8 Signs that you need Couples Counseling

Couples counseling has been proven beneficial for relationships at any stage, and for any reason, committed efforts are often signs of relationship strength instead of weakness. Couples, spouses, and partners also frequently seek relationship counseling to address the source of their disconnect and find adaptable strategies to apply together. In addition to disconnect, there are a few other notable signals that may indicate a couple could benefit from counseling, ranging from lost love to the classically attributed reason of frequent fights. 

As a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, the following are common signs that may help you evaluate if online couples therapy or in-person marriage counseling in Temecula can help:

1. Frequent Conflict

Are you constantly fighting, and about the most trivial things? Do you sometimes stay quiet because you just don’t want to fight anymore? Couples that regularly engage in repetitive arguments or constant bickering can often benefit from couples counseling; it’s also one of the more explicit ways to assess relationship challenges. 

But, conflict doesn’t always manifest in this way. Relationship conflict can be as subtle as passive aggressive behavior or as cold as ceasing meaningful communication altogether. No matter the presentation, if there’s no resolution or constructive confrontation, then it may be a sign that couples therapy is needed to build and improve communication skills to better address disagreements and larger challenges that couples face. 

Typical argument patterns and triggers can also be a great springboard for identifying the deeper source of relationship distress in collaboration with a therapist. But, if left unaddressed, conflict may breed hateful resentment that can deeply wound connections and ultimately end in the demise of the relationship.

2. Transitions or Changes Within the Relationship

Transitions like a new job or new family member (for example a child) can be incredibly joyful, but they can also shift power dynamics or bring up hidden feelings within a partner. Other changes like a layoff, health condition, or the death of a family member can generate strong emotions, such as stress or grief, among partners. 

Shared experiences can sometimes bring partners closer together as they recover, but they can also create rifts if the experience impacts each partner differently. Similarly, personal and individual transitions or events may be difficult to address or process between partners. 

If a life change is causing partner withdrawal, anger, or disconnection, then therapy can help by building empathy skills and tools for vulnerable communication.

3. Intimacy or Sex Challenges

In addition to common and age-related sexual health challenges, such as the 40% ED occurrence in 40-year-old men, couples can benefit from therapy to work through intimacy challenges.

Couples therapy would encourage partners to address the medical causes behind sexual health conditions, but the primary focus would be on the mental, social, and interpersonal factors that are the result or cause of intimacy challenges. Therapists can also help partners boost emotional intimacy and sex frequency by creating a non-judgemental space for open communication and treating the root cause of intimacy withdrawal. 

Whether one partner wants more intimacy or less sex, addressing each other’s needs without a solution-focused approach will lead to problems outside of the bedroom.

4. Feelings of Disconnect

Beyond the ordinary ebb and flow of passion, couples may experience a reduction of love or feel distant from each other throughout time or transitions. This growing separation can start small through late home arrivals and escalate to a bigger step like sleeping in separate rooms. 

A couples therapist can help identify the reason for disconnection and offer guidance on the type of work that could help nurture love in the relationship. But, a therapist cannot automatically grow love in one appointment. The reconnection process takes consistent work and time between both partners, and a therapist will guide the couple’s efforts. 

5. Lack of Relationship Balance

If one partner feels powerless over the other or feels that respect is an area in need of improvement, then couples counseling may be beneficial to act as a neutral third party that can restore partner balance.

Whether it’s an issue of uneven housework distribution, financial earnings imbalance, or a power dynamic based on aggressive instead of assertive dynamics, partners can work towards equality through analysis of their challenges. At times, delegating chores differently or building communication skills is all that’s needed to restore balance, but these tangible challenges often signal a larger problem. This problem can be tricky to identify, or even verbalize.

However, a trained online couples counselor or an in-person therapist trained in marriage counseling in Temecula, CA will ensure both partners are heard and provide guidance on how to work towards balance.

6. Loss of Trust

Couples experiencing a breach of trust, such as an affair or deception, can work to rebuild trust or evaluate their next steps with a therapist. 

From financial mismanagement to emotional infidelity, partners with lost trust need to evaluate if forgiveness, separation, or both, is the healthiest way forward. Both partners need to be focused on what their goals are and work towards getting on the same page about their future. This can be even more challenging when sharing a home or a family, but a therapist will help couples rebuild trust or develop a separation plan by encouraging a healthy agreement between partners.

7. Presence of Gottman’s “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”

Despite its nefarious name, the “Four Horsemen” is actually a term for a theory developed by Dr. John Gottman with a 93% rate of accuracy in divorce prediction. The horsemen can manifest in different ways, including some of the previously mentioned signals, but they have been succinctly identified as Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling. 

Dependence on excuses or avoiding communication are detrimental behaviors to relationship health, but once these behaviors are recognized they can be improved upon in therapy if both partners are motivated. The namesake counseling technique of the Gottman Method is also an effective strategy for a wide variety of situations and populations. Its emphasis is on growing skills and insights to help couples help themselves. 

Therapists oriented in this theory can be extremely helpful for couples, and most offer consultations to communicate their training experiences and to evaluate if their methods would be effective for respective couples. 

8. Desire for Growth

By far the best way to tell if couples counseling is needed, or could be beneficial, is if there’s a desire to grow together. Any couple or individual can benefit from therapy, but it has to be entered into willingly, instead of forcibly, to be effective and to generate lasting change. 

The beginning of couples therapy usually involves joint and individualized appointments for this very reason. Individual appointments as part of couples counseling provide invaluable insight into how partners can be supported as a couple and, most importantly, as individuals. 

Individual therapy in addition to couples counseling can also be invaluable, but it’s highly recommended that a different therapist is consulted for this to avoid conflicts of interest, biases, or unethical practices.

Couples and Marriage Counseling in Temecula

Ultimately, it’s up to partners themselves to determine their readiness and desire for couples counseling. But, no matter the reason, therapists with the right experience and rapport can help any couple or individual that wants to work towards growth and change. 

To start online individual therapy anywhere in California or in-person marriage counseling in Temecula, book an appointment with Piernas Marriage & Family Therapy today.