You need help and don’t know where to turn. You have no idea what to expect and just go off of what other people say. This often leads to confusion, unmet expectations, and frustration for everyone in the therapy room. Below are some common myths clients bring when searching for couples therapy. They make total sense, but learn how these can impede the process or make you more frustrated when you are seeking relief.
- Maybe if I wait for couples therapy, we will get better on our own. Life gets busy, and prioritizing something that might go straight into your pain is not on the top of your list. So naturally people avoid going to couples therapy. Sometimes it is the hope that it will get better on its own. But if you find yourself constantly stuck in the same pattern with your partner, chances are the pain will only increase and escalate. Time and time again I find that couples say we should have gone to therapy 5, 10, 15 and even 20 years ago. And those couples often have so much pain built up that it is harder to work through and heal. Though not impossible to heal, it can increase your likelihood for divorce as sometimes the pain is just too impossible to climb through. While everyone is different and divorce isn’t inevitable, prolonging coming to therapy makes it a harder and more stressful process because you have built up so much pain being stuck for so long. If you find yourself say “we should go to therapy” take that as your sign to sign up.
- Your therapist is going to “fix” your relationship so you never have conflict again. The goal for couples therapy is to help you figure out how to navigate conflict, not avoid it all together. Conflict in a relationship is healthy. The biggest struggle with couples are those who don’t know how to navigate or repair when conflict happens. Your therapist is not here to give you all the solutions or to teach you how to stop conflicting. Sometimes those quick solutions get completely derailed because of the cycle and triggers that each partner gets stuck in. In my work, I am here to help couples recognize what goes on in themselves when conflict happens and how they respond to their partner. And when we can recognize what is going on inside of us we can then begin to talk about what happens as a couple differently which often changes how we problem solve because we feel more connected. Enter couples therapy with an open mind to the process that will unfold.
- Every couples therapist does the same thing. It can be such a vulnerable process getting started in therapy. You have your goals and ideas of what you want to accomplish. Sometimes those goals can conflict with the therapist’s style or methods to couples therapy. And when those are not clarified, can lead you to being frustrated with the couples therapy process. Whether you are already in couples or talking with a therapist to see if they are the right fit, ask them about their map. What do they use to guide their work and how does that practically look in the counseling room. This is an ongoing conversation as well, if you are not sure about the process ask! Better understanding of what you are doing in the work and why, can help you participate and clear the way to do the work!
- Your therapist has to be married to help you. When your relationship is on fire and you are needing help to save it, most couples are very intentional in finding the right help. Trusting that your therapist can help is always number one. Secondly, they want to make sure their therapist can also understand their experience. Though it seems weird, you can feel understood by your therapist even if they haven’t experienced what you have gone through. It’s probably one of the strangest concepts about therapy which is why asking your couples therapist if they are married is a common question. What most people don’t know is that therapists seek training and support from other more qualified therapists to really help clients, and in turn this helps them work with you well without even having been married, in this case. They can still understand relationship dynamics, have a road map for helping you and even guide you through reconnecting when they have not even been in your shoes. While it still may be important for you to know if they are married, align your trust in their experience and education rather than their personal experience. And make sure you have a clear picture of how they work before factoring in being married.
- If I just implement the right skills and knowledge we will get better. Skills and knowledge about communication skills, attachment styles, connecting and healthy relationships are important to working on a relationship. While the knowledge can be helpful, it is often not sufficient enough for a couple to regain connection. When couples get stuck, these skills and knowledge can go completely out the window. One or both partners can become triggered by their partner, not always intentionally, and aren’t able to bring into focus all they might have learned. The dynamic of pain in the relationships takes over and they aren’t able to slow down to see what derailed. In EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy), the goal is to help clients slow down to understand the pain that happens when they try to communicate and to share that pain in a vulnerable way to rebuild trust and connection. Basically trying to understand what gets in the way from talking through an issue. Not all couples experience this type of stuckness. If you do, it means you might need a therapist who is going to look deeper at what details the conversations.
- I gave couples therapy a try by going to 6 sessions. Unfortunately, couples therapy is a longer process than most think. While some couples therapy styles can be short term, most couples bring much more complexity to the room. Due to this, I tell couples to think of this process in terms of many months, not several sessions or weeks. To really give therapy a try you might need to attend for 6-12 months. I have had couples who tried couples therapy and only went to 7 sessions with the comment “we tried therapy and it didn’t work.” Couples therapy is much more complex. In the room you have each individual person plus the relationship that comes with history, pain, experience and trauma. These things need to be understood and assessed which can often take you up to session 4 or 5 before you can get into the true work. If you are coming weekly or every other week that is 1-2 months. Which is sometimes where couples might stop. To give couples therapy a try. At a minimum I would try 4 months with the expectation that it will probably take more time than that.
- If I come once a month or once every three weeks we will get better. Therapy is expensive and it requires a pretty big time commitment. Due to these constraints, I have had couples state they couldn’t come more often than once a month or every three weeks. I have found that these couples often get frustrated by therapy and come to believe it is not working. The reason for this being that so much happens in 3-4 weeks that we can often spend most of the session catching up or understanding what happened rather than getting into the work. This can then cause couples to lose faith in the process and sometimes even quit. Every week or every other week is a much more realistic frequency to really get into the work. Find a therapist who can match your financial desires, location and even schedule to help you attend more often.
Couples therapy involves a lot. At the very least, make sure you have a therapist who is willing to discuss their process and answer questions in the beginning and even in the middle of your work together. Reach out to us if you are looking for couples therapy; we would love to see if someone would be a good fit for you!