5 Common Reasons Why Couples Go to Therapy: How an Expert Therapist Can Help

Each couple that walks into a therapy office is different. Their stories of how they met and fell in love are captivating and warming. Couple's "engagement story" always makes them smile and when they talk about the details of their wedding day, the whole tempo of the room can shift to a happy, joyous rhythm. But, don't be fooled, by the time a couple makes their first call to a marriage counselor's office they are far from this rhythm and by the time they sit down on a therapist's couch, they ALL have one thing in common; pain.

Couples rarely seek counseling until they are in fear of permanently losing their primary love connection. They wake up one morning (usually it's the middle of the night) and they realize that if things don't change, they may lose the person they once loved so dearly. They feel they've tried everything, except... reach for expert help.

Once the phone call has been made to a marriage therapist and an appointment is on their calendar, couples often breathe easier. For the moment, the pressure is off. Someone else is now in charge of "fixing it."

If this sounds like you, but you're not sure if this is the right avenue for your marriage, read on. You deserve to breathe easier too.

Here are 5 common reasons that couples seek expert counseling:

1. Difference of Values

Individual values can change throughout a lifetime and couples may not always start like-minded. Early in a relationship, couples often look past their differences. But, as time moves on, what was once a tolerable difference can now become a rub.

For example, you may value alone time while your spouse values and draws energy from time with friends; you may have spiritual differences that have become more expansive now that you have a baby or you may have changed your position on a core value that as a couple you shared, leading to turbulence in your relationship. Therapy can help you understand and respect each other on a deeper level, making living with the difference acceptable (instead of merely trying to change each other’s view.)

2. Communication

Couples can experience feelings of isolation and alienation due to a lack of connected communication. It's awful to feel alone while you're sitting next to the person you married.

In a new relationship, texting is flirty and fun. But, as time passes, you need to develop ways to effectively communicate from beyond a screen. Couples who experience communication difficulties have a tendency to dodge hard topics and minimize each other’s feelings, which can deteriorate a relationship. With the help of an expert therapist, couples who struggle with safe, connected communication can learn how to navigate conversations without hurting each other’s feelings (while gaining deeper insight into your lover's needs.) Yay! That's what we all want.

3. Money

Spending habits are a deeply held personal value, often tied to core emotional and psychological needs. We're often not aware of how we truly feel about money until we're in a relationship, and now we're dividing dinner bills and travel expenses (and mortgage down payments and Peleton memberships).

Couples can have differences when it comes to their money values based on how they were raised, how money was spoken about in their family of origin, their earning potential or past money traumas. Even if a couple's in basic agreement about their financial values, they can still have differences in opinion; like what to spend and what to save. Financial disagreements can cause tension and stress in a relationship. An expert therapist can help a couple safely unpack their money differences and then, reconnect with a higher level of understanding and empathy. They can also teach the couple how to spot money triggers and stay calm and connected while discussing how money can make them feel safe or unsafe.

4. Jealousy

Jealous feelings are often directly attached to relational wounds, both rational and irrational. Jealous behavior can come from a place of suspicion and insecurity. The behavior itself can often threaten to destroy a relationship.

Jealously is often comingled with feelings of inadequacy or inferiority—a byproduct of fear or triggered by old or recent traumas. Whether a partner obsessively checks the other’s computer and phone records, or they fear that a business trip is really a cover to continue an affair, jealousy can quickly dismantle a relationship by making well-meaning people act in ways that they never imagined. Working with an expert therapist can help couples understand why jealousy is driving unhealthy actions. It can help the couple decrease the chance of escalation (and disconnection which leads to more jealousy), help the couple to understand and put in place safe boundaries around their relationship and enable the couple to rebuild a solid foundation of trust.

5. Infidelity

Once infidelity is discovered or revealed, intense pain and a roller coaster of exaggerated emotions are the norms. Trust gets shattered and love goes into hiding.

