What Is Marriage Counseling?
Marital Counseling Near Me is a type of joint counseling in which a couple seeks help, typically due to relationship issues. It differs from other types of therapy because there are two married individuals involved in each session.
Marital Counseling Near Me is considered by many therapists as the most difficult therapy to undertake, according to Block, especially with couples who are angry, hurt and treat the therapy as a medium to prove their partner wrong. They view the process as a court and the therapist a judge who will hopefully straighten out their partner, stressing that is not the purpose of marriage therapy.
At its core, marriage counseling is meant to help couples understand and resolve conflicts to improve their relationship. It’s intended to give couples the tools to communicate with more compassion and less fear while learning how to problem-solve and deal with conflict in a healthy manner.
You don’t need to be struggling in your relationship to seek In Person Marriage Counseling Near Me. In fact, you may have a better result if you don’t wait until your marriage is unravelling.
Who Might Consider Marriage Counseling?
Marital Counseling Near Me is for any couple who has tried to resolve their issues on their own without success. Unsure if you and your partner fall into that category? Indicators include the following signs:
- You have poor communication and are unable to agree on anything
- You’re constantly fighting or bickering
- You’re incapable of problem-solving together or experience unequal decision making
- You have trust issues
- You feel a lack of connection, emotionally and physically
- You are experiencing sexual issues, or not having sex at all
- You have lifestyle or life-goal disagreements (i.e. money, kids, where to live, etc.)
- You are reeling from one partner (or both) engaging in infidelity
- You are experiencing more difficult days together than peaceful and joyful days
What Happens in a Marriage Counseling Session?
During a marriage counseling session, couples work with their therapist to identify and address the problems that need to be acknowledged and resolved.
Skills couples might practice and takeaways they might learn during a session include the following, according to I Got U Corp:
- Learning more effective ways to communicate with each other
- Learning how to be vulnerable and truthful with each other
- Learning how to control their anger and responses when they feel emotionally charged
- Discovering why they choose to be married and their shared purpose in the marriage
- Reviving romance
- Remembering how to be grateful for one another versus judging and wanting the other person to change
What Happens Outside of Marriage Counseling Sessions?
Marital Counseling Near Me isn’t limited to the walls of a therapist’s office, however. Additional effort is required from each partner to implement the skills discussed during counseling.
Couples need to be invested in the process and be mindful of their communication and behavior. Counselors routinely give their patients ‘homework’ so they can set time aside to talk about issues and ‘practice’ what they have learned during sessions. Counselors frequently gives couples they are working with various exercises to do outside of scheduled sessions to keep the momentum going.
These include:
- Practicing tools for better communication and reduced misunderstandings and hard to resolve conflicts
- Intentionally setting aside more time for intimacy
- Practicing active listening and validation instead of judging
- Being vulnerable and sharing feelings
- Making time for dates
- Having a weekly check-in to share feelings and express any needs that aren’t being met
Do You Need Marriage Counseling?
There are many reasons why a couple might seek In Person Marriage Counseling Near Me. While some people are at a higher risk for divorce due to factors such as marrying at an early age, having divorced parents, or being in a lower income bracket, none of these alone are signs you need counseling.
Instead, you should consider aspects of your relationship that might be contributing to distress, dissatisfaction, or conflict. Consider the following questions about yourself, your partner, and your marriage:
- Do you and your partner have conflicts over religious faith or values?
- Do you often criticize one another?
- Is there a lot of defensiveness in your marriage?
- Do you tend to withdraw from one another?
- Do you feel contempt, anger, or resentment for one another?
- Do you believe your communication is poor?
- Do you feel indifferent to your partner?
- Do you feel like you and your partner have nothing in common?
- Do you feel like you are growing apart from your partner?
- Is there infidelity, addiction, or abuse in your marriage?
If you answered “yes” to several of these questions, then you may have a higher risk for relationship dissatisfaction and divorce. It doesn’t mean that divorce is inevitable, but it may mean that you have to work much harder to keep your relationship healthy and happy. A Marriage or Relationship Counselor Near Me at I Got U Corp can help you with that work.
When to Start Marriage Counseling?
It may be a good time to start counseling if both you and your spouse feel dissatisfied within the relationship—especially if you’re working through a specific marital problem such as financial difficulty, infidelity, childcare issues, or another challenge.
One study found that partners who made a greater number of attempts to improve their relationship on their own felt more distressed and less satisfied in their relationship than partners who made fewer attempts.
In other words, if counseling is available to you, it may benefit you and your partner to get a professional opinion when problems first arise so you can manage future obstacles together.
The benefits of marriage counseling near me:
Marital Counseling Near Me has plenty of benefits for those married couples who are struggling with making their relationship work and overcoming conflict. Therapy can teach partners to forgive, heal, and reconnect with each other. Here are a few benefits of pre marriage counselling:
Develop a closer relationship:
When couples grow apart, there’s a rupture happening in their relationship. Whether the rupture has been caused by constant arguments, money problems, or troubles with their intimacy, the partners no longer experience the closeness they used to share when they first got married. Therapy can change that.
Couples therapy may be the only thing they do together for a long time. It can be an opportunity to discuss and overcome marital problems, encouraging them to enjoy each other’s company and feel romantic again.
Helps heal old wounds:
Many couples feel stuck in their marriages because they, or their partners, can’t heal wounds they’ve caused each other. For example, maybe one partner has been unfaithful, and the other still feels hurt about this betrayal. The one who cheated will never feel forgiveness until their partner heals the wound caused by their infidelity.
Marriage or Relationship Counselor Near Me can help heal these old wounds that cause conflict and make the marriage feel stuck.
Helps partners listen to each other:
Efficient communication is key to any healthy and happy relationship. Both partners in a relationship want to feel listened to and understood.
It’s really frustrating to feel like your spouse just isn’t listening to you. Whether they stonewall you or show no signs that they understand your thoughts and emotions, it’s easy to feel ignored by your loved one.
Through Marital Counseling Near Me, couples can learn how to communicate and listen to each other so that both partners feel heard and understood.
Learn how to resolve conflict:
Conflict resolution is difficult to achieve in a relationship without communication and mutual understanding. When no one is listening to the other one speaking, no one understands the problem, making it impossible for couples to find solutions for their issues.
Marriage therapists can help couples develop healthy patterns in managing conflicts through open communication, collaboration, and emotional vulnerability of both partners.
Set goals as a couple:
Marriage is like a partnership in which both partners share the same desires and goals. But when this is not the case, conflict arises, leading to a rupture in the relationship. One or even both partners can wish for something they will never get because they fear discussing it with their spouse, or when they do open up about it, their partner shuts them down. Marriage counselling can help couples set common goals which help them work as a team towards achieving them.
Marriage Counseling with I Got U Corp:
Marriage, like anything else, requires work and maintenance. For many couples, Marital Counseling Near Me helps them move through their struggles and endure as a couple. Counseling may not always be easy, especially at first, but your marriage is worth the work
In addition to couples therapy, Marriage or Relationship Counselor Near Me at I Got U Corp offers online therapy for individuals. It’s discreet, convenient, and more affordable than in-person therapy. If you’re ready to try marriage counseling, I Got U Corp is the perfect place to start.