Signs Your Relationship Could Benefit from Couples Therapy
Most couples start therapy when the proverbial shit has hit the fan. Whether it’s infidelity, non-stop arguing, or other major issues, they reach a breaking point and realize they need some help.
This can happen for a lot of reasons, but many people feel hesitant to reach out for help because they feel ashamed for needing it. But you don’t need to wait until the sky is falling to start couples therapy! In fact, couples therapy can be even more effective when you start it before things get miserable!
Relationships Take Work-And That’s Normal
Our culture teaches us that relationships are the norm, so they should just work. And all the images we see in movies of happy couples certainly help reinforce that narrative. But the reality is that relationships can be really tricky to navigate, and despite what we may see on our social media feeds, EVERYONE struggles in their relationships.
Relationships between humans are natural and important, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy to maintain. Conflict and issues are completely normal in a relationship. If someone tells you they never have problems in their marriage, they’re probably lying to you and themselves.
The best way for couples to fix their issues and ensure their relationship is continuing on a healthy path is with couples therapy.
So, even if you’re not at a crisis point in your relationship, here are some reasons that you and your partner could benefit from couples therapy.
Signs Your Relationship Could Benefit From Couples Therapy
Disagreements Often Escalate Into Huge Blow-Up Fights:
Disagreements in a relationship are totally normal and expected. It’s kind of like doing laundry to clean dirty clothes. We all know that we need to wash our clothes on a regular basis to keep them looking and smelling great. It’s not necessarily about how often you do laundry, but how you do it.
If you throw your clothes in the washing machine and forget to put in detergent (I did that once!) you end up with some smelly clothes that just happen to be wet. If you wash a crisp white shirt with a bright red sock in hot water, well guess what? You have a pink shirt now!
Conflict in a relationship works the same way. It’s less important to look at how often you disagree with your partner or what you disagree about as it is to look at how you disagree and resolve these issues.
Why How You Handle Conflict Matters More Than How Often It Happens
Let’s say you and your partner often disagree about how to handle your teenager getting low grades in school. Obviously, there are lots of different reasons this could be happening and even more ways to respond. Maybe you want to talk to your teen to see what’s causing them to get lower grades and your partner wants to ground them until they get their grades up.
Many couples in this situation get into huge screaming matches about what to do that quickly devolve into name-calling, defensiveness, criticism, and eventually an emotional disconnect from each other. And to add more insult to injury, they never end up agreeing on what to do, so it impacts the family as a whole as well.
The key here is that you want to utilize healthy communication and conflict resolution skills to disagree. So rather than things getting heated to the point where someone is screaming “I can’t believe you, you’re such an absent parent, no wonder our kid hates you,” you can speak respectfully and calmly with each other without sparking the flame of anger.
Does this necessarily mean you’ll agree on how to handle your teenager’s school performance? No. But, you will be better able to hear each other’s concerns and come to some kind of compromise that works for everyone.
And rather than having a big screaming argument that leaves you feeling alone and disrespected by your partner, you may even feel more connected to each other because even though you don’t agree on everything, you feel heard.
How Couples Therapy Can Transform the Way You Communicate
Now, here’s how Gottman Couples Therapy can help you get there…
In couples therapy, you’ll learn how to communicate your viewpoint in a way that doesn’t provoke an angry or defensive response from your partner. You’ll practice using these techniques in session and at home so they become more natural and comfortable for you. And if things do escalate into a big fight one day, you’ll talk about it in therapy to figure out what went wrong so you can prevent it from happening again in the future. Many couples find that making this one change in their communication can have a huge impact on their happiness overall!
Avoiding Conflict All Together:
Another sign that your relationship may benefit from couples therapy is that you or your partner avoid bringing issues up at all. Many people do this because they’re scared of sparking a big argument and feel it’s easier to just not say anything at all.
Now, to be fair, we all need to pick our battles and don’t want to bring up every single thought we have about our relationships because that would just be too overwhelming for anyone to handle.
On the other hand, you also don’t want to hide your wants and needs from your partner. Over time, this usually leads to you feeling alone, frustrated, or even unloved. Because you don’t talk about it, your partner likely won’t know what’s going on at all, so they don’t change anything they’re doing or saying. And then the problems just get bigger.
Couples therapy can help by teaching you both assertive communication skills so that you talk to your partner about your needs in healthy and productive ways. A skilled couples therapist can also help you address the underlying fear of conflict and why that might be getting in the way of you communicating with your partner. Happy couples are couples that communicate well, and couples therapy can help you build those skills.
Feeling Meh About Your Relationship:
When you’ve been with someone for a long time, you often fall into habits pretty quickly. Work, errands, taking the kids to school, etc. All of these routines become natural. And that’s not bad; it’s just what needs to happen to get things done.
The issue is that many couples develop this dynamic in their relationship as well. Fun and excitement eventually fade away, and many couples find themselves stuck in a rut or feeling like they’re just roommates. Conversations are solely focused on responsibilities, like paying bills, and time together becomes monotonous and blah. Many couples find themselves feeling like they’re just co-existing and only have faint memories of passion. They watch romantic movies and fantasize about getting that spark back in their own relationship.