Infidelity causes major trauma in a love relationship. Obsessiveness, depression, anxiety, and a profound sense of loss often follow. Heightened emotions can cause more damage to an already wounded love. Despite the powerful emotions after the disclosure or discovery of infidelity, marriage therapy with an expert marriage therapist can help couples understand and manage these feelings quickly and also learn what to expect in the hours, days and weeks to come. It's tough territory to navigate alone, for a love relationship. An expert marriage counselor will also provide tools for you to reestablish safety in your marriage, spot emotional triggers, communicate in a safe way and eventually reestablish the foundation of trust and respect needed to move forward in the marriage. When both partners commit to healing the relationship, statistics show that through expert counseling the vast majority of relationships can successfully move forward.

Jennifer Sigman, MS, LMFT is an expert in marriage and relationship counseling. Throughout her 29 years as a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, she has successfully guided countless couples through challenging times in their relationship. Jennifer also has expertise in the area of trauma and trauma recovery.

5 Languages of Love. Learn a New Language in 3 Minutes.

5 Languages of Love.

How to Become an Expert in 3 Minutes.

It’s that time of the year when love is celebrated and honored. It’s almost Valentine’s Day and the opportunity to express love is welcomed and embraced. Little prompts are all around us from cards to flowers to boxes of chocolates. 

What’s you’re go-to on Valentine’s Day to let your special person know you adore them? What types of things would really feel good to you on Valentine’s Day? A special dinner out or a handwritten note? Would it mean the world to you if your guy would take the evening and do some chores with you around the house, or maybe purchase a couple’s massage?  

One of my go-to assignments, for my couples on Valentine’s Day, is the 5 Love Languages quiz by Gary Chapman. Gary says we like to give and receive love in certain ways. He breaks these ways down into 5 LOVE categories. 

1. Words of affirmation

2. Quality time

3. Gifts 

4. Physical touch

5. Acts of service

Often, people assume that men fall into certain categories and women into other categories. But, through working with thousands of people in couple’s therapy, I’ve found this isn’t true. 

Once you know your top love language and you know your partner’s, it makes things much easier. You don’t spend as much time guessing at what would make them happy. You just focus on one of their top 2 love categories and suddenly you become an expert lover!

To learn your top Love Language, go to www.5lovelanguges.com and take the quiz. It takes 3 minutes and it’s fun to share the results with your love. 

Our love languages can change over time. So, I encourage my couples to retake the quiz every Valentine's Day. It’s a fun way to reconnect and remind ourselves how our love interest wants us to show up! Whether it’s a gift or a compliment, once we know we can always get it right.  

Make a date with your love on Valentine’s Day and take the quiz. 

Psssssssst: Valentines’s Day is more than an opportunity to express just romantic love. It’s a great opportunity to reach out to all the people we love and care about. Our kids, parents, best friends and our sweet pets. Tell them I LOVE YOU! BTW, your kids also have a love language that may not match yours, so while you're at it, take that quiz too! 

Why You’re Listening All Wrong in Your Marriage

Life gets busy. Pause. Breath deeply. Try again.

The longer you're married, the more likely you'll hear the phrase “You never listen.” Hearing is one of our primary senses, though we don’t pay much attention to it. Like sight and taste, we take it for granted until it’s interfered with… through a cold, a bad cell phone connection or deafness. Partly, we don't think of listening as a skill. Like eyesight or tasting, we don't know we can improve it. We just assume that we're always hearing/listening and doing a fine job.

I once read that the beginning of a new love relationship is like being intimate with a “Big Ear.” Your new relationship partner hangs on to every syllable and listens to every word you say. They are totally "tuned in" - and this is a turn on! This leaves you feeling good. Cared for. It’s in these moments of the relationship that we feel most connected, most heard and ironically most “seen”. If the relationship progresses, we feel accepted.

