Relationship Counseling for When Times are Tough

Relationship counseling is a strengthening process that a couple undergoes together. Deciding to receive professional assistance usually comes when a couple faces a challenge that might otherwise break the relationship. This includes issues such as infidelity, parenting, and prioritizing other things over the marriage. A couple is often looking to rescue their marriage or to at least be better equipped to deal with the challenges they face.

Finding a suitable counselor may happen quickly, but most have to try a few counselors to ensure they both feel comfortable. The topics discussed during the counseling process often reveal an individual’s closely guarded vulnerabilities, and these will only be shared openly and honestly in a safe space.

Does relationship counseling work?

In short, yes! Going through a counseling process to safeguard, protect, and strengthen your relationship will help. However, like most things, an effective outcome is not accidental. It takes hard work and diligent focus.

In an intimate relationship, it may often feel that by putting the other person first, you are putting yourself last. In this difficult context, a trained relationship counselor will teach you and your spouse tried and tested techniques to face what comes your way. She will give you the tools to strengthen your marriage in tough times.

A counselor’s first task is to secure both you and your spouse’s willingness to work on your relationship. With the joint commitment to improve the relationship, the change begins. The dedicated time to untangle your issues can transform unhealthy interaction patterns, making healthy communication possible. Be warned that often communication is governed by patterns of thinking and behaving that are unconstructive and will need to be reprogrammed.

The hope of counseling is to help reconnect you on an emotional level.

Is it worth the struggle?

Firstly, we must realize that each relationship is unique – it comprises the coming together of two unique souls who together share something that is unlike any other relationship. Of course, there are similarities, but in the minute details of everyday life, there are going to be points of conflict and difference that will need to be smoothed.

This means that no one can accurately predict how difficult relationship counseling may be for you both. Your relationship may feel only slightly tarnished, or perhaps, it seems beyond. Either way, the key to healing and flourishing is facing what is difficult.

The truth is you and your spouse know the bond you have shared was enough to commit the rest of your lives to one another. You have already invested so much. If the work of counseling creates a relationship that is overflowing with love, kindness, and joy, would you not say it was worth the effort? Can you believe that counseling may even make the relationship better than it has ever been?

Is counseling just for those whose relationship is in trouble?

It is important to realize that counseling is useful for each stage of a relationship. For example, in the beginning, it may help you establish healthy patterns you want to keep, or after years, it may realign when you went off course.

As a younger couple, learning how to enjoy a healthy style of communication that suits each partner can save hours of annoyance, miscommunication, or accidental hurt. Relationship counseling before marriage is proven to help couples maintain their relationship in the long term.

Established couples who undergo relationship counseling will benefit from exploring their understanding of one other. If they are willing to take a step back, listen, and hold their flaws up to the light, their relationship can be transformed. Truthful, loving feedback could heal the cracks in their relationship.

Counselors agree that those that seek out help early on often achieve better outcomes. To use the metaphor of marathon training: if a coach gives expertise, provides a training plan, and keeps you training diligently, then you will be more prepared than if you rely on your own determination and painfully won experience.

Many therapists have witnessed couples who were at the brink of divorce restore their relationship through counseling.

Do you need relationship counseling?

Are you thinking about whether to commit to relationship counseling? Consider questions, alone or with your partner. It may give you the chance to pinpoint aspects of the relationship taking strain or needing special attention. It may begin to locate where tension, distress and conflict originate.

• How do you and your partner respond when tension is high?
• Do you often criticize each other? Are you defensive?
• Do you feel contempt, anger, or resentment toward your spouse?
• How effective is your communication?
• How much time do you spend together, speaking and making eye contact?
• Do you and your partner have conflicts over faith or values?
• Do you feel a level of apathy toward your partner?
• Do you and your partner have as much in common as before?
• Are you growing apart or toward your partner?
• Has infidelity, addiction, or abuse rocked your relationship?

As you reflect on these questions it may indicate that it is time for you and your partner to seek out the assistance of a trained counselor. This list is not exhaustive. Depending on how you answered these questions, you may feel exasperated with your relationship. Take heart because there is help! There may be work ahead for you and your partner to make sure your relationship thrives, but you do not have to do it alone.

Do not be fooled that people in happy, healthy relationships never experience conflict. Anger is a normal emotion, and conflict is experienced in every relationship no matter how content the couple is. The difference between troubled and satisfied couples is not in the topics of their arguments – research finds that they argue about the same issues – but rather how they manage the disagreement.

This is why so many couples at every age and stage sign up for relationship counseling. Being taught how to manage conflict and resolve disagreements in a way healthy is a valuable skill for every couple.

How to Get Help

Counseling may be the single most significant gift you offer your partner and your relationship. Browse our online counselor directory or contact our office at San Diego Christian Counseling to schedule an appointment. We would be honored to walk with you on this journey.