The Marriage Counseling Blog

Couples therapy is a source of help for couples who find themselves unable to move forward in their relationship in a healthy way. Finding the right couples counselor can be a source of anxiety, however, at a time when anxiety is already at a premium.

Davy and I have been together three years. Though we are dedicated to one another and we’re old enough to be able to move through initial issues in a relationship ourselves, we have both noticed some real problems with communication that we feel would be best helped by working with a professional. We agreed that we would seek couples therapy but we didn’t know where to start or who to talk to.
We talked with some of our friends who have gone to counseling. Some of them said that counseling helped, some said that they hated their sessions and they only made things worse! We’re not sure what to do.

Honest and Open Communication With Your Counselor

The right counselor can make all the difference in the world, but so too can the wrong counselor. You should make an initial appointment with a couple of different counselors out there and explain that you are looking for a counselor to help you with issues of communication. Be honest about your hesitancy to commit to a counselor without meeting them first.
Chances are that you and your partner will find a couples counselor to help you with your communications needs and take your relationship to the next level.

There are many different techniques that marriage counselors use to help their clients manage their relationship, improve their communication and re-learn better ways of connecting to one another. Two of the most useful marriage counseling techniques also work together, much as a couple needs to, in order to help a couple move past their arguments and find a one to bond.

Argument Diffusion and Laughter

When you or your partner are gearing up for an argument, the process is much more transparent that you may believe. The truth is that, especially after years of communicating through body language and habitual reactive patterns, you know when a fight is brewing. You can choose to diffuse that argument or participate in it. One reaction will help you heal your marriage, the other will hasten its breakdown.

You can choose to diffuse the argument with compassion, understanding the deeper issues that are causing it and the seriousness of what is at stake. One of the ways to do this is through laughter. No, you can’t take a serious argument and laugh at it, but you can understand that laughter is a mechanism to lessen tension and provide emotional release.

It’s deeply therapeutic and scientific studies have proved this time and time again. In marriage counseling, a couple that can learn to laugh together, even amidst an argument, stands a much better chance of succeeding in the long run.

When you and your partner attend marriage counseling you will learn advanced techniques to diffuse arguments and find laughter in your relationship again.

Many marriages relish the extra spice added by the occasional fantasy or fantasy role play opportunity, and it is common for a person to fantasize about another person even when having sexual contact with their very real partner. Marriage counselors talk to couples about such things all the time, but there are instances when intervention is appropriate.

Fantasy and Marriage

Fantasizing is common; most everyone does it in one way or another. Even if you thing you don’t fantasize, simply holding a brush up and lip syncing in a mirror often includes fantasizing about being a singer. Studies show that fantasizing can be very healthy and helps you deal with the real and unreal world around you.

Married couples fantasize. It is very common and normal. People who are married have fantasies just as much as single people do but it should be understood that fantasizing and acting out a fantasy are very different things. Acting out your actual fantasies can have negative consequences on your life, depending on those fantasies. For instance, if you fantasize about having an affair it would be detrimental to your marriage to follow through with that fantasy. Imagining your spouse is the object of that affair would most likely not be a bad thing, however.

The bottom line when thinking about whether or not your fantasy is appropriate is that they’re okay as you can control your actions, your fantasies do not turn into an obsession, and you can appropriately decipher your fantasy from your reality.

A marriage counselor will work with you to understand how fantasizing fits into your marriage.

Many people talk about warning signs that can point to possible future issues. There are warning signs for addictive behavior, mental health problems, physical health problems and more. The warning signs are not clear cut signs that absolutely point towards an issue or problem. They are, quite simply, possible risks that increase the chance of those problems.

There are warning signs of potential marital issues, and many couples who experience these warning signs do turn to marriage counseling in order to help them with their relationship.

Potential Marriage High Risk Groups

Not every marriage in trouble shows these signs, and indeed not every marriage with these indicators has an issue that needs resolution, however, the following signs do indicate an increased likelihood of marital problems:

• Marriage at a very young age
• Marriage without completing education first, high school, GED
• Low income
• One or both people in the marriage exhibits anger management problems
• One or both sets of parents were divorced
• Had children right away when married young

When two individuals marry young and have a history of not finishing their education, they face many obstacles in life. They have already exhibited a tendency to make life-altering decisions quickly. Those who dropped out of school at a young age have also shown a tendency to not finish or follow through with some responsibilities. A life time of lower income potential, resulting from not finishing their education, will add financial difficulties and struggling.

There are many, many successful marriages that met those warning signs and did not need to seek counseling, however, there are many who do need marriage counseling to help them in their lives, both as individuals and as a couple.

Couples counseling is often used as a phrase to replace the term marriage counseling because not every couple is married. The truth is not every committed couple can legally be married, and not every committed couple chooses to ever marry.

Cohabitation is essentially a couple who lives together, with the intent of living together permanently but with no plans to ever be married because they choose to not to get married. Unlike couples who cannot legally marry, those who choose to integrate their lives fully without taking the legally committing step often face issues of inertia at a later time in their relationship.

Couples Counseling for Continual Cohabitation

Many counselors agree that cohabitation long term without final commitment can cause issues of trust and commitment in couples. When a couple lives together they inevitably integrate their finances, friends, work schedules, families and intimate and social lives. There is so much keeping the couple together that simply “walking away” isn’t so simple. Neither person in the couple can walk away without having to reorganize and reestablish their lives. This is a sort of commitment and involves trust and support.

For many of those couples who have decided to permanently cohabitate without ever seeking marriage there is the absence of that last step of commitment. Most of the time, even though both parties profess commitment to this course of action, there comes a time when one person forces the issue and asks that a committal decision be made.

Permanent acceptance of cohabitation is possible and does happen, however, for many who seek couples counseling, a firm long term commitment is eventually a goal.

Sandy had been married for 26 years. She had been young when they met, a great beauty, with most women fading into the background whenever she was present. Smart, witty and talented, she was a commanding presence. She met her husband when she was young, he older with grown children from a first marriage. They married. While not all of the marriage was picture-perfect, she had been happy and content with her love. Four months after their 26th anniversary her husband Ernie passed away from a long-standing health condition. Sandy was devastated. Older, retirement age, she had not expected to find herself dating again, but she was.

Sandy met Doug while he was fresh off divorce #2. Handsome and funny and successful, he reminded her so much of her first husband. They began dating and after 2 years, he proposed. She moved north to be with him, leaving her adult children and friends to live with her new husband, starting over at age 60.

Six years later, she came home to a Dear Jayne letter. Her new husband had left her for someone else. The twilight years that she had planned had been destroyed, once by illness, once by infidelity and both in totality. The emotional blow to her was devastating. She had simply never pictured a future without a husband and now the entire picture of her future was blurred and displaced.

Individual counseling was the sanctuary to which Sandy turned in order to understand where she was emotionally and where she needed to go in the future. Counseling helped her learn about and invest more in those who loved her for who she was and supported her unconditionally. Individual Counseling helped Sandy begin to learn self-dependence and love of self rather than the need to rely on another person for her own self-worth.

Infidelity is one of the most difficult issues for a couple to deal with head on and then overcome in a healthy way. Affairs are damaging to a couple on just about every level. Emotional dependence, long term trust issues and insecurity and resentment can become overwhelming even long after a couple decide that they still want to remain together and are willing to work for it.

Couples counselors often see couples after they have already been trying to overcome the consequences of infidelity by themselves without outside assistance.

Physical and Emotional Infidelity

Physical and Emotional infidelity are very different but just as damaging to a couple. The traditional image of infidelity has been forced to redefine itself over the past 15 years with the dramatic increase in emotional infidelity stemming from those finding online connections. Affairs that are carried out over the internet may be pushed off as “not real” because they aren’t physical, but the emotional connection is the same and the emotional damage is very real, indeed.

Attachment in Infidelity

There is real attachment during an emotional affair. This type of attachment happens when one spouse has developed and nurtures a close friendship with another person whom they feel attracted to, but by keeping the relationship non-physical, still feels as though it is within their bounds to pursue.
Eventually that dual commitment will shatter and hurt everyone involved.
If you and your partner are trying to overcome physical or emotional infidelity in your marriage, seek out couples counseling immediately.

Each of us has certain patterns that have developed in our relationships, commonly played out scenarios that seem to repeat themselves with a life of their own. Marriage counseling is often called upon to help couples break unhealthy patterns.

David always does that. When he doesn’t want to do something, he completely ignores it and refuses to even accept that it exists. I say “Take out the Garbage” and he says “What garbage?” It’s infuriating!! The garbage is right there. THAT garbage. I understand not wanting to put the garbage out, but the childish reaction of pretending it isn’t there is more than I can take.

Marie knows I like to watch sports on Sunday afternoons. Inevitably, as soon as the game starts, she’s standing behind like a gladiator ready to do battle, telling me to take the garbage out. I KNOW the garbage needs to go out on Sundays, but it doesn’t have to go out in the middle of the game. She always tells me to take it out in the middle of the game when she knows I’m busy.

