Couples counseling is one of the best tools available to heal a struggling relationship. Couples therapy is real therapy – researched, effective, and a great way to address marriage and relationship difficulties.
But it’s also important to remember that a relationship is made up of two individuals. You are one entity, but you are also two people with two different backgrounds, needs, and more. As such, it’s important to remember that sometimes, the best approach to healing a relationship is not healing the relationship, but healing yourself.
Trauma and Relationships
Anxiety, depression, stress – there are many things that affect our ability to be present in relationships, to handle stress, and more.
Past traumas can be especially problematic. There are many situations where a person’s unresolved traumas affect how they feel and how they act in their relationship. For example:
Past infidelity in an past relationship can cause people to struggle to trust their current partners, even if their partners are not giving them any indications of infidelity.
Parental issues can cause people to have stress about abandonment, or about how relationships should work. Divorced parents that fought often may lead to children that grow up struggling with affection or stress.
Assault can lead partners to have trouble with intimacy, which in turn can hurt a relationship over time.
These are all examples of ways that a person’s past traumas can influence how they give and receive love, how they handle stress, and much more. When these situations occur, it is possible to heal them in a couples counseling setting. But it may also be valuable to look at these as an individual issue.
Perhaps, instead of seeking treatment as a couple, you may benefit from receiving your own personal treatment for these past traumas.
How We Address Unresolved Trauma in Therapy
We can use individual counseling, rather than couples counseling, to address these unresolved traumas. We can try to help you process things that maybe you were not able to process in the past, or confront emotions that you haven’t been able to address. There are therapeutic modalities that are very effective for dealing with childhood trauma, post traumatic stress disorder, and more, all to help you address these issues in the short and long term.
We can also help you learn coping skills that can help you in your relationships, so that you are able to still address the challenges of your marriage.
Couples Counseling vs Trauma Therapy
Couples counseling remains a highly effective way to address issues in a relationship. But sometimes, what you need most to help your marriage is support for you as an individual. If you would like to learn more about either couples counseling or individual therapy, please reach out to Flourish Psychology, today.
Couples counseling – and couples therapy – is evidence based. We *know,* based on science, that these approaches work, and with the right guidance and support, you can improve communication, build trust, and see an improvement in your relationship.
But one thing that is important to understand is that a relationship is not only two people, but two unique, distinctive, entirely separate people. While couples counseling is designed to enhance the relationship, sometimes it is an individual’s needs that are just as important.
The Challenges an Individual Brings Into a Relationship
How couples communicate, how they build memories, how they tackle problems – these are all important for the relationship to succeed, and all parts of what make a relationship successful. They’re also issues that can be best worked on together, so that both partners are being pointed in the same direction and have a better understanding of each other’s needs and expectations.
Still, within a relationship, it is often the individual that needs to be addressed – either in addition to or even as an alternative to couples counseling. For example:
Anxiety and Depression – If one partner has anxiety and/or depression, it can be especially difficult to be present in the relationship. If they’re overstressed or worrying about many things, it can come out as irritability or damage a marriage.
Trauma – Past traumas play a tremendous role in our ability to manage a relationship. Unresolved trauma can make it hard for us to show affection, love, accept affection, feel connection, and more.
Individual Relationship Issues – Sometimes, within a relationship, a person needs to work through their issues privately or more personally rather than in front of their partner. It may be because the information feels too sensitive, or because they are individual issues and the partner is not necessarily someone to bring into the conversation yet.
Work stress, financial issues, even infidelity – there are many issues that a person may find would be better to address individually with a therapist, rather than with their partner in a couples counseling setting. Individual therapy can also help augment traditional couples counseling, giving each partner a chance to talk in private with a therapist about things they are not (yet) ready to talk about with their partners that came up during counseling.
Addressing the Individual and the Couple
Couples counseling remains one of the best tools we have for repairing a relationship. But that doesn’t mean that it is the only approach that will work. There are going to be those that may benefit from individual therapy, either in general or in the context of the relationship. Mental health is complex, and working together, we can determine the best way to make sure you’re living your best life and getting the most from the relationship. For more information about our couples counseling services in Brooklyn, please contact Flourish Psychology, today.
Society – and couples – are facing situations they have never faced before, and are being forced to adjust to those situations very quickly. One example of this is how to appropriately use technology while in a relationship. This is something that couples have essentially only faced in the past 20 years, especially with regards to smartphones.
We’re also now trying our best to figure out how to talk about these issues with each other and in therapy. An example of this is what we’re going to call “digital betrayal” – when you betray the trust of your partner by engaging in some behavior with technology that your partner feels you should not do.
Examples of Digital Betrayal
Digital betrayal is when you betray a partner through a phone, tablet, or other form of online technology, but did not necessarily betray them in person. It’s not infidelity in the typical sense, where someone engages in physical sexual behavior with another partner. Rather, it’s a form of trust betrayal that occurs solely online, and almost always without the other partner knowing. Examples may include:
Chatting or messaging an ex lover, celebrity, or member of the opposite sex in secret.
Watching pornography at inappropriate times or storing photos/video on their phone.
Sending or receiving sexual imagery from someone other than a spouse.
Not all “digital betrayal” is going to be sexual or romantic in nature, either. Betrayal can come in many forms, such as being on a person’s phone instead of getting an important task done, staying up playing games when you should be sleeping, or saying very overly negative things about a partner in a situation where sharing that information is not appropriate.
Another potentially common form of digital betrayal may also be looking at someone’s phone and private messages without consent. Our phones can have private conversations, and individual partners are allowed to have these conversations without the other partner reading them in secret.
No matter the type of “betrayal,” the commonality among all of them is that it breaks trust in the relationship and causes pain that both partners need to address.
Working Through Digital Betrayal in Couples Counseling
This issue between couples is new and complex. In some cases, there is a very clear betrayal of trust that both partners can acknowledge. In other cases, there may be layers – for example, someone may not understand why what they did was wrong, or may feel defensive about their technology usage. There are also issues with phone addiction and connection that may arise.
“Online infidelity,” and other similar betrayals of trust, are typically all factors that chip away at a relationship. In fact, even minor issues can become very serious problems in a relationship. If one partner does not trust another, they can sometimes rebuild that trust through spending time together and sharing conversations and experiences.
But digital trust is something that occurs almost entirely on a phone, and the thing is, most of us are going to still be on our phones. Being on the phone is also a solo activity, which means that a partner is going to be on their phone, semi-in secret, by themselves. This may lead to more distrust, among other relationship issues between partners.
It can be very difficult to break patterns on your own. Couples therapy offers a path to healing by addressing these issues directly and working to rebuild the trust that has been lost.
Couples therapy provides a safe space for partners to confront the betrayal, express their feelings, and begin the process of rebuilding trust. The therapy is structured to help both partners understand the underlying issues that may have contributed to the betrayal and to develop strategies for moving forward together.
Open Communication – A key element of the therapy process is fostering open and honest communication. This allows both partners to share their thoughts and feelings without fear of judgment, creating a foundation for understanding and reconciliation. In this case, we would discuss fears, behaviors that have affected trust, and more.
Identifying Boundaries – Couples therapy also focuses on helping partners establish and agree upon clear boundaries in the digital realm. This might include setting rules for online interactions, discussing what is considered appropriate behavior, and agreeing on how to handle potential future challenges.
Rebuilding Trust – Trust is the cornerstone of any relationship, and rebuilding it after a digital betrayal can be a complex process. Therapists work with couples to gradually restore trust by encouraging transparency, consistency in actions, and emotional support. This process takes time, but with commitment and effort from both partners, it is possible to rebuild a stronger, more resilient relationship.
Recovering from digital betrayal is not easy, but couples therapy offers a structured approach to healing. By addressing the issues head-on and working together, couples can begin to rebuild the trust that has been lost. The therapy helps partners develop the tools they need to navigate the complexities of the digital world while maintaining a healthy, trusting relationship.
Get Started Today with Flourish Psychology
Flourish Psychology has an incredibly talented team of therapists that can provide couples counseling and related services to help you with these complex problems. We can also provide individual therapy, for those that are trying to gain a better understanding of themselves and take more control over their own behaviors.
At Flourish Psychology, we believe in helping both partners learn to better understand each other, and eventually themselves, and take a scientific approach to these types of relationship problems in order for both of you to move forward. For more information about our couples counseling services in NYC, please contact Flousih Psychology, today.
Creating a human is challenging. If you think about the complexity of the human body, and how much needs to go right in order to turn essentially a few cells into a living, breathing person, it’s amazing that we are able to create children at all.
It is for that reason not uncommon that some couples do struggle to conceive right away. While we may hear stories of couples that get pregnant right away, many couples do take 6 months to a year or more, with many – many – factors affecting this number. If you also have any underling medical or hormonal conditions, it may take even longer.
That means, even if you’ve been trying for a baby, there is no guarantee of success right away.
But that can be hard. There is the excitement of deciding you are ready for a child, and the stress, disappointment, and worries that come from struggling to conceive.
Typically, when it is difficult for a couple to get pregnant, one piece of advice that many people recommend is looking for ways to improve sleep and reduce your stress levels. Sleep is known to affect hormone levels and fertility, as is stress. Still, that can be a challenge. After all, if you’re struggling with fertility, you’re likely experiencing stress as a result. If you also have mental health challenges, like anxiety, the idea of someone telling you to “be less stressed” can even be laughable.
So, what can you do?
Seeing a Therapist to Help with Fertility
Can seeing a therapist help reduce infertility? It’s not entirely clear. We know that stress reduction, better sleep, and other issues that are often reduced when you see a therapist definitely play a role in the ability to conceive, but as we discussed earlier, fertility is extremely complex. There are many factors at play, and it’s almost impossible to determine what exactly is causing infertility and how it can be addressed.
Still, there are many reasons to believe that seeing a therapist can help, with benefits to both you and – potentially – to the baby as well. For example:
Stress Reduction – No one can say with any certainty that reducing your anxiety and stress will help you conceive, as human bodies are far more complicated than that. But we do know that stress reduction is important for fertility and for healthy pregnancies, and so reducing stress now has the potential to support the body and make sure that you’re able to sleep better, regulate your hormones better, and feel better physically overall. That has real value.
Next Steps – Sometimes, conception does require additional help and decision making. You may need to speak to doctors, or you may need to figure out what your goals are and what may need to change. These are much easier when you are in better mental health, with coping tools to help you navigate these decisions.
Relationship Help – Infertility can be stressful on a relationship. Even though no partner is at fault, the frustration and process of trying for a baby can cause rifts that need to be healed in order to both give you the best chance of success, and also make sure you’re both connected and ready to bring a baby into the world.
It’s also important to acknowledge that, when you do struggle to conceive, the stress and anxiety you feel even after you become pregnant can last into childhood. These are, in some ways, minor traumas that we sometimes carry with us. If and when you bring a baby into this world, you want to make sure you are becoming a parent as emotionally and psychologically healthy as you can be. Children are stressful as well, and the better your stress coping tools and the stronger your mental health, the easier parenting will be.
So, Does Seeing a Therapist Help?
Therapists may not be a cure for fertility issues, but the benefits of therapy for those that feel like they need it can be substantial. If you’d like to inquire about mental health treatments that benefit those looking to become parents, please give Flourish Psychology a call today.
There is this believe about marriage and relationships that love is, or should be, unconditional. That when we have found our “True Love,” it means that we are with someone that should love us at all times. There is even a popular saying about it.
“If you can’t handle me at my worst, then you don’t deserve me at my best.”
