Couples Therapy and Healthy Relationships: How to Build Lasting Love

The issues you have with your partner are the daily elephant in the room. You are both aware of them and realize you need some help, as they are not going away. While you have heard about couples therapy or couples counseling, you have not taken it into consideration when there is an issue in your relationship.

You have listened to the common reasons couples seek therapy, and they do not seem to line up with your relationship. Additionally, your view of treatment is often accompanied by a lack of trust and a negative stigma. If you read no further, hear this: depending on the data you may find, you have about a 50% chance of divorce the day you marry. Even that new car you just bought does not depreciate that much the day you drive it off the lot! Unlike a car, you can decrease risk if you choose.

In this blog, we will explore some reasons that may make couples therapy a necessary step for you. The blog will focus on married couples or couples in preparation for a marital commitment.

Understanding Couples Therapy and Relationship Counseling

Couples therapy and relationship counseling can offer valuable support if you find yourself struggling in a relationship, feeling confused, or wondering if it is healthy. At times, it can be challenging to spot warning signs and red flags, but understanding the common challenges couples face can make a significant difference.

Consideration One: “I am not in love anymore:” The Soap Opera Syndrome

Suppose you have thought that you are not in love anymore, as there is no passion, enthusiasm, or romance. These ideas make it especially hard for you, as the loneliness has set in a bit, and your motivation to work on the relationship is not very high.

At this moment, you have not shared your experience with anyone and are hoping it will pass. If you think you are falling “out of love,” couples therapy can help. Psychoeducation highlights that this is a soft issue for couples, and many people resolve it in couples therapy. Meanwhile, not addressing the dilemma can be problematic. This is especially true when a couple lacks commitment, patience with their marital issues, and the ability to work through challenges.

Often, a couple falling out of love is experiencing a shift in the intimacy of their relationship. This occurrence is normal for a relationship. Using therapy will allow you to unearth the cause as you develop communication skills. It is an opportunity to learn how each partner defines love, intimacy, passion, and experience romance.

You may not be aligning with the same shared meaning and need to reset. It is not uncommon that this was never a topic of discussion because communication skills were lacking. A couples therapist can serve as your guide during this time.

Another common example is when a couple is intensely attracted to each other when they first meet. The couple “was always together and madly in love.” Indeed, they have found the love of their life. “THE ONE” that they have always sought, and they move to the marriage.

Eventually, the reality all couples face has become familiar. You are two distinct people who need to differentiate or have a balance between self and couple in the relationship. Both may lose the sense of self in the relationship.

When losing oneself in a relationship, at some point, a part of you will begin to look for a way out, as you are, after all, two separate people (Dougherty, 2021). If not careful, you may use emotional detachment. This approach “is a way to cover oneself from the fusion in the relationship” or find what you lost as you burn out at a high level of intensity (Dougherty, 2021). If you recognize you are here, couples therapy can help you process and avoid losing sight of the person in front of you. Most often, they are still “The One.”

Caution: If you are working through this dilemma on your own in individual therapy, proceed with caution. You may be increasing divorce risk in individual treatment, as this is a relationship problem.

Consideration Two: Premarital Counseling is a Requirement

Data highlights that 59% of U.S. couples cohabitate. Many utilize the living arrangement as a form of “free” premarital therapy. The data also suggests this approach is not nearly enough. A couple needs a path to understand pre-commitment, evaluate finances, and “test” the relationship’s health.

The process will foster better relationship quality, communication skills, compromise, accepting influence, and planning future developments. Premarital education helps guide this process and catch blind spots.

Premarital counseling also assists in navigating how to improve work and personal life balance in relationships, sharing meaning and sex. The education may also help partners avoid lapsing into unhealthy cohabitation decisions, which can lead to marriage.

Perhaps most importantly, the therapy allows you time to discuss the issues with an independent party and make wise relational decisions about marriage (Lebow, 2008).

Am I in a Healthy Relationship?

There are some things that your partner does that initially seemed cute and endearing. However, as the months go on, you’ve started to feel uncomfortable and question whether these behaviors are healthy or not. In the midst of an unhealthy relationship, it can be hard to spot the warning signs and red flags.

• Not Accepting You as You Are

Yes, we are all works in progress. And yes, it’s good to want to be a better version of yourself for your partner. It’s great when your partner encourages you in the areas where you want to grow and change. This could also manifest as your partner making you feel as though you are only valued for one particular thing, such as your appearance, sex, or income.

Still, if your partner nags you about needing to lose weight for them, or you feel like you have to change aspects of your appearance to keep your partner interested in you, then it may be time to say goodbye to the relationship.

