Couples Counseling

 Are You Longing To Reconnect With Your Partner?

Are you and your partner struggling to communicate and connect? Do you feel lonely in your relationship and wish you felt heard, seen, understood and appreciated for all that you do? Does it feel like and your partner are having the same fight over and over again, without a sustainable resolution? Perhaps a pattern of small arguments turning into big fights has caused you to emotionally isolate yourself from your partner and try to ignore the unspoken tension as it continues to grow. Or, maybe the energy that you once gave to each other is now focused on kids and careers, making you feel more like roommates and less like lovers. Are you and your partner out of alignment in how you spend your money, raise your children and divide household tasks? Do you want to feel like a priority again? Do you wish you could feel understood and loved for who you are and trust that you and your partner can get through this challenging time?

All Couples Bump Up Against Challenges

If you’re experiencing difficulty communicating or connecting with your partner, you are not alone. Every couple struggles at some points in their relationship. We all have unfinished places inside ourselves that need healing, and our intimate partners are usually the ones who trigger the feelings hidden in our deepest wounds. While it may feel unnerving and upsetting to become emotionally activated by your partner, having challenging feelings arise can actually be a good thing. With an awareness of what is happening for both individuals and the couple as whole comes an opportunity to grow, heal and deepen your connection with yourself and with your partner

Being in a relationship can be hard work. Once the honeymoon stage ends, the real relationship begins. It takes about two years in a relationship to really begin to know someone, and the first couple years of marriage can be the most difficult. You may look back to the time you spent dating or engaged and wonder what happened to the loving, carefree couple that you were. What likely happened is that your “real” relationship emerged, and issues such as sharing space, trying to balance individual needs with the relationship and engaging in trial and error has created discord. Furthermore, like most of us, you may not have witnessed many healthy relationships modeled around you when you were growing up. And, like so many couples, you may be in a somewhat co-dependent relationship. While some level of co-dependency is normal and healthy, when we begin engaging in unhealthy patterns of thinking and behaving, our relationship, self-esteem and self-worth can suffer.

The good news is that couples counseling can help. You and your partner can get to the root of your issues, develop effective communication tools and deepen the bond that unites you together.

Counseling Can Help You Push Past Tough Issues And Deepen Connection

In effective couples counseling sessions, you and your partner will learn what a healthy relationship looks like and begin to build one yourselves. Throughout your counseling experience, you’ll both be provided with tools, support, guidance and a safe, nonjudgmental place to work through the thoughts, feelings, ongoing issues and challenges that are keeping you stuck, disconnected or in distress.

Your West Hartford Holistic Counseling Center couples therapist can help you and your partner identify, explore and address your respective personal triggers. You can each explore where your triggers stem from and how unmet needs, expectations and unresolved trauma from your past might be playing out in your relationship today. Once you develop a better understanding of each other’s past and current experiences, you can stop relating to each other as the enemy and, instead, connect with compassion and love.

In order to provide you with the most effective experience, your therapist will draw from a variety of approaches to tailor-create a strategy that best supports and addresses your personalities, history, needs and goals. While your therapist can help you slow down and work through issues as they arise in sessions, you’ll also be given tools and techniques to practice at home. Practicing together outside of sessions can enhance the healing process, improve communication and deepen your connection.

If you and/or your partner are struggling with co-dependency, your therapist can help you notice and address the places in your life where you and/or your partner depend on one another for happiness or feel responsible for the other’s happiness. Co-dependency usually stems from childhood, and this deeper work can help you find peace within yourself while you begin to set and maintain healthy, loving boundaries.

For more than 20 years, we’ve helped countless couples heal the tough issues, develop understanding and compassion for each other and deepen their intimate connection. With guidance, support and the right approach, you and your partner can find the relief and connection you are looking for.

Although you may believe that couples counseling could help, you still may have a questions or concerns…

The trust in our relationship has been damaged by infidelity. I don’t know that anything – even couples counseling – can help repair our relationship and restore trust.

If both of you want to save the relationship and are committed to openly engaging in couples counseling, healing is possible. Couples counseling provides you both with a safe place to address the infidelity, understand what it stemmed from and work through painful emotions with openness and honesty. With the support and guidance of an experienced couples therapist, you can gain clarity, address underlying issues, develop compassion for each other and emerge stronger and more connected than you were before.

My partner won’t join me in therapy. He/she doesn’t think it will help.

Your partner may be worried that he or she will be blamed for the difficulties in your relationship or labeled “the bad one.” If that is case, you can communicate to your partner that the couples therapists at West Hartford Holistic Counseling Center view the relationship as the client. Our goal is to help you get to the root causes of the issues and create a loving and collaborative path forward.

If you partner is still resistant to the idea of couples counseling, there is work you can do on your own that can improve the dynamic of your relationship. While therapy is most effective when both partners are willing and present, in individual sessions, you can explore and address what you are bringing to the relationship and make positive changes in your life. Often, when one partner begins making noticeable changes, the other softens to the idea of couples counseling.

We’ve heard that couples counseling takes a long time. We need help now.

Every couple is different. Much like anything of value in life, you will get out of couples counseling what you put into it. In your initial session, your therapist will help you and your partner identify and assess your therapy goals and address your immediate needs. Our couples sessions generally run 1.5 hours, which allows you and your partner to dig a bit deeper. The length of the whole therapy process will depend on your issues and goals. However, many couples begin to see results within just a few sessions.

You Can Reconnect With Your Partner

You and your partner do not have to navigate this challenging time on your own. We invite you to call our office for a free 15-minute phone consultation at 860-258-4171.  We’re happy to discuss your specific needs and answer any questions you have about couples counseling and our practice.