David and Marie have a set pattern in their relationship that includes a fair share of emotional reactivity. To help them overcome this set pattern of circumstance and the reaction that seems to follow every time, their couples counselor asked them to use their emotional reactivity as a learning process.

Emotional reactivity is normal in close relationships, but it doesn’t have to be about your partner. Use it as a way to learn about your own patterns of behavior and the reactions that you are, essentially, provoking on purpose. Rather than focus all of your energy on getting your partner to stop their part of this ensemble piece, focus a part of your attention on yourself and how you can change your part of it.

In this instance, the couple’s counselor asked Marie to think about why she wanted David to take the garbage out during the game when she knew he wouldn’t want to do it. The counselor asked David why he would choose to react in a way more befitting one of their small children rather than as a contributing adult in the household.

Changing the thought patterns became a matter of understanding them in the first place and this counselor knew that he had to work on this couple’s communication problems.

Couples counseling deals with many different kinds of relationships and the intricate patterns of communication, love and inter-dependence that couples share. One of the most fascinating aspects of emotional interdependence is the ways in which emotional support types can vary.

Emotional Support

When beginning couples counseling, many couples are confused about the difference between emotional support and emotional demands.

Emotional support in a relationship is critical to success. Emotional demands are detrimental to relationship health.

Emotional support involves accepting your partner’s differences and not insisting that they meet your needs when and how you want them to be met. For instance, if your partner enjoys sending you flowers as a way of saying “I love you,” you could be appreciative and happy about the gesture, even if you feel that the expense is unnecessary and that you many honestly prefer chocolate to flowers. Your partner is proving examples of emotional love and support. You can use that as an opportunity to love and give emotional support back, showing that you appreciate and understand they ways in which your partner loves you.

Emotional Demand

Emotional demands are emotionally selfish. Emotional Demands involve a no tolerance of love or support if it doesn’t meet strict guidelines. You allow your partner to fulfill a need in only the precise way you want them to. An example might include insisting that your partner spend all of his or her time with you, that they give up their friends or that you both hang around only your friends and more. When one partner makes the others feel guilty about spending time with their families, this too is an emotional demand and very draining on a relationship.

There are many ongoing research that look into the effectiveness of marriage counseling and family therapy. The benefits of therapy, while difficult to measure in a traditional sense, clearly show the benefits of counseling and therapy in helping families learn to better relate and communicate.

Marriage and family therapy cover a large range of mental health issues beyond marital conflict and stress, from mental and emotional disorders and health problems to adolescent drug abuse, depression, alcoholism, obesity and dementia in the elderly. There are therapists that specialize in a wide range of treatment types in order to serve all of these needs.

The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, or AAMFT, says

In a recent study, consumers report that marriage and family therapists are the mental health professionals they would most likely recommend to friends. Over 98 percent of clients of marriage and family therapists report therapy services as good or excellent.

After receiving treatment, almost 90% of clients report an improvement in their emotional health, and nearly two-thirds report an improvement in their overall physical health. A majority of clients report an improvement in their functioning at work, and over three-fourths of those receiving marital/couples or family therapy report an improvement in the couple relationship. When a child is the identified patient, parents report that their child’s behavior improved in 73.7% of the cases, their ability to get along with other children significantly improved and there was improved performance in school.

Marriage and Family therapy is not a new or unregulated practice. Therapists are licensed or certified in 48 states and are recognized by the federal government as members of a distinct mental health discipline.

You can trust that your licensed, professional Marriage and Family therapist is qualified to help you and your family.

Online therapy, also sometimes eTherapy or even Email therapy, is yet another forum through which trained and certified counselors and therapists can reach out to patients and help them in an increasingly busy, but well connected world.

See Your eTherapist with Webcams

With online therapy or eTherapy, you will be able to see your therapist, literally, if you prefer a Webcam session. If a webcam session is not what you prefer, there are other forms of eTherapy that can take place through email sessions, live chat sessions or even group therapy in online chat rooms.

eTherapy means Accessible Therapy

The pure accessibility of eTherapy, or Online Therapy, means that you can choose any therapist or counselor that you want and see them, and it doesn’t matter if they are down the block or across the country. Your therapist or counselor is available to you when you need to talk, through phone counseling, or for those times when talking and then reflection can be beneficial, such as through email counseling.

Online therapy is, pure and simple, the most convenient therapy available to a patient. In the privacy of your home and office, no matter where you may be, you can communicate with your therapist at any time, day or night.

Online therapy is especially beneficial to those who are too ill to leave their home, but are in need of mental health services.

If your life doesn’t have the room or the ability to allow you to seek a therapist’s office, let your therapist or counselor come to you via eTherapy or Online Therapy.