Perhaps we consider marriage the ultimate sign of acceptance. If someone agrees to merge their life with ours, despite our sometimes unsavory stories of a character flaw or a life dramatically lived, we can put down the Big Ear and get on with the mundane tasks of day to day living. We float back to listening as we always have... only tuning in to hear, when the station is of interest.

Our marriage partner often does the same thing. Now, they listen with half the effort of the Big Ear. This pattern can lead to marriages that get into the poor communication rut. Maybe it looks like this:

• Everyone is talking and no one is listening.

• Your partner is talking and you're interrupting.

• Your partner is talking and you’re thinking of “the right answer”.

• You’re scared to ask questions because you don’t know what to do with the answers.

• You take their words so personally, it’s hard to listen.

• Your marriage partner is talking and you’re not tuned in at all.

We make mistakes and that’s okay because we’re all human. However, if you practice these Don’ts and Dos you’ll ultimately build your skillset and find connection in your marriage again.

DON’T:

1. Focus on your answer.

2. Fidget.

3. Try to shut down the conversation quickly.

4. Personalize what your loved one is saying and become defensive.

5. Hold your breath.

6. Stare so hard you’re not blinking.

7. Rush to fill the silence.

The good news is to be a good listener, you don’t have to know the answer or come up with an immediate solution. Most connection happens when you’re being the “Big Ear”.

DO:

1. Slow and relax your body movements.

2. Express curiosity “How was that ____ for you?”

3. Offer words of understanding. “That makes sense…” or “I understand you could feel that way.”

4. Take thoughtful breaths.

5. Pause and allow 2 seconds of silence before you fill the space with words.

6. When it’s particularly uncomfortable, remind yourself that you are loved by this person.

What matters, is that both people in the marriage want to feel connected. They know they felt appreciated and accepted at some point in time and they’re willing to hang in there to get back to those old feelings. Listening is different than hearing. Enter these moments with the intention to hear. Get tuned in, turned on and watch your marriage connection grow.

CLICK HERE... for a good example of right listening.

Surviving an Affair: The Wounding Party Needs to Become a Marriage Rebuilder

The roller coaster after the affair is hard but not impossible

The pain felt by the wounded party after the revelation of an affair is immense.  They feel blindsided. Their world has been turned upside down. Everything they thought to be true in their marriage is now in question. They hear everything through a filter of “possible lie” and betrayal.  Even truths that they have known in the marriage for years are now taken into question. I’ve heard clients say, the person they love most in the world has “stabbed them in the back.” Unfortunately, all too often the wounding party underestimates the damage and pain inflicted on their spouse and the marriage.

In the immediate days and weeks following the disclosure or discovery of an infidelity, the wounding party can feel numb, avoidant, shame-filled or remorse. None of these emotions create the same emotional roller coaster that the wounded party feels. However, each party gets caught in the emotional dilemma of wanting connection and not wanting connection with each other. Clearly, this is a tough time and the marriage becomes very fragile.

These first days and weeks are critical to the survival of the marriage. If the wounding party immediately takes the right steps, the repair work can begin. If the person who stepped out of the relationship can now see their role as the *“marriage rebuilder” they can weather the roller coaster ahead.

Seven “DO” steps the wounding party can take immediately, to help start repairing the marriage:

1.     Come clean. Truth. Truth. Truth. Full truth.

2.     Let your spouse express their pain as often as they need.

3.     Answer the same question 100 times.

4.     Take it on the chin.

5.     Acknowledge your actions as being incredibly painful and wrong.

6.     Apologize often. Then, apologize more.

7.     Break ALL ties with the affair partner.

8.     Hold space for your loved one’s pain. 

(Read next BLOG post on Why You’re Listening Wrong in Your Marriage)

If you are the wounding spouse and you want to save your marriage, you must take your role as “the healer” immediately.  For more information about creating repair after an infidelity and becoming a successful Marriage Rebuilder read: * How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair: A Compact Guild for the Unfaithful By Linda MacDonald. 

Book: How To Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair