When couples therapy isn’t right for you?
Are you considering couples therapy but are unsure if it’s right for you? I am happy to provide some thoughts to consider when exploring the option of couples therapy.
My view of couples therapy comes from my training in Imago Relationship Therapy. Imago is all about teaching couples how to safely communicate with each other and grow through the tough stuff. Imago provides such a strong and mighty framework for couples therapy, that it’s quite rare that couples therapy is inappropriate or ill-advised. If you are in a relationship with someone, and both parties plan to continue to be in that relationship for some duration of time, why not work on it in couples therapy to make it better, wherever the two of you are at right now!
Let’s look at some of the reasons you might have heard that couples therapy is not right for you at this time…
If you or your partner is considering ending the relationship.
As long as both people in the relationship are willing to come in for a first session of couples therapy to explore their options of ending or staying in the relationship, we’re happy to help! Our couples therapists can help facilitate a safe dialogue between you and your partner about anything you may want to discuss, including ending the relationship. We can help you come to a more amicable separation or conscious uncoupling, or decide on parameters or boundaries needed to grow the relationship back to a more fun and enjoyable connection. It is common for couples - or one person in a couple - to question whether they want to continue in the relationship. Couples therapy can help you sort out feelings, both getting clear with yourself and with each other.
If you or your partner has unaddressed substance use or severe mental health issues and is unwilling to seek help.
In this situation, I believe that couples therapy could be just the thing that motivates you or your partner to seek additional help. If you’re going to be in a relationship anyway, why not see if you can utilize couples therapy to feel seen and supported by your partner. Our couples therapists will provide recommendations for individual treatment, in addition to couples therapy, when it is necessary. They may even make their work with you in couples therapy contingent upon following through with their recommendations for outside help (individual therapy, AA, etc).
The thing is, the worst of our struggles and “baggage” comes up in our romantic relationships. By design, our partners are supposed to trigger us more than anyone else. Conflict in a relationship is usually just growth trying to happen. This makes couples therapy potentially a great place to begin a healing journey for an individual struggling with addictions or more severe mental health concerns.
It might be helpful to have an example here, too. Let’s say your partner is abusing alcohol and has so far been unwilling to modify their behavior. In couples therapy, you’ll have the opportunity to have a safely facilitated dialogue with your partner, and in it you can share your feelings about how their alcohol use impacts you and your connection with them. For example, you may share that previously you went on fun trips with your partner where you had a lot of close connections and conversations. Now that they are using alcohol more, there’s less resources to go on trips, and, more importantly, you are experiencing less and less connection with them through everyday conversations. When your partner hears your true, underlying feelings - you’re lonely and hurting - they will likely be more motivated to seek substance abuse treatment of their own.
When there is physical, emotional, mental, financial or other abuse happening in the relationship.
Like I said, your partner is designed to bring out the worst in you, and you your partner, to facilitate growth and healing. If you are going to continue in the relationship at this time, couples therapy can be modified in different ways to prioritize and teach safety. If it’s not physically safe for you to be with each other, yet you plan to continue the relationship, we might even explore doing couples therapy virtually with you and your partner in different locations.
That being said, if you are in a relationship where you are being abused, and your intention is to leave the relationship, individual therapy that gives you the tools and empowers you to leave is more suited for you. If you are on the receiving end of abuse, I’d recommend consulting with an individual therapist and/or seeking resources to ensure your safety first before exploring the option of couples therapy.
If you consider yourself an abuser in a relationship where there are otherwise things to stick around for + you are motivated to change (most abusers would rather not keep abusing but aren’t sure how to stop), Imago informed couples therapy in conjunction with individual therapy can help you learn a new (safe and loving) way of being with your partner.
When there is an ongoing affair.
Affairs often occur because one person in the couple feels like certain needs are not being met in the primary relationship. If the person having an affair is having a hard time cutting it off, yet also wants to stay invested in their primary relationship, Imago informed couples counseling could help to facilitate a dialogue about what needs to happen in the primary relationship to make the affair unappealing.
Sometimes people truly get stuck here, and seek an affair because they don’t know how to ask for what they need in their primary relationship. While couples therapy can only continue with two people who are invested (to some degree, for some period of time) in making their relationship work, there are lots of wonky things like affairs that can come up in relationships to facilitate growth and change in the relationship.
Reach out for help
My hope is that I’ve normalized some of the “crazy” things that can come up when our partner triggers the worst in us. Many of the times, couples therapy, assuming an Imago lens, can hold whatever may be coming up, if both people in the relationship are interested in exploring staying in the relationship.
If you’re interested in couples therapy at Balanced Awakening, you can visit our couples therapy page to schedule an appointment : )
-Dr. Yang