Sal and Barb had been married for 22 years. They were both calm individuals and kept their own personal dramas to a minimum. They had a lot of interests in common, including hiking, which contributed to a better than average communication line between the two of them. In short, they were well equipped to understand and deal with their relationship issues as they came along and had never sought out marriage counseling. When they had real problems, they talked it out during one of their many hiking excursions.

When their daughter Velda became a teenager, however, the family began to undergo a drama that they simply hadn’t been prepared for.

Sal said:

Velda just became a girl we didn’t know, almost overnight! She was lying to us, sneaking out at night; we found out she was drinking at a party after school! We had always been able to talk about anything and work it out, but no matter what we did it wasn’t working with Velda, and we couldn’t take the chance of something serious happening to her because we were set in our ways. We called a family counselor for help.

The family counselor was able to work with Sal, Barb and Velda to discuss how their family worked, for each of them, and how it was obviously not working for at least one of them. Velda was going through a rebellious and experimental stage, searching for boundaries, while her parents where attempting to discuss those boundaries without actually setting them. Family counseling helped put this family back on the quiet path to happiness.

Financial concerns have put many couples over the edge, but help can be found in the form of one-session marriage counseling. When you attend a one-meeting marriage counseling session, you are able to achieve real benefits and techniques to improve your relationship without putting you into medical debt.

A one-meeting marriage counseling session will help you and your partner find new pathways to rebuilding the trust and love in your relationship. At the same time, you will be taught techniques and communication skills that will help you both move forward so that you don’t find yourselves right back where you started with anger, resentment and mis-communications.

One Session Marriage Counseling

(Source) Rebuild Trust
Resolve conflicts in a collaborative way
Heal past hurts and wounds
Use powerful communication skills
We’ll help you peel through superficial issues that may be covering up underlying problems. Then we will demonstrate new skills and have ample time to rehearse them. Before wrapping up the session, you will be given homework to improve the relationship. We will schedule a free 15-minute follow-up phone call two weeks after the session.

Benefits of One Session Marriage Counseling

One of the great benefits of one-session marriage counseling is the deep therapy involved; however it does rely on you and your dedication. You and your partner will have to commit to real work in order to practice the techniques that you’ll have been taught in your session. The free phone consultation a couple of weeks later is vital. It will help you reconnect with your counselor, get a check on what is and what is not working and how you can make it even better.

If you and your spouse need counseling but find the costs of even short-term therapy to be difficult, try scheduling a One-Session Marriage Counseling appointment and see how you can make real changes in your marriage.

For older individuals seeking out marriage therapy, there are often emotional and mental barriers that need to be addressed before real therapy for their couples issue can begin. Older patients who enter into marriage therapy often do so after many years of unhappy relationships. They are often stuck in decades-old habits of faulty communication and anger and resentment.

Throughout the Years

Some people may ask why older couples seek out therapy to begin with since they have been married for so long and are still together, but the reality is usually pretty simple. Many of these individuals have withstood unhappy marriages “for the sake of the children.” There comes a time, however, when the children are grown and out of the house. As the focus in their lives once again turns to just them as a couple, those old resentments and irritations have nothing to deflect themselves off on. With no children and often no careers to focus on, a couple once again must focus on themselves, and it is not always pretty.

Staying Mentally Sharp

One of the ways that have been helpful in assisting older patients in marriage therapy is by helping them learn that continually expanding the mind through learning and emotional/mental activity can actually increase self-confidence and alertness. Minds are kept young and sharp by continual use and mentally active people live longer. It is okay to learn again and it is okay to learn again about your spouse, no matter how much you believe you know.

Staying Physicallly Fit

The health of your body enormously impacts the level of you happiness so working together with your spouse to get the proper nutrition, regular sleep and daily exercise can change your relationship from the inside out.

Boredom is one of the silent killers in even those marriages that start off strong and motivated. Over the years, boredom is a small but growing voice suggesting that you turn to something or someone else in order to create that exciting rush of chemicals and adrenaline. Boredom, however, is also the work of idle hands and idle marriages. Just like your parents told you, keep busy and you’ll stay focused, but if you allow yourself too much down time without any productive thoughts or patterns, your brain may just go ahead and invent ways to stay busy.

Be Together and Be Busy!

When you make the proactive decision to take charge of your marriage and keep your relationship new and busy, no matter how long it has been, you are taking an important step towards keeping that personal spark alive and going. By seeing yourself and your spouse learn and try something new, you are able once again see a side of them that elicits that response of newness, of change, excitement and unpredictability. By sharing these new experiences together, you not only keep your marriage busy and in shape, you also reaffirm the bonds that hold you together in the first place.

Experience Something New Together

When Jaime and Ken took their annual trip to the Outer Banks, they always ate at the same restaurants. In order to fight off boredom and try something new, they decided to split up for the day and seek out entirely new places to eat and have fun, and then get back together that evening to compare notes and plan their itinerary for the rest of the vacation. They surprised themselves, and each other, with the interesting and unpredictable vacation that followed.

Jill and Jared has a problem in their relationship and the were not willing to go through to the next step, marriage, unless they could get to the core of he issue. After much discussion, they came to the conclusion that they did love each other, they wanted to be with one another, they wanted to get married, and they needed to see a pre-marital counselor before they could move forward.

The big problem that was making such a huge rift between them was the subject of vacations. Jill and Jared had never had a good, happy vacation together. Every vacation ended in tears, often for both of them, and they didn’t want the same thing to happen on their Honeymoon. They were also smart enough to realize that their “Vacation Issue” was probably a bigger issue than it seemed.

Jill said:

We try to start off right. We plan the vacation together, decide on the hotel together, even the itinerary, but by the time we get off the first flight we’re already fighting! I try to work it out and talk to him, but he just gets more angry and won’t speak with me!”

Jared says:

“I love vacations, I always look forward to them, but Jill and I just can’t seem to get it together on one, ever! We plan out the best itineraries, choose amazing flights to exotic places that we’ve never been to, and within an hour of being on the plane she’s telling me that I don’t love her anymore?? Where does that come from? I truly don’t get it.

Interestingly enough, their pre-marital counselor was able to talk with this young couple and work their problems out with just a few sessions. Jill’s motivation for taking vacations with Jared was to explore their love in new places. Jared’s motivation for taking vacations with Jill was to explore new places with the woman he loved. Jared was taking a vacation to see a new world. Jill was taking a vacation to see her world in a new way.

Pre-Marital Counseling can make a differnce in your new marriage journey.

Traditional couples counseling is often the best resource for troubled relationships, but you may be surprised to find out just how many couples are reluctant to take that step. Be it from a hesitancy to air out their issues in front of someone unfamiliar or from a refusal to admit that the relationship is in need of outside assistance, choosing to avoid couples counseling can just prolong the issues in you marriage.

Accepting Couples Counseling in Your Marriage

• If you are committed to your relationship and you partner, then you are committed to doing what it takes to get that relationship back on track. You owe to yourself and your partner to seek out a life that is both happy and satisfying for both of you, and couples counseling can help you achieve just that.
• Acknowledge that your relationship is going to take real and sometimes difficult work in order to correct the problems that are growing within it. You must consciously decide that you want to stay together and accept that it takes time, energy, and effort to build and sustain a happy marriage.
• Understand that you are not alone, no matter what stage you are in your relationship. A marriage of a few weeks can have as many (and sometimes more!) problems than a marriage of decades. Individual people make up the factors in the equation of relationships, and no integer can predict an outcome.

Couples counseling can offer you and your partner a pathway to greater understanding and happiness, and your relationship is worth it.

One of the many roles of a marriage counselor is that of a guide and supporter. When Debby and Charlie first came to marriage counseling they admitted that, though new to this counselor, they had in fact been to counseling a few years prior for mostly the same issues. They had chosen to again seek out marriage counseling because they were very unhappy in their marriage. They had chosen to seek out a new counselor because they didn’t think the previous counselor had made a difference in their relationship or individual selves.

There is always a predisposition to blame the initial marriage counselor for failing to help, however, it should be noted that seeking out help is not the same thing as being open to receiving help. Sometimes the right counselor makes a huge difference, but so does counseling at the right time.

Charlie said:

Our previous counseling sessions worked okay for a while, we stayed together, but we still weren’t really happy. I don’t remember a lot of the techniques that the old counselor gave us to help us talk more, I don’t know that I paid all that much attention, to be honest. Debby wanted to go to counseling so I did it. This time, though, I wanted to come to counseling. We’re not happy and we need to change or we’re not going to make it.

Debby and Charlie had realized that just attending marriage counseling wasn’t enough, they also had to actively participate in the process in order to realize lasting change.

When your partner is unfaithful it may seem that there is little love or trust left in your marriage. Marriage Therapy can help you and your partner reestablish those bonds of trust and love again even when it seems like hope is lost.

Infidelity Hurts

Infidelity is a problem that has affected marriages and relationships throughout history and it will most likely continue to. Infidelity is painful to everyone involved. It is no secret that the hurt and betrayal that happens as a result of infidelity takes a serious toll on a relationship and sometimes completely destroys the trust that had been built between the couple.

