therapy, to resolve marital issues. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, is a psychological treatment used to change how you think.
CBT operates on the principle that thoughts influence feelings and behaviors, so changing your thought patterns can prevent disruptive behavior. Negative thoughts can lead to poor decision-making and actions that harm the relationship. CBT identifies and changes destructive thought patterns to improve communication, problem-solving, and conflict resolution. Solution-focused therapy is a goal-oriented treatment that prioritizes present and future solutions to problems, past issues, and causes of conflicts. Sessions involve envisioning your desired future and the steps you need to achieve them. Therapists also provide emotionally focused therapies to enhance emotional connections between partners.
Counseling Sessions and Modalities
Marriage counselors use various modalities, including traditional, mini-intensive, and discernment counseling, to guide their sessions. Traditional counseling sessions are designed to tackle conflicts, communication breakdowns, lack of intimacy, and other relationship problems. They offer a safe and neutral environment for exploring family history, past patterns, and traumas. Such sessions help you to express emotions and develop empathy and understanding for each other.
Mini-intensive sessions are short-term treatments that involve exploring relationship problems, their origins, and how to overcome them. The sessions are intense and cover every aspect, providing the tools and skills you need to navigate everyday challenges. Mini-intensive sessions also explore the history and dynamics of your relationship and offer a safe space for expressing your emotions.
Discernment counseling modalities are usually offered when you’re about to separate or divorce. Such last-minute sessions provide clarity about your situation and help build confidence in your decision to stay or separate. Discernment counseling suits you if only one party wishes to divorce or separate. After therapy, you can decide to separate, maintain the relationship, or seek further therapy to heal and repair your marriage.
Counseling Outcomes and Expectations
Marriage counseling involves working with a licensed therapist to identify and resolve conflicts for a more satisfying relationship. People have different expectations from counseling, and outcomes vary from couple to couple. You can seek marriage counseling if you’ve grown apart over the years, resulting in low intimacy. Counseling can also help resolve conflicts about money and spending patterns, infidelity, and political differences. Other reasons you may need counseling include a pattern of unproductive or hurtful arguments, different parenting styles, big life transitions, and divorce. The outcomes and expectations depend on the reasons you’re seeking counseling.
Your counselor can focus on helping you understand and resolve the conflict if you want to maintain the relationship. If divorce is unavoidable, counseling may help you maintain civility. Some issues require multiple sessions and ongoing counseling to help you heal and recover from infidelity or past trauma. Other conflicts are resolved in one intensive session that explores everything from the cause of the issue to the solution. Success after counseling depends on how well you implement the advice provided by your therapist.
Find Professional Couples Counseling Today
Many relationships have issues that can be resolved with the help of a professional therapist. Seeking help allows you to address issues and avoid irrational decisions that may harm your marriage and future. Speak to a therapist today to learn more about couples counseling.