3 Signs Couples Therapy is Right for You
At what point does it make sense to enlist a profession to help with relationship issues? Let’s take a look at 3 signs that couple’s therapy might be a helpful next step.
There’s been a significant event that has shaken the foundation of the relationship.
This may seem obvious, but if you have discovered that your partner is having an affair, enlisting a couples therapist can be a helpful next step. Working through the pain and trauma in the safe therapy space can facilitate the healing process and lessen the damage done in the aftermath. Other big life events such as, the birth or adoption of a child, becoming empty-nesters, retirement, death of of loved one, moving in together, getting married, infertility struggles, dealing with deployment, deciding whether or not to have children, changing the relationship structure (e.g. opening up a relationship that was previously monogamous or closing a relationship that was previously open), job loss, or moving across the country all have the potential to rock a relationship. This is especially true if you find that the things that use to help you both cope with big events aren’t working this time around. You now find yourself looking for additional tools or ways to deal with this new stage. Couples therapy can be a helpful way to gain additional skills to navigate new life stages, process emotions related to the shift, and work as a team with your partner. Life can be challenging, but knowing that your partner is there to support you through makes it just a little sweeter.
You and your partner struggle to resolve conflict.
You’ve tried to resolve things after a fight. Maybe you do, but just until the next argument pops up and then you’re right back to where you started. Or maybe you don’t resolve it, but eventually you fall back into your routine for the sake of normality. Overtime, you begin to feel disconnected and frustrated with your partner. The hurts begin to pile up, making it harder and harder to come back together and have things feel fully repaired. Sometimes when arguments and hurts are not fully repaired they stay with us. Then each argument after that builds on the previous one. We begin to get stuck in negative communication cycles, which prevent us from truly seeing and hearing each other. Couples therapy can help identify negative cycle patterns, slow things down, and resolve past hurts.
You want to increase connection and intimacy.
Perhaps you and your partner don’t argue very much. Things feel calm, but they also don’t feel connected. You feel more like roommates then lovers. You fall into the same routine night after night of eating dinner, doing chores, and maybe watching some TV. You miss the closeness you once shared. Couples therapy can help increase friendship and intimacy through the exploration of each other’s inner worlds, sharing of goals and dreams, and resolve issues related to sex and intimacy.
If you find yourself relating the any of these three signs, couples therapy may be right for you.
About the author
Alice Grutman is a licensed couples therapist serving clients in California and Washington. She specializes in betrayal recovery, trust, attachment, and relationship repair, helping individuals and couples navigate affairs, emotional affairs, and other relationship injuries with honesty, accountability, and compassion.
Drawing from Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), the Gottman Method, and current relationship research, Alice helps people move beyond blame to better understand what happened, rebuild safety, and decide what comes next.
Through her writing, Alice makes complex relationship science practical and accessible so readers can better understand their relationships, have difficult conversations with greater confidence, and build stronger, more secure connections.