Three Things Couples Therapy Can Do For Your Relationship

Couples therapy in Utah has helped many relationships fix what is wrong between partners. While couples counseling can do many great things for your relationship, it can’t do everything. For example, it can’t fix your relationship without your effort. Simply applying the ‘correct’ methods isn’t going to fix you and your spouse unless your heart is in the right place. 

Here are three things that couples therapy can do for you. Ultimately its up to you to apply what you get in couples therapy with a heart at peace (see the Arbiger Institute).

Couples Therapy Gives You Tools

In couples counseling you will learn how to deal with friction in your relationship. A good couples therapist will give you tools to do this. Such as, a ‘soft start up’. This is a technique taught by John Gottman’s team and outlines how to introduce a topic with your partner. Instead of introducing a problem to your partner by saying, ‘Hey, you really blew it last night’, you could try a softer approach instead. You could say, ‘I have something that I would like to talk with you about last night’. It’s a ‘softer’ way to get into a discussion about a problem. It sets up your partner to respond in a healthy way. It also sets your relationship up to win, rather than just you. 

Communication Skills

Another tool couples counseling gives you is communication skills – specifically what to share and not to share (Related Article: How To Communicate Better) . First, you want to share the raw data, or just the facts of a situation. Don’t share your interpretation of that situation, but rather the simple facts.

For example, it is incorrect to say to your partner, ‘Last night, you were totally not yourself and said some really mean things’. That is interpretive and usually invites a fight. ‘…not yourself’ – could be argued, and probably will be! So can, ‘…really mean things’. What’s mean to one person is justifiable to another. Instead, you could say, ‘Last night you said to me that you wished we never got married and that I’m just like my mom’. If he said these words, then this is the ‘raw data’ of what happened. When you share in this manner, you can easily do the second step. 

Second, share your emotional experience with the raw data that you initially shared. Say to him, ‘I felt hurt and worried when you said that to me’. Simply share your feelings about what happened. Don’t share your thoughts about it, or your conclusions. If you share your thoughts, you aren’t being vulnerable with them and not inviting them to be vulnerable with you. There is a big difference between your thoughts and your feelings (Related Article: Emotions 101 and 3 Principles of Emotional Health). 

Keep in mind that just because you do your part right, it doesn’t mean your partner will do theirs right. You invite them to be healthy with you when you act in healthy ways. But, it’s not a guarantee that they will (Related Article: Avoid These Marriage Communication Problems).

Couples Therapy Gives You Experiences

If you attend couples therapy and you have a good therapist, you will participate in becoming better as a couple. Not just hearing about how to become better. Your therapist will have you and your partner talk with each other in session in healthy ways, as they direct you. They will help you say what is healthy and not say what isn’t healthy. Therapy isn’t a fight. Your couple’s therapist is not a referee. They will help you reshape how you handle friction.

John Gottman found that it’s not the presence of friction in your relationship that makes you get divorced. But rather, it’s how you handle that friction that will cause you to divorce or not. Even happily married couples fight and have arguments. They just do it in a healthy way. 

So, expect to have actual experiences in couples therapy with your partner. It’s not practice. Its not role play. You will be working on real issues in a real way. Without this experiential part of therapy, you may as well just be reading a book together. The real value in a couples therapist comes in their ability to help you apply principles of healthy marriages (Related Article: How Couples Therapy Works). 

Couples Therapy Gives You An Opportunity To Be Humble and Courageous

Being vulnerable in coming to couples therapy gives you an opportunity to be humble and courageous. It takes both of these qualities if you are going to apply what you are learning in a meaningful way. As mentioned before, you can say the right things and still have it be unhealthy. Your heart needs to be in a place where you see your partner as a person, rather than an object to move or overcome. It takes humility and courage to put yourself in this place. 

Meet with a counselor in Utah today. We have offices in Spanish Fork, Orem, South Jordan and also do telehealth for anyone living in Utah. Couples therapy can help you and your partner apply healthy principles so you can make progress!

Written by Dr Triston Morgan, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist