Healthy relationships are hard work and require much maintenance. Often when couples have a specific looming issue affecting their whole relationship, it may be beneficial to seek out couples therapy. Along with most forms of treatment, couples counselling aims to develop habits that remain over time. In modern society, around 50% of couples go to therapy together throughout their relationship.
The main holdback to not seeking out professional assistance in a relationship is the idea that a relationship should be easy and simple. While there may be periods in a relationship that can be less challenging, any long-term relationship does not go without a time where hard work needs to be put into it; enter a professional.
Couples therapy offers an unbiased and impartial listener to offer listening techniques, help improve communication and work to resolve any roadblocks. Allowing a therapist into the relationship for a short period enables them to analyze situations in a therapeutic sense. Understanding that not all problems have answers is key when entering the therapy setting. According to Drs. Julie and John Gottman. 69% of disagreements in relationships won't be solved but instead managed. In other words, learning to evolve and grow around a struggle is the healthiest way to maintain a relationship.
For instance, if a couple is struggling because of a big life transition that’s affecting communications, they may seek out counselling. The therapist would first gain a background into their lives together and build an understanding of why the change has been such a challenge. They may employ different therapy-based learning exercises to help the couple understand each other more. When working with more than one person in therapy, using reflective listening can help build communication techniques when talking about a specific issue. Simply using “I” statements instead of “you” can make a partner feel less targeted and more inclined to share their point of view.
Around 70% of couples say therapy positively impacted their relationship. The common statement of couples who experienced a positive outcome in therapy is that they waited too long before attending. Often there is a notion that there must be something wrong in the relationship. Similar to most aspects of life, there is no one fix-all solution to help rebuild a relationship. Going to therapy can be a step in the right direction, yet is not an easy, simple solution. There may be times when a couple and therapist agree that there needs to collectively be a decision to end the relationship. This does not mean failure, but acceptance that sometimes relationships change and that is alright. Other times, the care from a therapist and work from both parties is sufficient to preserve the relationship. No matter the outcome of couples therapy, sometimes knowing there was effort put into wanting to heal together as a couple is enough to prove the positivity of couples counselling.

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