When Infidelity is Public

If you know the pain involved in infidelity then perhaps you can imagine how horrible it would be carried out on a national and even international stage. In the case of the Woods marriage, that is exactly what has happened.

In a recent USA Today article, the marriage of Tiger and Elin Woods was discussed, as well as Tiger’s public apology and possible Marriage Counseling ties and implications.

He went public on live TV, and now Tiger Woods is under wraps and back in treatment. But the 12-step program most likely being used to help him may or may not be the best course for the famed — and now infamous — golfer, experts say.

Therapists disagree on whether the program, which is similar to that used for alcohol and drug dependency, will benefit Woods, who on Friday in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., publicly apologized for his multiple infidelities and the pain he has caused. Several times during his brief statement, Woods referred to his “therapy,” but he gave no details about it.

In the case of the marriage of Tiger and Elin Woods, the public apology was yet another step in a marriage that grew and then crumbled in the public eye. Whichever type of marriage therapy will be involved in the rebuilding of this relationship you an be sure that it will include hard work and new dedication.

Couples counseling helps you and your partner learn and develop skills that you may have forgotten you even had, such as the ability to truly listen to your partner. One of the most common complaints when a couple comes into counseling is that their partner never listens to them anymore. Interestingly, almost always, it is both that say the same things.

Jacob said:

Dacia doesn’t listen to me anymore, no matter what I say or do its like talking to a wall. She looks right through me when I’m speaking and I just feel like nothing I do matters. The only time I can get her to listen is if I yell. I don’t want to yell, but volume seems to be the only thing that gets through.

Dacia said:

Jacob doesn’t talk, he screams. He’ll lecture me for hours on end until I can’t tell his voice from the background noise, and then he just starts yelling. It doesn’t matter what I say to him, it doesn’t stop the cycle of lecture, yell, speech, yell. He doesn’t listen to me, he doesn’t hear what I have to say, it doesn’t matter anymore.

In couples counseling, you and your partner will again learn what it means to really communicate with one another and that includes listening. It becomes imperative to genuinely listen to your partner, without becoming reactive. A reactive response only shuts down our listening and encourages us to formulate a response instead.

Counselors and Therapists are individual people and, as such, have their own individual preferences for certain therapy types. It should be noted that there is no one certain therapy type that is better than all the others nor is there one at the bottom of the pack. Different therapies work best for certain people and often therapists are drawn more towards those types of individuals that their particular style of treatment will work best with.

A variety of therapy types are necessary to help people with the many different types of mental health and relationship issues that exist such as marital or relationship problems, personal mental health issues or family concerns, addiction and disorders. Often, a therapist will choose a combination of therapy types to treat their patients, having found the right mix of therapy types that work best for them.

In particular, many couples therapists and marriage counselors are studying schools of thought related to couples dynamics and there is a growing base in the field of counselors working with Acceptance/Commitment therapy.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is another popular therapy type that uses a combination of cognitive and behavioral therapy practices to explore both thinking patterns and the behavior. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a good alternative for individuals who want to change their lifestyle and pursue specific goals.

If you are looking for the right counselor to help you achieve your relationship or mental health healing, remember to inquire about what kind of therapy the counselor offers and which may be right for your situation.

Marriage advice can come from many different sources. From friends, family and work associates, sometimes it seems like you can’t turn your head without being offered marriage advice. Of course, advice from these sources is generally dependent upon the advisor’s one source of information, you!

Most people who are going to give you advice are also not going to be getting both sides of the story. A marriage counselor is trained in different techniques to allow them to gain insight into both you and your spouse, to understand your story from both sides and both psyches.

Common marriage advice, however, advice that isn’t dependent on knowing anyone’s side of the story, is well documented and given out freely, especially to newlyweds. The difference in common advice is that it is not directed towards your marriage, but rather a reflection of the many different marriages that went into its creation.

Common marriage advice, such as “Never go to bed mad!” is really a catchy way of saying, “Talk it out, communicate, and don’t let your anger and resentment create a rift between the two of you.” Advice like that isn’t supporting just one side of your particular argument, it supports communication for the sake of bettering any relationship.

While most people will tell you to ignore advice that you’re getting from others and go straight to a marriage counselor, the truth is that some of the most useful advice you’ve ever gotten is also probably advice that you have ignored. A marriage counselor will help you and your spouse see the ways in which you can change your way of communication and find a greater and deeper understanding of your spouse and your relationship.

Apologizing to your partner can help you mend some of the hurts in your relationship and start again the right way. An apology in and of itself isn’t going to be enough, however, if both you and your partner are at fault. Just one person saying sorry doesn’t help if both people had a hand in the problem to begin with. Marriage counseling will help teach you and your partner that there are two sides to a relationship and equality and respect go a long towards a healthy marriage.

