It’s virtually impossible to find a couple who has never endured a struggle in the relationship. When these struggles arise, simple solutions are sometimes found. In other cases, couples need to employ the assistance of family counseling to help them. If you’re in this situation, you may wonder if counseling can help you and your partner to stay together.
Family Counseling and Staying Together
In your heart, you may already know whether or not you want to stay with your partner. However, admitting this information to yourself is often a different story. Instead of focusing exclusively on helping couples to stay together, family therapists are often involved in helping people to ultimately make choices that are best for them. Understanding some components of family counseling can help you to gain a clearer sense of how these programs can help you.
Identifying Struggles
One important part of the process is for couples to identify what their struggles are in the relationship. A family counselor can help bring these issues to the forefront. In other words, you and your partner may have trouble articulating exactly what the problems are. You may fight often about the same topics, but another cause could actually be at the root of your disagreements. Attending family counseling sessions can help everyone to see what issues are in need of work.
Expressing Thoughts
Expression is another important part of family counseling. For example, you might not currently express your frustrations with your partner because you do not know how this individual will react. You may also have fears of hurting your significant other’s emotions. The same could be true of your partner. It’s also possible that you both have ideas that you want to articulate but aren’t really sure how to do so. The simple act of expressing thoughts, a process that a family counselor can ameliorate and bolster, may help you to feel better.
Creating Strategies
The family counselor can also help you to develop strategies for reaching your goals and communicating more effectively with your partner. By bringing another perspective into the scenario, you and your partner can both better learn how your behaviors affect one another. Simply integrating more effective strategies for handling problems into your household can make a major difference.
Promoting Time Together
You and your partner may genuinely want to spend more time together but feel that doing so is quite difficult with all of the responsibilities that you have. Also, you may think that the two of you do not have as much in common as you once did. This thought may turn out to be true, but it could also be false. The therapist can help you to see what common ground you have and how you can use that common ground to generate opportunities to spend time together.
Setting Goals
The family counselor can also help you to set goals for your relationship. In other words, if the two of you genuinely want to stay together, the counselor can then help you to reach that goal. You may want to learn how to communicate better, or you might want to develop strategies for better handling time with one another’s families.
Recognizing Unresolvable Issues
Learning how to compromise is certainly a part of attending family counseling. However, some issues are simply without compromise. Issues that fall into this category include the following:
- One of you wants children, and the other does not.
- You want to live in entirely different places.
- You disagree about core moral concepts.
Now, debates about these issues do not necessarily mean that your relationship is over. However, these situations typically do not offer a middle ground. For example, it is unrealistic for one of you to have children and one of you not to have children. Having an outside perspective can help you to see when situations are beyond resolve.
Exploring Other Options
Sometimes, staying together is not possible. The counselor can help you to see that you will both likely have happier lives if you split up. However, middle ground does exist. For example, the counselor might suggest that you pursue a trial separation. You do not need to commit to total separation or divorce yet; you can see how it goes. Family counselors cannot guarantee that they will save your relationship from ending. What they can do is help you both work toward happier lives. To gain more information, call 844-639-8371 today.