Breakups, separations, and divorces are traumatic events for many involved. The COVID-19 pandemic is rife with stressors and challenges, and relationships, even the healthier ones, would shake up, in many cases, and face a crisis. The reason is that the stressors act as a pressure cooker for existing relationship problems or bring people to observe the relations in a different field for new, unexpected discoveries: couple therapy can help to resolve such dynamics.
Couples who have learned how to work together to overcome adversity will enjoy the most significant rewards and suffer little stress. As a relationship counsellor, I’ve seen what happens to couples who learn to regulate their emotions through difficult times versus those who struggle.
Their partnerships work best when their challenges are easy and manageable, and they have the resources to deal with them. However, their usual coping mechanisms often fail when an overwhelming situation hits.
Different issues such as projections, disillusionment and a power struggle can affect our relationship. Initially, you might not see your partner as they are; you may project on them what you want them to be.
Next comes reality and so disillusionment. Frequently from that, struggle or conflict arises. Finally, personal insecurity creates such dynamics often because of attachment styles.
Yet, you do not need an ideal partner to experience security, happiness, and fulfilment. These things should all come from inside.
Trust Issues
Without trust, a relationship lacks two essential building blocks of a solid connection: safety and security. Attachment Schemas of each partner affect their trust levels. It can create a vicious cycle of mistrust that are often difficult to repair, mainly when the trust was indeed tested because of the behaviour of one of the partners. Without expert help, trust issues are among the most threatening to the couple and are highly difficult to address because of the high level of emotions involved.
Communication problems
One of the leading causes of separation or divorce is poor communication. The opposite of respect, contempt, can result from miscommunications between a couple. Having done over 20 years of study, Dr John Gottman of the University of Washington, a foremost expert on couples studies, concluded that the single, most accurate indicator of divorce is when one or both spouses behave with contempt for the other.
Differences in Priorities
For some people, their relationship with their partner is the main priority, and other aspects of life are built around that. For others, a romantic relationship is just one component of their lives.
There are many other aspects of life that, in their view, should predominate. The discrepancy, often defects of the attachment schema you may have, creates resentment in one or the other partner.
Reach Out for Couple Therapy Sonner Than Later
When overwhelmed and anxious, you can find it challenging to know where to turn and how to reach out. As a result, it is vital to obtain as much assistance as possible before a crisis leaves severe wounds that are difficult to heal.
Couples counselling (or therapy) can help you heal or rebuild your connection with your partner. Couples therapy covers many relationship concerns, such as repeated fights, feelings of separation, infidelity and trust issues, sexual issues, and difficulty caused by external pressures.
Couples therapy may help your relationship at any age, regardless of marital status, age, race, faith, or sexual orientation.
What do Couple Therapy Address and Help With?
Couple therapy uses a variety of treatment modalities to help people better understand their relationships, manage conflict, and enhance relationship satisfaction. Couple counselling usually involves the therapist’s active involvement in treating the relationship as a whole rather than each individual separately.
Couple therapy is not just for crises or threats to the couple’s unity but can also help a happy couple enduring a period of transition or heightened stress to settle a present problem. It prevents a worsening of difficulties or provides an assessment of how healthy is the overall relationship and identify the point of improvement.
For instance, money, parenthood, sex, adultery, in-laws, chronic health concerns, infertility, gambling, drug use, poor communication skills, emotional distance, and frequent conflict are all common topics of concern addressed in couple therapy.
ACT for Couple Therapy: a very effective modality
In this post, I want to focus on one modality for couple therapy we use at Act Right Now Counselling.
Couples can benefit from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to effectively grow, heal, and strengthen their relationships. ACT for Couples helps you relate to your thoughts and behaviours in a way that motivates you to take meaningful action. In addition, ACT can assist you and your spouse in comprehending what it means to be in the loving relationship you both desire.
Most couples’ issues stem from a lack of communication and authentic connection, especially when strong emotions or worrying thoughts about the relationship become routines.
ACT for Couples helps you and your partner discover cognitive patterns and untangle your relationship from schemas and behavioural loops that create conflict cycles in a relationship.
Act Right Now Counselling Services For Couples
Couples counselling/therapy may feel confronting, but it provides considerable progress and healing in the relationship, especially if the couple has been experiencing such issues for a long time. In certain circumstances, couple therapy is more beneficial than solo therapy. Act Right Now Counselling Services takes a balanced approach, recognising both couples’ points of view and never assigning blame.
We help couples understand the more profound vulnerabilities that lie underneath the surface of powerful emotions, which are frequently expressed in destructive ways during disagreements or stressful situations. Instead of merely giving tools for patching up a relationship, we help couples reconnect meaningfully via their values and value-informed objectives. We strive for long-term outcomes since they are founded on personal growth and transformation in you and your partner.
Act Right Now Couples Counselling helps every type of relationship, whether the couples are straight, L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+, mixed-race, young, elderly, dating, engaged, living together, or married.
Contact us . or better, meet us to know how we can help your relationship now.
