Couples Counseling is one of the most important investments you will make in your life. A little preparation can go a long way in making that investment pay off in big ways.
Many couples enter counseling or marriage therapy each year not knowing what to expect. Many times spouses think that choosing the right Marriage Therapist or Couples Counselor is all that’s needed. But the truth is, while finding a good therapist is important, it’s only part of the equation. Couples therapy is a big investment of both time, money and energy. It is also one of the most important investments you will make in your life. A little preparation can go a long way in making that investment pay off in big ways in your relationship.
Note: In this article we use couples counseling and marriage counseling to mean the same thing!
Assumptions of Couples Counseling
To prepare, lets look at some of the basic assumptions of couples counseling. Let’s take a look at what makes a healthy relationship. A healthy relationship is based in the following principles:
- Mutual respect, fairness, sensitivity, shared power, collaboration, justice, shared vision and a shared purpose that’s based in reality.
- You can’t change another person, you can only change yourself.
- Positive changes that you make in your own behavior will positively impact the relationship as a whole.
- Under stress everyone behaves badly. It’s not your job to placate, punish, demand perfection, shame, criticize, blame or simply accept bad behavior in yourself or in another person.
- It is your job and your right to take responsibility for your own behavior in the relationship and to make amends or ask for repair from another person when necessary.
- These principles and actions combined over time build trust and a stronger relationship.
Initial Goals and Vision
The first task of Couple Therapy is to get clear about:
- The kind of life you want to build together.
- The kind of partner you aspire to be in order to create the life and the quality of relationship you desire.
- Your individual blocks to becoming the kind of partner you aspire to be.
- The skills and knowledge necessary to do the above task.
What’s Needed to Succeed: the four essential ingredients
In order to create sustained improvement in your relationship over time and to work effectively as a couple unit and as a team there will be some trade-offs. Here is what’s needed:
1. Time.
It simply takes time to create a relationship that flourishes. Time that may have been devoted towards other things will need to reallocated if it isn’t already towards the following priorities:
- Basic self-care: This includes adequate sleep, nutrition, etc. to maintain the energy and focus necessary to learn new skills.
- Basic Relationship Care: Time together to play, relax, recharge, reconnect and refocus and make repairs. This is necessary to maintain the energy, focus and motivation and to practice new skills. This time will encroach on some other valuable areas – your personal or professional time.
- Time to Reflect: Review goals, vision and progress together.
2. Energy and Motivation.
You will need motivation to persist. It takes concerted effort to sustain change overtime. This means remembering your vision and purpose at the beginning of this journey together. Maintaining these intentions even on the worse days can make a huge difference. It is the difference between a slight setback (often a normal and necessary part of the change process) and starting all over again.
3. Vulnerability and Emotional Risk.
You will be asked to gently but persistently expand your comfort zone with yourself and your partner. Creating a healthy relationship means taking a certain amount of emotional risk: to let go of old defensive patterns and test out new ones. This is a necessary part of personal development as well as marital growth. My job is to help you take these necessary risks without too much stress or overwhelm. At times this will actually be fun.
4. Mental Flexibility.
You should expect imperfection in both yourself and your partner. This can be very difficult for some, but is a necessary skill in improving reactions to problems. Change is non-linear. There will be ups and downs. This is a normal and necessary part of learning. Just as a young child falls down as it is learning to walk, mistakes are often a necessary part of learning and not a sign of failure. For this reason, it can be helpful to embrace the following paradoxes that are often part of couples work:
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- The slower and more careful we are with each other, the faster things shift in a positive direction.
- The greatest growth often occurs during our ugliest moments together.
- It’s not what you say, it’s what they hear.
- Solutions, no matter how perfect, can still lead to an unsolvable problem.
- But, when we improve our reactions to problems, the problems themselves can become irrelevant.
How to Prepare for and Maximize Couples Counseling Sessions
The main goal of marriage therapy is to expand your knowledge of yourself, the couple of which you are a part, and the patterns of interaction between you. As you become more aware of these patterns, they will begin to loosen their hold on you and other family members. Therapy becomes effective when you can bring new knowledge to these patterns and effectively change them or develop new ones.
What to Do Just Before Each Couples Counseling Session:
Before Each Therapy Session It is a Good Idea to:
- Reflect on your goals and reasons for being in therapy.
- Think about the next step that supports your larger vision or purpose for being together. Ask yourself “What is needed from me personally in order to be the kind of partner I aspire to become?”
Could you Use a Good Couples Counselor or Marriage Therapist?
Contact our office to get connected to an experienced Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists who can help turn your relationship around.
We are located in St Louis, Missouri and serve couples in the both Saint Louis City and Saint Louis County. This includes the following communities: Maplewood, Webster Groves, Kirkwood, Crestwood, Maplewood, Brentwood, Rockhill, Richmond Heights, Clayton, Shrewsbury, Lindenwood, Ladue, Central West End and the surrounding areas.
Give us a call at: (314) 827-5448 or email us at admin@danceofchange.com
We offer in person sessions in our office in Saint Louis, MO in Webster Groves as well as video (Telehealth) session for anyone located in the state of Missouri