• Lying

If you keep catching your partner in lies, this pattern could be one of their traits that will not easily go away in the future.

“Gaslighting” is a term used for psychological manipulation where one person will cause the other one to doubt their own memory, perception of things in the relationship, and their own experience to the point of feeling like they are crazy.

This is a tool that unhealthy individuals use to make their partner doubt themselves so intensely that they will accept whatever the other person says as the sole truth.

• Not Having Space

In every healthy relationship, both people feel comfortable and are able to take time apart from each other. This can look like taking a night without your partner and going out with friends, having alone time to decompress, or even needing regular time each week to get away and do the things you love.

On the other hand, if your partner feels like they can’t do anything without you, from basic tasks (grocery shopping, etc.) to social events (parties or family dinners), then this could be a sign that your partner is too dependent on you.

• Distrust

If your partner needs to look through your phone and check social media accounts, texts, and your search history, then this could be another way of pinpointing some unhealthy aspects in your relationship.

If there hasn’t been a history of unfaithfulness in your relationship and your partner still feels distrustful of you to the point of needing to check your phone, then this could be an indicator that you are dating someone who is too controlling.

• Isolation

After starting to date your partner, you’ve had less contact with your friends and family to the point that they begin to worry about how you’re doing. You go out with friends less, make excuses of not being able to see family around the holiday, or have less interest in your loved ones.

Perhaps you spend less time with them because they don’t like your partner, or your partner can always find an excuse not to see them. However, this is an indication that your relationship is slowly causing you to become isolated from others in your life.

Consideration Three: Know the Path to Divorce

While there are many, what is your path to divorce? Below are a few examples.

In case you did not know, divorce is prevalent. Divorce is also very painful to the family, friends, and community systems. Although the rate of occurrence is going down, this is not because of better relationships. Instead, it is because people want to avoid a divorce. As a result, fewer couples are getting to the altar.

There are some common predictors that you should be familiar with and take proactive steps to guard against in your marriage. There are behaviors such as contempt, belligerence, and stonewalling that you need to consider and review (Gottman, 2017). This solution is a better option than merely avoiding marriage altogether due to a fear of divorce and its costs. There are other reasons as well.

There are soft reasons such as “falling out” of love, not paying enough attention to each other, and financial disagreements. Hard causes such as affairs, abuse, and addiction are prevalent. Are you aware that they are in your relationship? There is also divorce ideation, which is expected as well (Olson et al., 2008).

While it is typically not an indicator of divorce when discussing this, less than 20% of couples discuss the topic (Crabtree & Harris 2020). Keeping the topic private and isolated can lead to depreciating thoughts that may ultimately bring a relationship to an end (Dougherty, 2021). This process is especially true when one’s beliefs about divorce begin to sound like “it’s too late even if my spouse were to make changes.” In all these cases, therapy can be of value.

Finally, while there is no guarantee therapy helps the couple, not even the couple knows what is possible until they get to work. If you use therapy and this relationship does not work out, it is still beneficial individually. You will walk away understanding your contributions to the problems and the areas where change is needed (Dougherty, 2021). 

The therapy can serve as a gut check to see how you navigate conflict and ensure you bring your whole self to relationships. As you learn about yourself in this relationship, you become aware of your issues that may need attention. Working through the problems will be a need in all present and future relationships. If not, they will repeat in this relationship or the next.

If you find yourself struggling in your relationship or wondering if it’s healthy, it may be time to consider couples therapy and relationship counseling. The process can help you identify issues, improve communication, and build a stronger emotional connection.

At Symmetry Counseling, our therapists help couples rediscover connection, build understanding, and develop the skills needed for long-term relationship health. You can contact us today to get matched with one of our skilled counselors.

References

1. Crabtree, S. A., & Harris, S. M. (2020). The lived experience of ambiguous marital separation: A phenomenological study. Journal of marital and family therapy, 46(3), 385-398.
2. 2) Dougherty, W. (2021). Discernment Counseling. Retrieved from Anger is Toxic. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j on February 3, 2021.
3. Gottman, J.  (2017). Level 1 Clinical training manual: Gottman method couple therapy. Seattle, WA: The Gottman Institute Inc.
4. Lebow, J. (2008). Separation and divorce issues in couple therapy. Clinical handbook of couple therapy, 4, 459-477.
5. Olson, D., Olson-Sigg, A., & Larson, P. J. (2008). The couple checkup: Find your relationship strengths. Thomas Nelson.