Why You Shouldn't Wait for Conflict to Go to Couples Therapy
Couples therapy is often seen as a “last resort” for relationships in serious distress or couples on the brink of separation. This assumption may even deter you from getting help when it could be most beneficial for your relationship. It is common and true that many couples who seek professional help arrive to therapy sessions in high distress after months, or even years, of resentment and disconnection have built.
In these cases, it can often take months of consistent therapy before you feel like you and your partner have found each other again and there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. This doesn’t have to be your story. You don’t need to be in crisis to seek or benefit from couples therapy. But why shouldn’t you wait for conflict to go to couples therapy?
3 Benefits of Proactively Seeking Couples Counseling
1) Fortifying Everyday Communication
Every couple experiences breakdowns in communication that can lead to disconnection or misunderstandings. Miscommunication, and even fighting, is natural but understanding how you fight and where the disconnection occurs will be your strength in repairing any disagreement or miscommunication that comes.
Everyone has different ways of signaling love and care to their partner, but oftentimes, the good intention of our message can have a different impact on our partner than we intend because how we signal our love and protect what matters most can clash with our partner.
Couples therapy can help clarify your good intentions to practice new conversations that send a clearer signal to your partner so that your partner can respond with love and care. Through this process of sharpening and understanding the process of how you communicate, confidence grows in your ability to send clearer signals to your partner and repair your bond in the face of disconnection.
2) Better Understanding of Yourself and Your Partner
Much of how we engage in relationships with our loved ones is shaped by our earliest relationships in life. Understanding how your body was trained when it comes to bonding and how you were taught, likely by your primary caregivers, to move toward or away from important people and emotions offers incredibly valuable information to you and your partner.
Having the space to explore these influences can reveal an “aha!” moment into what fuels difficult relationship dynamics, such as why you might avoid difficult conversations or why you push the tough conversations. This understanding can help you have empathy and compassion for your partner in difficult moments through understanding their heart underneath these behaviors.
Mutually sharing your personal backgrounds, upbringings, and past experiences can give you and your partner insight into how past experiences impact present behaviors to help you tune into the heart underneath certain behaviors and relationship dynamics.
3) Growth in Intimacy
Often, a byproduct of understanding your partner on a deeper level and experiencing their vulnerability is increased feelings of emotional intimacy and closeness.
Being open and vulnerable with one another can foster a deeper understanding, appreciation, empathy, and compassion for each other, and many couples report a greater sense of trust, safety, and closeness in their relationship as a result. Additionally, physical intimacy often flourishes as emotional intimacy grows, as emotional intimacy is a necessary foundation of a healthy physical and sexual relationship. Even if your relationship is not marked by conflict or hardship, couples therapy can help cultivate deeper emotional and physical intimacy to further strengthen your bond.
The Value of Professional Help
Your relationship is worth investing in to build and reinforce a strong foundation so you can experience the safety of a relationship that is resilient and steadfast amidst the ups and downs of life. You deserve the confidence that you and your partner can overcome tough times and wholeheartedly enjoy the good times together, and counseling for couples can boost this confidence in your connection.
Our goal is to help you connect deeper in the relationships that matter most to you so you can live a more rich, fulfilling life with meaningful connections that last. Reach out today to learn more about couples counseling.
