Couples and marriage counseling and therapy can provide partners the skills and tools necessary to successfully navigate life’s ups and downs and create a relationship based on effective communication, intimacy, and joy.

How does couples counseling work?

According to the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapists (AAMFT), couples and marriage counseling and therapy are types of psychotherapy (also known as talk therapy) that address behavior patterns in a relationship. As opposed to more in-depth forms of psychological counseling, couples counseling and therapy is usually short-term and focused on defining specific therapeutic goals, timelines, and treatment outcomes.

In couples therapy, a licensed mental health professional — such as a psychologist, marriage and family therapist, or clinical social worker — works with both partners to help the couple identify the issues they’re facing, determine the underlying causes of these issues, and develop the skills and tools they need to communicate more effectively, resolve conflict, and change behavior patterns that are negatively impacting the relationship.

First and foremost, couples therapy is about making sure that both partners can communicate effectively. This means being able to talk and listen… especially the latter. All too often, we’re sure we know what our partner is going to say and we mentally fill in the blanks without really hearing them.

Couples counseling will also help you explore the issues that result in conflict in your relationship and learn how to navigate them effectively. Quite often, the conflicts in our current relationships stem from issues we’ve experienced in previous relationships. Couples therapy can help each partner identify repetitive behavior patterns, how and when they were acquired, and examine new patterns of behavior to create positive change.

Ultimately, as much as we may want to believe otherwise, we can’t change our partners. We can only change ourselves. Therefore, the most effective way to improve your relationship is to change yourself. Knowing this will allow you to enter couples counseling with a focus on reducing your emotional reactivity to your partner so you can learn how to respond differently to your partner without sacrificing your values.

Is couples therapy right for you?

According to the AAMFT, research has repeatedly supported the effectiveness of couples and marriage counseling and therapy. For example, in an article published by the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, clients of marriage and family therapists from 15 states reported their experiences with couples counseling. The findings indicate that marriage and family therapists can effectively treat a variety of couples issues in a relatively short period of time and that client results and satisfaction levels are quite high.

Discussing your feelings with your partner can be difficult, especially if these feelings are negative. Couples and marital counseling can provide a safe, controlled environment and the resources you need to express your feelings to your partner in a clear, non-confrontational manner, as well as really hear what your partner is saying. By increasing the effectiveness of your communication, you can improve your trust and intimacy and give your relationship a better chance of long-term happiness and success.

Our relationships, to a large extent, define who we are and how we experience life. Healthy, happy relationships lead to healthier, more successful individuals and families.

If you and your partner are serious about creating the best relationship possible, a couples therapist can help you uncover and overcome destructive patterns in your interactions with one another and provide you the communication skills and tools to restore trust, enhance intimacy, and rediscover the joy in your relationship and your life.

Mary Deger Seevers is a couples therapist in Burlingame, where she specializes in providing family counseling.

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Even though communication in marriage and relationships has been a very well spoken subject, more often than not the very important factors that create healthy communication patterns is overlooked.

If you have experienced great struggle in the department of communication with your husband or wife or are losing the battle of succeeding in your marriage, implementing the key basics to building healthy habits is the initial step of not just developing your communication with your wife or husband, but also safeguarding your marriage from a very damaging path.

There is a strong link between unhealthy communication and a declining marriage or relationship. Quite often married couples bring very unhealthy practices and patterns into the relationship. These unhealthy communication habits are usually emotionally and mentally abusive in nature. If emotional and mental abuse is not a variable, often times a husband or wife may find it very troublesome to discuss stressful matters.

If you are living with this type of disconnect with your spouse, how you react to them can be the main difference between safeguarding your marriage or ruining it.

Saving and growing in your marriage ought to be preceded by establishing and preserving good communication in your relationship. A quite difficult, but powerful aspect to heading in the direction of developing healthy patterns will be to first recognize and embrace vulnerability. By doing this, you then begin the start of true change in your marriage and communication habits. Learning to share your stresses and fears with your partner in an affirming way is vital to this course of action. By understanding this guideline, you then can begin experiencing a transformation in the manner that your spouse perceives communication, which can lead them to be coaxed out of communication avoidance.

By communicating your love language through these fundamental points, it will help your marriage to blossom and acquire the foundation of healthy communication patterns:

Involve and ask without accusations . (Proverbs 15:1b “…but a harsh word stirs up anger”)

Diffuse intense discussion with a gentle reply . (Proverbs 15:1 A gentle answer turns away wrath…)

Lavishly affirm your husband or wife with words . (Ephesians 4:29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen)

Control your tongue from what you say . (Psalm 39:1 I will watch my ways and keep my tongue from sin; I will put a muzzle on my mouth…)

Don’t store up rage within your heart, instead bring it out in a Godly manner to make certain you aren’t “reacting” but rather are “responding” to the subject at hand (Ephesians 4:26 In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry…)

Considering the fact that marital difficulties have a range of causes, developing healthy communication as the Bible instructs us and the way God wants for all of us is essential to ultimately saving your marriage of much agony and pain as well as learning highly effective forms of communication that transforms your marriage while taking it to new levels. When you are able make this process crystal clear and apply it in your life without having opposition, you can then see the actual power in it and reap the returns of its fruit.

For more secrets and strategies on how to have an amazing Marriage that others only dream of, be sure to check out our exclusive insider Christian Marriage Resource at http://mychristianmarriageadvice.com/ for all your exclusive Christian Marriage Advice needs.

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Make sure the pre-preparation for marriage to select refer to them all. Here are some questions to help you choose the pre-preparation for marriage right for you:
It provides an overview of evaluation to help them understand their areas of support and strength, and it may be necessary to address?

How many couples participate in the class or workshop? A small group has more quality, more engaging and personally, to large classes. On the other hand, may also be broader, systematic and based on skills, as most couples or Pastoral counseling. A group of experience may also be to encourage more participation and individual counseling.

The program has focused specifically on the needs of engaged couples and newlyweds? Some programs mix of skills marriage couples with marital problems later in the same class. This can detract from the experience committed couples and HONEYMOONERS.

It is the kind of advice or approach flexible enough to allow their relationship and learning style or size is a unique program at all? It is better to practice communication, conflict resolution and the setting of goals and strategies for power, and then select the skills and strategies that are more consistent with his style of the relationship and better meet their needs.

The kind of advice or help you and your partner agree on goals and strategies for management and continues to work on your main question?

The answers to these questions will help in the selection of its approach to drafting prenuptial trained as a consumer.

If a couple of marriage counseling with a counselor or religious professionals do not put addresses some important points, the couple should consider adding a program that does. Many couples use of marriage preparation and counseling in combination, which covers the foundation and skills in a class or seminar, then focus on religious or other specific problems in their advice.

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