5 Ways To Set Healthy Boundaries In Your Relationship
Boundaries. Chances are that somewhere you’ve heard this term before. Or maybe you’ve been told to “stand your ground” or “take your power back” by
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Has your relationship lost the love and intimacy it once had? Have you noticed a growing strain in communication between you and your partner? Is your relationship on the rocks because of a breakdown in trust due to infidelity or betrayal?
Maybe you feel as if your partner has invested too much time into work or their social life, at the expense of your family life and relationship. Or perhaps unmet emotional needs and unresolved conflict have led to feelings of estrangement between the two of you.
All you want is to feel close to your partner again and restore the love you once shared.
Relationships require considerable time, attention, and effort, especially on days when you have to juggle the demands of life.
Before you know it, the complications between you and your partner could leave you feeling sad, fearful, jealous, insecure, and angry. You may find yourself unable to sleep and instead stay up worrying or overthinking, feeling alone, and struggling to find a way to communicate your feelings to your partner.
Perhaps the quality of your work is being affected and you find yourself so consumed with the problems in your relationship that you begin to alienate yourself from friends and family.
At My Counseling Connections, our couples therapists can provide a safe neutral space to teach you effective communication and conflict-resolution skills in order to help you rebuild a healthy, resilient bond between you and your partner.
Many people have fairytale expectations of relationships, thinking that two people who fall in love will experience a blissful life together without having to compromise or make sacrifices. Realistically, however, relationships aren’t easy, and having problems with your partner is common.
Gottman research finds that approximately 75 percent of all relationships are conflict-based and roughly 69 percent of all conflict is gridlocked— meaning that there is no solution or compromise that can fix the conflict. (1) When the conflict isn’t fixable, the solution is not to give up, but to try and work through things constructively.
The difference between couples who are happy and harmonious and those that are unhappy, is the way they navigate conflict gridlock.
The challenges of overworking or struggling to maintain a work-life balance, the distractions of social media, and the multitasking that riddles us daily, are all factors that contribute to relationship and marriage problems. As a result, divided attention, lack of quality time, and emotional disengagement end up interfering with intimacy and can stir up tension and fights.
In a fast-paced world filled with responsibilities, obligations, and distractions, not taking the time to ensure that your partner feels appreciated and understood is what contributes to the slow process of degradation.
Fortunately, therapy can offer couples a new perspective while increasing awareness of obstacles and ways of effectively overcoming them together.
Couples Therapy Can Draw You And Your Partner Closer Together
Relationships go through various stages and transitions. From challenges in the very beginning, difficulties in the midst of life events, and even during the transition toward the end of a relationship. Regardless of the stage your relationship is in, we are here to help.
During therapy sessions, couples can feel free to share, reflect, process, and implement changes in a safe, supportive space that is focused exclusively on your needs.
Our devoted therapists are experienced and will work to help you gain insight into places where you feel stuck and provide effective approaches to strengthen your relationship and combat the challenges you both face.
Couples counseling looks different from relationship to relationship. Sometimes we’ll meet with the couple together in the first session and then have an individual session with each partner before meeting together again. In other cases, we’ll start with individual sessions and then move to joint sessions. It really depends on the needs, concerns, and interests of the couple, so we’ll tailor our approach to what the clients present.
During sessions, we coach clients through role-play, grounding techniques, communication, and mindfulness strategies. Some obstacles in relationships stem from individual problems (such as if one of you experienced trauma in a previous relationship), others are a result of emotional injuries sustained within the relationship and some lack effective communication skills. Whatever the cause, learning about the origin and nature of the obstacles is the first step to developing a treatment plan.
We draw from a wide range of approaches to help couples improve their connection, some of which are listed below:
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a counseling modality that analyzes the function of behaviors that are getting in the way of people’s long-term goals. We use this to assess behavioral problems and how they get in the way of a successful relationship.
Behaviors like self-harm, addiction, or poor communication can damage any relationship and the connection two partners share. Using DBT, your therapist will incorporate distress tolerance, mindfulness, problem-solving, and emotional regulation techniques which encourage couples to be more supportive and work together to find healthy solutions to conflict.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is a therapeutic approach we use that allows couples to strengthen their connection and resolve conflicts. It can help couples explore underlying emotions and the need for attachment, foster positive interactions, and interrupt negative patterns that cause emotional rifts.
Gottman Method Couples Therapy developed by Drs. John and Julie Gottman is a type of couples therapy that prioritizes strengthening relationships and resolving couples’ conflicts by deepening emotional connection and building trust.
Not only is this approach evidence-based, but it also values the needs of both partners and encourages working collaboratively with them to achieve their goals.
With our help at My Counseling Connections, you can heal your relationship and feel closer as a couple. Therapy can provide the building blocks for a healthy, harmonious relationship.
Therapy is a journey with many variables, often unknown to the clinician and the client when they begin. Emotional injuries, new insights, and willingness to be vulnerable and transparent are all important factors that can affect the timeline of therapy. Typically, therapy begins with weekly visits that eventually decrease in frequency over time as insight and progress are gained. The average length of therapy for couples is about six months.
It is helpful to have an objective, clinically trained professional that specializes in couples work to facilitate difficult conversations and help people understand what is at the root of preventing relationship satisfaction. From an objective vantage point, couples therapists can help people see better results than if they tried working things out on their own. So if your partner or spouse isn’t sure about therapy, it’s good to remind them that a therapist is unbiased and can provide a fresh perspective on a relationship’s problems.
Typically sessions are set with both partners and the therapist weekly until progress is made and there is less of a need for weekly appointments. There are unique circumstances that may indicate better results starting individually first.
During sessions, ongoing feedback, assessment, evidenced-based tools, experimentation, practice, and encouragement are incorporated to help change and transform your relationship.
If you are tired of feelings of estrangement, lack of communication, or constant conflicts between you and your partner, couples therapy with My Counseling Connections can provide you with the resources you need to unlock the full potential of your relationship.
To learn how you can achieve a more loving, fulfilling relationship with your partner, please call (954) 477-7455 and schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation. If you have any further questions or queries feel free to email us.
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(1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6037577/
Boundaries. Chances are that somewhere you’ve heard this term before. Or maybe you’ve been told to “stand your ground” or “take your power back” by
