Couples Counselling
Most often we are drawn to seeking out a romantic relationship at some point in our lives. Romance novels are written, songs are created about heartbreak, dating apps were developed to help us find that special connection. Sometime during life, the majority of people will experience the beginning and ending of a relationship. Relationships can be exciting, fun, caring and nurturing. They can also be fraught with challenging communication, hurts without repairs, and a connection that can erode over time. Each person may also have different expectations and desires for a relationship, and since every relationship is different, it is valuable to discuss and learn what your own and your partner’s needs and wants are.
With so many relationships developing on a daily basis, we often don’t stop to consider what creates a healthy lasting relationship. We can observe what is dysfunctional or lacklustre, we all know those relationships that “just keep functioning”; what do you really want out of your relationship? Wise words that were spoken by Forest Hansen: “we enter into a relationship with a person but we stay in relationship with a process.” Relationships are a process: we continue to grow as individual people, but can our relationships grow with us? We can learn the skills to stay engaged in the growth process, to learn about our partners needs, wants and desires. We strive to keep play alive in our relationships and be comfortable with being inter-dependent. Having an understanding that what matters at one age in life in a relationship can be very different than entering a relationship at a different in life. Knowing this helps us clarify our expectations in the relationship.
Why go for Couples Counselling
- To create reasonable expectations of each individual and the relationship itself
- To explore healthy boundaries and learn to voice these boundaries in a safe environment to your partner
- To develop or find the “we” and “us” in the relationship
- To learn and practice healthy communication and language to use with your partner
- To find emotional safety in your relationship
- To develop conflict resolution skills and discover that it really can be healthy and helpful to walk away when angry
- To discover what works for your relationship specifically; how you spend time together, how much time you want to spend together, what you share and how you want your relationship to grow
- To feel heard, understood and supported in your relationship
- To work through past betrayals, whether in your current relationship or ones that are intruding your relationship that stem from the past
“Learn to have compassionate curiosity for the subjective stance of the other” – Terry Real
Concerns about Couples Counselling
There are many valid concerns about couples starting therapy together. One common concern is that one person will be ganged up on by their partner and the therapist. This is a reasonable concern if someone hasn’t experienced therapy before in this setting and they may hesitate to begin. We want to ensure you that we are here to listen and not take sides. The relationship is the client, not the individual selves, and we look at what is going on in the relationship to identify the challenges, hold understanding for both perspectives as each person has truth in their own experiences. We believe that problems and frictions are going to happen in a relationship, and focus more on how each person handles themselves during these problematic times, rather than seeing these problems occurring as the problem in and of itself.
More often than not, one person will initiate the idea of couples counselling, while the other person has no interest. We can help support you on an individual basis to find the language to bring this forward with your partner in a way that hopefully allows them to open up to the idea. Majority of the time, someone is brining it up because they deeply care about the state of the relationship, they love their partner and they want things to be better for both. Acknowledging your own role in the relationship dance, taking accountability for your own actions and showing initiative in the repair process, can help open up the door to bringing them in.
Our goal is to give couples practical pieces to help repair and strengthen their relationship. It is important to gain some background about the relationship in order to assess how couples have navigated through their relationship thus far. We then teach skills to help the relationship heal and become better able to handle conflict in the future.
