What is Marriage and Couples Coaching?
Counseling with a couple primarily involves learning new communication skills. No matter how long a couple has been married, communication skills can almost always be improved. Ideally, a couple would seek this type of coaching even before they make a long-term commitment, preventing problems before they begin!
What is Marriage and Couple Coaching?
In a close romantic relationship, it is not unusual to find that sooner or later, the couple could use some help in communication skills. Your relationship involves 2 unique people, each with a different background and experience of the world. That is part of what makes your relationship so interesting exciting, and challenging at times.
The way we communicate is influenced by our life experiences, particularly by childhood and family of origin experiences. We tend to either emulate what we learned about communication from our parents or react by intentionally doing the opposite of what our parents did. For example, if the parents argue a lot and create a stressful atmosphere, the child may grow up determined to not argue with a spouse, and go the opposite extreme in withdrawing from anything that feels like conflict.
Romantic relationships are like a dance. Two people are attempting to produce a harmonious, joyful dance together. At first, it seems easy! As life stressors enter into the picture it often becomes more and more difficult to have that harmony. Growing up, each of you learned a different dance. As stress and unresolved conflict grows, each partner resorts more and more to the dance they learned. Imagine a couple dancing: one is dancing a waltz and the other is dancing the Charleston. They would be crashing into one another and stepping on toes.
In marriage and couple coaching (counseling) my goal is to help a couple create a new harmonious dance. I don’t view one dance as “wrong” and the other as “right”. Instead, I will coach a couple in finding their unique dance. Your relationship won’t look like anyone else’s, it will be the one that works for you and brings the most peace, harmony, and joy into your life together.
This harmonious dance develops naturally as a couple learns new skills in communication. Each partner learns to listen and respond to the other in ways that reduce stressful conflict or stalling out.
If you and your partner feel that you are having the same arguments over and over and not getting anywhere, or if you feel that your life together is becoming more negative than positive, I encourage you to take action and invest in some quality coaching before things get worse. Without learning new skills, the reality is that the problem areas will not get any better and may become worse.
Is it time to learn a new dance that will fill your relationship with joy and harmony again? I am ready to help!