Does Your Partnership Need a Tuneup?
Do you have a relationship in your life that struggles with a lack of effective communication? Are you and your partner fluctuating between cycles of escalated conflict and not speaking at all? Have problems with intimacy created or indicated bigger issues in your partnership?
Perhaps you are in a long-term marriage or partnership that has come to a crossroads. You may wonder if you are still compatible with your significant other, especially if sex has greatly decreased or disappeared from your relationship altogether. Alternatively, the intimacy issues present in your partnership may exist because there has been a breach of trust. If an affair has occurred, you may be wondering what precipitated the betrayal and if you will ever be able to recover from it.
On the other hand, you may be on one end of a relationship, either just starting out or having recently separated. You may need counseling about the decision to move in together or get married. Or, perhaps, you may be navigating issues of co-parenting and logistical procedures in the aftermath of a separation or divorce.
While every partnership is unique, no relationship is free from conflict or misunderstanding. Although relationship mishaps are painful and frustrating, counseling at Journey Mental Health gives you the opportunity to explore the issues existing in your partnership while gaining the vocabulary you need to better express yourself.
Communication Issues Are At The Core Of Many Couples’ Relationship Problems
No partnership is without miscommunication, and the need for marriage or couples counseling does not necessarily reflect a doomed relationship or personal failure. We tend to think that at a certain point in our lives we will naturally know how to navigate all the problems that may come up in a marriage or partnership. This expectation, however, is misguided and doesn’t account for the many ways that people and priorities shift throughout the course of a relationship.
Moreover, there remains a stigma attached to mental health in our culture that precludes us from seeking help that could be useful in our relationships. This rings especially true for those of us in the black community or those of us raised by parents from the Silent Generation, as we have been conditioned to suppress our emotions and often feel ashamed about discussing them.
The truth is that there is nothing wrong with couples who seek relationship advice, and a need for counseling doesn’t signify some fatal flaw in either individual; it’s just that we may be in a need of a tune-up. Taking the car in for maintenance does not indicate that the vehicle is no longer drivable—it’s just our way of ensuring that the car is safe for the road so that we can get to our destination!
Marriage And Couples Counseling Can Help You Build A Vocabulary & Toolbox For A More Successful Partnership
If communication or intimacy issues are impacting your romantic life, therapy can empower you and your significant other to develop the skills needed to thrive in your marriage or partnership. In exploring your emotions and feelings with the support of an unbiased professional, you will be better prepared to process and work through your relationship issues by maintaining a shared vocabulary. So often, partnerships suffer not because of a difference in objectives or values, but because a lack of mutual communication leads to misunderstanding and conflict.
At Journey Mental Health, we will begin the process of relationship counseling by working with you and your partner on both a joint and individual basis. Your first few sessions with us will be spent taking a history of the relationship and the presenting problems therein before your therapist gains some additional perspective during a one-on-one session with each of you. In gathering this information, your couples counselor will have a stronger understanding of your background, relationship issues, and interpersonal dynamics.
Using multifaceted approaches that are tailored to meet the needs of you, your partner, and the marriage/relationship, your therapist will help you identify your objectives for counseling and develop a strategy for meeting them. As a counselor trained in the Gottman Method, your couples therapist will help you to increase intimacy, effectively navigate conflict, and develop shared goals in your partnership. Over time, you will have the tools you need for identifying emotions and behaviors while improving communication in all aspects of your life—and in your relationship in particular.
Every partnership goes through cycles and seasons. With each season a different skill set is required to ensure harmony and success and, fortunately, these skills can be learned. With the support and guidance of our team at Journey Mental Health, a relationship toolkit is within your reach, making the partnership of your dreams achievable and worth striving for!
Take Your Relationship On A Joy Ride Into The Future
If you and your partner are struggling to understand and communicate with each other, marriage or couples counseling at Journey Mental Health can help you to reconcile. Please contact us or call (423) 521 – 5678 today.