If both you and your partner are equally at fault in an argument, it’s still up to one person to initiate an apology but both persons should be adult enough to admit their role in the argument and express their sincere regret that they hurt their partner. In reality, though, as an individual, all you can do is take responsibility for your part and hope that your partner does the same.

Sometimes even the most recalcitrant of partners can open up and accept responsibility for a wrong if they are asked to do so in an open, non judgmental way. Apologizing first can sometimes open the door for the other person to apologize as well.

Learning to say you are sorry and accept responsibility for your own actions is one of the many skills that are explored during marriage counseling sessions. Marriage is hard work and sometimes you have to understand that the benefits to correcting your marriage far outweigh the negative consequences of giving up.

One of the lessons that marriage counseling teaches and guides clients through is finding the strength to say “I’m sorry” and mean it. It really isn’t easy to say you’re sorry, especially when you truly mean it. The entire point of apologizing to someone is to admit that you were wrong, that you hurt them, and that you are asking them to forgive you. Everything about saying you are sorry is vulnerable and difficult, and generally the more you mean it, the harder it is to say.

Saying You’re Sorry

When you apologize, you are accepting responsibility for actions that probably shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Saying you’re sorry does include a deep understanding of how your actions affected someone else. Saying you’re sorry does not include justifying your actions in the first place or advocating the blame of someone else.

Why Do We Say We’re Sorry

Sometimes people apologize because they just want to get out of the situation they have found themselves in. They don’t want to deal with the repercussions of their actions and instead just want to pretend it didn’t happen.

Some people apologize because they realize they hurt another and are genuinely sorry. They wish to heal the relationship and begin again.
If you find yourself in the position of regretting something that you have done because it hurt someone you love, take the responsibility for what you have done and apologize. You may be surprised at how quickly a relationship can heal when you admit your mistakes, acknowledge how they affected others, and ask for forgiveness.

Married couples often come to marriage counseling when their relationship is already tired and out of shape, left on it’s own to develop unhealthy communication and response habits. You see, a marriage is almost a thing of its own accord, separate from each individual because it is made up of a combination of both. When we ignore the health of our marriages, they suffer, much like if we ignore the health of our bodies, our physical selves suffer.

Creating a healthy workout plan for a marriage can be done in conjunction with creating a healthy workout plan for your body. A personal trainer, a marriage counselor and some hard work will get everyone and everything back into shape!

The Skinny on a Healthy Marriage and Body Image

Many people believe that getting to a desired weight will increase their self-esteem or their confidence, but this is usually a case of looking at the problem the wrong way around. Your self image and confidence, your state of mind, must also be in balance with your body. This is where counseling and physical training and changes all come into play together.

Talk to your spouse about the changes you want to make in your marriage and your personal lives. If a healthier marriage and self is on your list, why not approach this as a life changing opportunity and move ahead on both fronts? Your marriage, your mind and your body will thank you.

More and more individuals are seeking individual therapy to help deal with the stress of taking care of aging loved ones, especially parents. In fact, it is increasingly common to see middle generation families taking care of themselves, their parents and their own children all at the same time while simultaneously working on their career. This is a large responsibility for anyone to shoulder, and quite often individual therapy helps people deal with the stress, guilt and fear involved.

Sarya had this to say:

I had three kids, ages 11, 9 and 3. I was working full time and taking care of my parents, too. Even though I had a flexible schedule at work, I was still maxed out on days because I was taking 5 different people to doctor appointments and grocery shopping, cooking for everyone, cleaning. When I got 4 hours of sleep at night, I felt lucky. I began to see a therapist to help me sort out the responsibilities and priorities in my life because I was just too overwhelmed. When my mother almost burnt down the kitchen making breakfast, I knew I needed even more help. My therapist suggested Senior Care for my parents, which was wonderful and really cut down on my workload.

Sarya’s therapist was seeing more and more patients dealing with this enormous amount of responsibility and had already recommended senior care for some other patients’ elderly relatives to lighten the burden a bit.

If you are overwhelmed by life and responsibilities, talk to an individual therapist to help understand how you can make the changes that you need.

There are different signs that become more obvious when a couple is in dire need of marriage counseling. The arguments may increase dramatically or, in some severe cases, stop altogether in an icy silence. Resentment and anger may have led to eventual emotional distance, which in turn resulted in the couple leading completely separate lives from one another. Knowing when to say that help is officially needed can be a huge turning point in your marriage.