And you can get that spark back! That’s one of the big benefits of couples therapy: going from meh to butterflies in your stomach again!
One way of doing this is working on getting to know each other really well again. I know you must be thinking that’s ridiculous, you do know each other because you’ve been together for 100 years. But, the reality is that people change over time, so most couples need to work on learning about each other again.
In couples therapy, we also work on igniting that spark directly. Whether it’s exploring sexual desires or breaking out of your usual routines (I mean, sitting on the couch watching a show together can get blah after a while), we figure out how to add some excitement back into the relationship.
Rebuilding Broken Trust:
When we talk about trust issues in a relationship, most people probably think about infidelity. And even though that is a big trust issue that can be healed through couples therapy, there often are smaller and more subtle incidents of trust being broken that can and should be addressed.
Imagine this: you’re traveling somewhere and ask your partner to pick you up from the airport when you get back. You’re tired and frustrated because the plane was delayed, and all you want to do is go home, take a shower, and relax. You walk to the passenger pick-up area and don’t see your partner. You text them, call them, wait for a while, and still don’t know what’s going on. Eventually, you give up trying to get in touch with them and get a cab home.
You walk in the door, and your partner says, “Oh no, I’m so sorry, I completely forgot your flight was getting in today!” How do you feel? Probably not great. It wasn’t intentional, and your partner apologized, but there’s still this lingering irritation gnawing at you.
That feeling is disappointment, resentment, and maybe even anger. That’s because your partner said they would do something but didn’t follow through. Even though it was a mistake (they didn’t want to let you down), they still let you down.
And even though you’ll probably be able to move on from that one situation fairly well, you likely have a little voice in your head saying, “Can I really rely on them the next time I need something done?”
Many people wouldn’t think about starting couples therapy due to ruptures in trust like this, after all, it’s not a crisis situation like finding out someone is cheating. But, patterns like this are actually an ideal issue to work on in couples therapy! Couples therapy gives you the language, the communication tools, and the emotional safety to talk to your partner about these ruptures and work on repairing them.
Getting Through Major Life Transitions:
So many people really don’t like change because it can be scary and very unsettling. And yet, we live in a world where change is inevitable. The big transitions in life are often even more challenging for individuals and couples because there are so many unknowns.
Whether it’s big moves, changes in career, becoming parents for the first time, or needing to take care of loved ones, these big shifts can have a ripple effect on the relationship. Some issues that can come up include not feeling supported by your partner, differences in opinions about household responsibilities, and tons of miscommunications.
Couples therapy can help couples in a time of major transition by giving them the strategies they need to have productive and healthy conversations with each other. So, instead of stuffing your feelings down (which never works) or ending up in big arguments that never seem to resolve, couples therapy can help you talk to each other and not at each other. You learn about your partner’s fears and needs and even get a chance to explore your own underlying anxieties about the transition. You work together as a team to adjust expectations, define some important goals, and work out a plan so you can both be on the same page.
Why Seeking Couples Therapy Early Can Help
Now, I know some people reading this may be thinking, “Okay, that’s great, but isn’t it better to wait and see how things go?” And the answer to that question is maybe yes, but probably no.
It’s kind of like teaching a dog to pee outside. You can teach an adult dog to not go in the house, but it’s much more difficult than teaching them when they’re young.
Couples therapy basically works the same way. If you’re in a really bad place in your relationship or recently experienced a crisis (such as infidelity or addiction issues), we can definitely work on those issues in couples therapy whether you’ve done therapy for years or never even met a therapist before.
But it’s much easier (and generally faster) to work on issues in a relationship before they get to a boiling point. Think about it this way: what’s one topic you and your partner argue about often and never seem to resolve? How many times have you argued about this topic? My guess is too many times to count!
Imagine if you had discussed this topic in couples therapy so that you could either resolve the issue or come to some kind of compromise? Imagine how many arguments you could have avoided over the years. I bet all that time would easily add up to be longer than any vacation you’ve ever taken!
Couples therapy at Fuzzy Socks Therapy is a fantastic tool for helping couples discuss disagreements so that they don’t end up having the same argument all the time. Overall, there are lots of reasons why couples therapy can help you improve your relationship, and there’s never a “not good enough” reason to start!
Improve Your Relationship With Couples Therapy in Scottsdale, AZ
Strengthen your connection and navigate challenges with confidence through couples therapy at Fuzzy Socks Therapy. Learn effective communication and conflict resolution skills to address issues before they create lasting strain in your relationship. Couples therapy can help you feel heard, understood, and more connected to your partner. Follow these three simple steps to get started:
Contact us or click here to book your free consultation to schedule your couples therapy session.
Meet with Lianna, Gottman couples therapist.
Start improving your relationship and strengthen your connection!
Additional Counseling Services at Fuzzy Socks Therapy
At Fuzzy Socks Therapy, we understand you might be interested in more than just couples therapy. We also offer therapy for neurodivergent teens and adults, addiction therapy, discernment counseling for couples unsure about staying together, and coaching for neurodivergent parents. Want to learn more about couples therapy? Take a look at my blog!
