Couples Therapy

Reconnect, repair, and rebuild. You may be reading this and in a tough spot in your relationship. Being married can be hard work. At times, you may second guess if your spouse is really “the one” or even consider separation or divorce due to conflict and tension. There is hope. Couples therapy may be able to help you. Repair, reconnection, and renewed passion are possible.

Do You And Your Significant Other Feel like You Are Leading Separate Lives?

Is your marriage or relationship stressing you out? Are you and your significant other dealing with trust issues and power struggles? Do you feel like you keep replaying the same arguments over and over, with no resolution?

Maybe your relationship is stuck in a continual cycle of negativity. Infidelity, fights over money, and arguments about sex may have cut into your love for each other and caused you to drift apart. Perhaps you feel like you’re just roommates—it’s as if you’re living separate lives together. Maybe you wonder if your marriage will even work out and worry that you’ve wasted precious years together. You may ask yourself: Where did things go so wrong? Why can’t we go back to when we first fell in love?

The Way Your Significant Other Handles Conflict May Annoy You

Oftentimes, marriage or relationship problems come down to different communication, conflict, and attachment styles. One of you may be avoidant by nature while the other is confrontational or experiences anxiety if an argument is not resolved quickly. Perhaps you tend to retreat from conflict but your partner never stops nagging you about it. The more they try to engage you, the more you withdraw—and on and on the cycle goes. As a result, you may feel like your partner doesn’t understand your boundaries or respect who you are. You probably feel misunderstood and unheard, as if you have no voice in the relationship.

If you want to trust your partner again and feel safe and secure in your marriage or relationship, we encourage you to give couples therapy a try. Feeling empty, deprived, and unfulfilled in your marriage doesn’t have to be a permanent way of life.  Here at True Peace Therapy, our goal is to help you and your spouse overcome power struggles, renew your passion for each other, and work to become best friends again.

No Relationship Is A Walk In The Park

If you find yourself in the middle of a relationship crisis, you are not alone. Despite what your social media feed may suggest, no one’s marriage is all rainbows, sunshine, and happy vacations. Other couples may not advertise their problems to the world—no one posts pictures of themselves crying and arguing—but every couple has seasons of conflict and strife. 

Unfortunately, we often receive messages that tell couples that no matter how unhappy their marriage gets, they just have to grin and bear it. Family members may share stories from their own relationships to demonstrate that a couple’s problems are “not that bad.” They may say that a couple is just overreacting and making a big deal out of nothing. These messages invalidate the pain that couples deal with and deepen their sense of isolation.

Many Couples Don’t Get The Support They Need

A lot of couples hesitate to seek therapy because they feel that they can solve their problems on their own and don’t need outside help. Some may turn to unhealthy coping behaviors like alcohol, drugs, pornography, or extramarital affairs. While these habits may provide temporary relief, they don’t address the root of a relationship’s problems and can make matters worse.

In couples counseling, you and your loved one have the chance to get to the core of your struggles instead of just focusing on surface solutions. We will help you increase your emotional connection to each other and find ways to communicate that increase feelings of closeness, confidence, and security in the relationship.

Couples Therapy Can Help You And Your Partner Renew Your Sense Of Trust

No matter how hopeless you feel, dedication and openness to trust the process is the most important thing. Do you believe that your relationship is worth fighting for? Do you and your spouse want to restore your love for each other? If so, we are confident that you can begin to heal emotional wounds and overcome the unhealthy patterns that have kept you stuck, feeling insecure and alone in your relationship.

Marriage and couples therapy provides a safe, confidential space to talk about your frustrations and fears without any worry of judgment. Although we want to help you work through conflict, this is not a time to figure out who’s right and wrong. Our therapists are not here to take sides. Instead, we want to help both of you work through your individual issues that affect your relationship, renew your sense of trust, and increase secure attachment and stability in your marriage.

What To Expect In Sessions

Part of healing your relationship means to begin to unpack the destructive cycles that show up in your arguments. What are the negative patterns that continue to repeat themselves? What defensive behaviors and emotional drama do you and your partner resort to during conflict? For example, perhaps both of you tend to withdraw after a fight and seek emotional distance. Or maybe one of you is avoidant and the other likes to face conflict head-on. Understanding these styles can help you increase your awareness of each other’s feelings and needs, as well as bring more empathy and understanding into your relationship.

In addition, we will explore the underlying emotions behind your behavior. Oftentimes, what appears to be anger or irritability in your partner may stem from fear and uncertainty. Deep down, maybe they have trust issues or they’re afraid that the relationship won’t work out. Therapy can help you and your loved one express deep-seated insecurities, improve communication, foster healthy attachment, and increase secure connection to your significant other.

Treatment Approaches That Offer Results

One of the main approaches we use in couples counseling is called Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). The goal of EFT is to help you and your partner strengthen your emotional bond and become attuned and responsive to each other’s needs in ways that transform the way you love one another.  EFT can help couples foster a deep sense of security and safety, often leading to loving relationships that last.  EFT can help you navigate challenges in a peaceful way that does not lead to distress, blame, and defensiveness but rather in ways that satisfy attachment needs and lead to a decrease in feelings of distance, isolation, and loneliness.

If you and your significant other are committed to work together, we believe we can help both of you turn toward each other rather than away. Couples counseling with True Peace Therapy is a chance to increase intimacy, solve communication and connection issues, and transform your relationship for the better.

You May Have Some Concerns About Couples Therapy…

We don’t want a counselor taking sides.

As marriage counselors, we are trained to remain neutral. Our job is not to point fingers, but to help you and your partner work through the individual hang-ups that prevent your relationship from thriving.  Instead of seeing conflict from a perspective of right and wrong, we like to ask: How do you feel during disputes with your spouse? What do you do when an argument ends? Where does the disconnect lie? In this way, we avoid rehashing old power struggles, perpetual problems, and reduce the risk of therapy feeling confrontational.

Can couples therapy really help us?

In counseling, you get out what you put in. If you and your partner are determined to heal your relationship, therapy absolutely can make a difference. Your therapist’s role is to help you explore your emotions and identify the root causes of your conflict and lack of connection. Oftentimes, this newfound awareness is the secret ingredient that makes all the difference in a relationship.

I don’t think we have time for marital counseling. How long will it last?

Therapy doesn’t last forever and it takes place for just an hour every week. Depending on what you and your significant other want to work on, you may only need a handful of sessions. That said, everyone heals at their own pace. There is no magic number of sessions needed to heal a relationship. If you and your partner just want to work on practical communication, connection, and conflict resolution skills, you probably won’t need counseling for very long. But if you’re going to dig deeper and work through long-standing issues, marriage counseling may be something you decide to do for a while.

You Can Transform Your Relationship

If you and your significant other are ready to move from a negative spiral of fear and isolation to a positive spiral of connection and love, we would be honored to work together with you on this journey. To get started, you can use our online scheduler to request a couple’s therapy session or book a free 15-minute consultation.