“Learning to love life again is a long and complicated process” Han Kang
Couples Therapy
When Relationships Go Bad
Is the person you’ve chosen to be your partner your biggest source of heartache? Maybe the person you’ve shared life, kids, adventures, and growing pains with is now a complete stranger to you. The smallest things they do irritate you, and arguments are spiraling out of control. You sometimes are in disbelief when you take a step back and look at what your relationship has become, at how far you’ve drifted apart. You feel disconnected and no longer feel like your partner is the safe attachment they once were. Or maybe you’ve experienced a great betrayal at the hands of your partner, or you have hurt them in ways you didn’t think was possible. You spend all your time and energy with this person, and yet you find that they don’t know your inner world at all, nor you theirs.
“We want to work on our communication” is the most common thing that I hear in couples therapy. Couples often find that they are repeating themselves time and time again, and are exhausted that their partner still doesn’t seem to understand them or their feelings. At some point during your relationship, maybe you have forgotten how to speak kindly to each other. Now every time you try to communicate, one of you may withdraw while the other gets emotionally escalated, which leads to even more dysfunction and disconnect. When you get in disagreements, you may become a hurtful, resentful person that you didn’t think was inside of you. Or maybe you just disassociate and shut down to avoid getting hurt again by the same conversation
The Power of Relationships
As painful as relationships can be, they can be just as restorative and enriching. When we invite someone to share in the most intimate and vulnerable parts of ourselves, that person can affect us in ways that no other person can, both in profoundly positive and painfully negative ways. When your relationship started, you probably experienced firsthand how beautiful and fulfilling your relationship can be in your life. And when things went awry, the loss of what used to be so good may be intensifying the pain disconnection, dysfunction. Ultimately, relationships are extremely powerful forces in our lives. And that force can either make us feel completely safe in the middle of a storm, or tear us apart when the weather is calm. The same reason why relationships can be so devastating is the same reason why relationships can be so transformative and restorative. Relationships can be healed and have the power to heal.
How is Couples Therapy Going to Help Us?
Couples go to therapy for all kinds of different reasons. Some go because they are getting ready to go through a major transition, like marriage or kids. Others go to therapy because while their relationship is great, they love to have time dedicated in their schedule for their relationship. For couples that are hurting, they go to therapy because they want things to be different. When couples realize that one or neither of them are happy in their current relationship, but feel stuck in making any meaningful changes that last, that’s where couples therapy comes in.
In couples therapy, you’ll work to intimately connect with each other with vulnerability, gentleness, and kindness. You’ll work in couples therapy to better understand your own patterns and history that are contributing to destructive cycles, and while your partner does the same. Couples therapy will also help you see what is actually happening when you get into painful cycles with your partner, and work to build new healthy patterns instead. It can help you access those deep intimate emotions that you may have been hiding from both your partner and yourself, and to be connected to each other in that most intimate emotional place.
Couples therapy is about willingness to turn inward to learn about your own self, the courage to share yourself with your partner, and building new loving and safe patterns with your loved one. And when you experience a deep and profound intimacy with your partner, and are seen and accepted in your most vulnerable and tender places, it will have made the efforts of your journey all worth it.
“But I’m afraid that…
…couples therapy may uncover some things that are too painful to face.” Or “…our relationship is too far gone for us to recover.” Or even “…you’ll take my partner’s side and make me the villain in the story.” These fears are legitimate, and you would not be the only person to feel that way. It’s natural to want to avoid things that are scary, or to try to find solace in avoidance. Nonetheless, while it’s not a miracle drug, with willing and earnest participants, couples therapy can help people connect with one another in ways that may have felt lost to them. It can help you restore what has felt so injured and painful, and it can strengthen and give new life to your connection and relationship. And ultimately, therapy is a place of nonjudgmental acceptance - you can bring all those fears to couples therapy, and work through them together. While these fears are valid, they don’t need to keep you from investing into your relationship with one another.
What next?
Relationships are hard work of learning how to be successful as a team, rather than as an individual. And it is a constant journey of asking your partner to accept the deepest and most intimate parts of you. In couples therapy, you can learn about yourself, your partner, and how you can be in an enriching and nurturing relationship as your most intimate, vulnerable self. If you’re curious about experiencing a deeper connection with your partner, looking to heal from a painful rupture in your connection, or just looking for ways to invest in your relationship, please contact us to schedule a free consultation.