We can have unconditional love for our children. But with our partner, not only is love typically not “unconditional,” but it also shouldn’t be. There are many valid, positive reasons for love not to be unconditional. We should always have expectations not only of our partner, but of ourselves.
Why Shouldn’t Love Be Unconditional?
Life is not a straight line, and two people are not always the same people with the same positive, honeymoon like dynamic. Throughout life as a couple, you and your partner are going to be experiencing constant ups and downs. You’re going to be faced with challenges and setbacks. You’ll also be changing often as people. Most people change considerably in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and beyond.
In order to keep the love strong, a couple needs to also be motivated to change who they are and continually establish and re-establish their role in the relationship with their partner. Love has to be reciprocal and complementary in order to grow.
Unconditional love implies that, should someone make absolutely no effort, both partners should accept this openly and gleefully. It’s this assumption that your “worst” can be pretty much anything – crime, abuse, etc. – and you should put up with it, because you promised yourself and that person you would love them unconditionally.
Relationships that are unconditional provide no motivation for the other person to better themselves, and for both partners to put in effort in the relationship. Not only do truly unconditional romantic relationships rarely exist, the most successful couples are often the ones that feel a responsibility to keep the relationship going strong – the people that want to make sure they never lose it.
Couples Counseling and Growing as a Team
You can love your children unconditionally. But you and your partner benefit from feeling at least a little bit of pressure to evaluate your own behaviors and work on yourselves. The more you feel motivated to keep the relationship growing and thriving, the more you are putting yourself in a position to help it truly last.
Couples counseling is one way that both partners can learn to grow for themselves or each other. It provides an opportunity to help guide you as a couple into learning more about what your partner is thinking and what they need.
Most people are aware of couples counseling, often viewing it as a last resort for when marriages and relationships are on the brink of failure. We at Flourish Psychology in Brooklyn are trying to reframe the idea of couples counseling for what it really is: a way to learn how to better communicate and understand each other to grow a relationship.
Couples counseling is about skill building and creating better understanding between couples. It is about:
Learning how to communicate.
Learning how to manage your lives together and apart.
Learning how to parent together, and/or engage in activities together.
While these tools are going to have some of their greatest benefit to couples currently in a relationship that are looking for ways to address arguments or enhance their intimacy, they are skills that benefit people in ways far beyond the marriage alone.
How You Communicate Post-Divorce
In some cases, post divorce, both couples move on with their lives and never have any additional contact. But those situations are rare. Typically, with or without kids, the couple is going to still be in ongoing contact. They may share friends, they may live in the same area, they may still have a relationship in some form after the marriage is over.
If kids are involved, the likelihood of ongoing contact is even greater. Both partners are going to be tasked with coparenting and navigating the world as separate individuals with children in common. Anger, aggression, frustration, and sadness can all get in the way of that. That is why, even if a couple is certain that they are not right for each other, couples counseling may have many benefits.
Through couples counseling, we can work on many important issues that affect post-divorce couples:
How to communicate effectively about the needs of the children.
How to accept the other person’s life they have for the child.
How to make sure that issues relating to assets are navigated.
How to handle any conflict that may arise later.
How to cope with uncommunicated feelings that come up when alone.
Rarely does divorce mean the end of communication between both parties, and if there are children in the marriage, then that becomes even more likely that both of you are going to still be in regular contact. Not only will you be communicating regularly, but after a divorce, each partner is not able to police how the other partner acts, so you are likely to have disagreements with issues like parenting.
This is why couples counseling in Brooklyn and NYC can be so important, even after a divorce. Couples counseling is not only about saving your marriage. It is about gaining the skills needed to continue to function together in a way that is best for both of your mental health and happiness – and possibly that of your children as well. Learn more about couples counseling or get started with Flourish Psychology, today.
Location: 300 Cadman Plaza West Floor 12 - Brooklyn, NY 11201
Manage Consent
By clicking “Accept”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