Long-term relationships certainly have their ebbs and flows, but if your “ebb” has become a chronic and then habitual act, it may be time to schedule an appointment. Meeting with a couples counselor is often the impetus that a couple needs to turn the corner in their relationship and find new life in it and in their partner again.

Relationships in Stress

Here are some general signs of a stressed relationship that needs immediate help:

• In your mind, your spouse just can’t do anything right anymore.
• You fight constantly.
• Resentment and contempt have replaced patience and love.
• You’ve turned from lovers into roommates.
• One or both of you is having an affair.
• You go out of your way to avoid being together and, when you are together, you have nothing to talk about.
• Your children are reacting to the stress in your marriage by fighting more, having difficulty in school, getting into trouble with the police, abusing drugs or alcohol, or becoming sexually promiscuous.
• You have begun having thoughts about divorce.

If you recognize your relationship in the signs above, give yourselves a fighting chance and contact a marriage counselor immediately.

The chemical processes involved in falling in love and staying in love are really quite fascinating. There are so many different chemicals, hormones and changes in our body and brain chemistry that falling for that special someone is as much science as it is mystery.

The honeymoon stage is characterized by a feeling of well-being and physical desire for each other. This feeling is intense, with all the newness and excitement stimulated by the production of chemicals in our bodies that increase energy and positive attitudes as well as heighten sexuality and sensuality. It is common for couples in this stage to commit to each other permanently.

In a recent article on CNN, the chemical aspect of relationships was discussed:

Fisher’s research team did brain imaging of people who said they were “madly in love” and found activity in the area of the brain that produces the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine and norepinephrine are closely related.
“What dopamine does is it gives you that focused attention, the craving, the euphoria, the energy and the motivation, in this case the motivation to win life’s greatest prize,” she said.

The heady feeling of new love and the lasting effects on the chemistry of the body were then summed up in a scientifically sterilized and yet amusingly accurate statement:

Generally, there are three brain systems involved in romantic love: sex drive, love and attachment, Fisher said. The sex drive evolved to get you to look for a lot of partners, the “love” portion is for focusing mating energy on one specific person at a time, and attachment is for allowing you to tolerate the partner — at least, long enough to have children with him or her

While the idea of love is never as simple as a few synapses firing, there isn’t a doubt that there are physical aspects to the ways in which our bodies and brains recognize attraction and foster long term attachments in relationships.

Setting goals for yourself and your relationships is an important part of the healing process. Impossible goals with no real framework attached to them are one of the hallmarks of potential failure in a relationship. Knowing what you want and where you want to be in your relationship is an end result. You have to define the steps you will take in getting to that end result, which is where your short term and long term goals have to begin.

Why Set Goals

We set goals because they give us something to look forward to, something to work toward, and create structure in our day-to-day life. Without goals, it is easy to say “I’ll do that tomorrow” but frankly, tomorrow seldom happens that way. With short term goal setting, as each step along the way is completed, you experience a sense of pride and accomplishment that further drives you towards the next goal.

Healthy Goals

One of the first goals to set, and one that has long lasting repercussions, is your health. Many underlying health problems cause very real emotional results. Take care of yourself physically and you will find that it is easier to move on to your next goal mentally and spiritually.
Proper nutrition, regular sleep, and daily exercise should be on your list of first short term, and then long term, goals. Stress reduction through breathing exercises and meditation can make a tremendous difference in the stress of your everyday life.

When you have to make changed in your relationship, remember that goals are essential to the success of your long term relationship.

Marriage problems can come in many different directions, catching us off guard and throwing off the carefully built balance of our relationship. Marriage problems aren’t something to be ashamed of because they are just another part of the natural progression of every long term relationship. The ways in which we deal with these problems can make the difference between a marriage that lasts and one that does not.

Not every marriage problem is a major issue that occurs quickly and causes a lot of damage. In fact, most of the problems faced in every day marriages are small issues that build up over time until they take on a life of their own. If handled correctly and used as a tool that can help you learn about yourself and your partner, these problems can actually strengthen a marriage.

Common Sources of Marriage Problems

Money and Financial issues are one of the most common causes of marital problems, especially during economic crisis when individuals have a smaller web of support to turn to. Stress and fighting over money constitute a difficult battle for couples as each problem is compounded by the act of family survival.

Children are another potential spring of marital issues because they bring out a highly emotional side in individuals. It isn’t always easy to see reason or discuss things logically when a bond as strong as that of a parent and child seems threatened, no matter what the source. Responsibility, roles, past childhood issues and even fears and hopes all combine to make children a major stress point in a marriage.

If you and your spouse feel that you need help in overcoming your marriage problems, contact a qualified for help.