COUPLE COUNSELLING
A marriage is based on intimacy and trust. What could topple this very important relationship? The answers are many - Pressures of work, health, family, finances and even the different points of view of the couple on how to raise children. Couple counselling addresses the problems of intimate relationships.
Couple therapy is a form of keeping the intimate relationships strong. Couple counselling can happen at two different stages - pre-marital and post-marital
PRE -MARITAL
Pre-marital counselling is for the couples who are serious about their relationship and are contemplating marriage.
A couple or an individual can seek pre-marital counselling when they cannot resolve significant issues during their courtship.
When one or both partners have a previously failed marriage and want to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
The main aims of pre-marital counselling are:
- To develop skills to navigate their way through marriage successfully.
- To identify and if possible resolve areas of differences that may become a source of conflict later.
- To help them to enter matrimony with more awareness, clarity and understanding which pave the way for a smoother ride.
- To develop mutual caring, respect, trust and lasting relationships.
- To empower by creating awareness, regarding their trigger points that can create unpleasantness and challenging situations. They may decide to resolve such issues in a better way.
- To help them discover the true reasons why they want to be together.
POST- MARITAL
Marriage can be the most rewarding and also the most challenging part of married couples’ lives. It all depends on how the couple nurtures the relationship that exists between them. Most couples complain that this is "too much work". The answer to that is that it is much more work to not do that.
Together or alone?
Ideally, the couple should go for counselling together. A partner may prefer to have counselling by him/her self first to work out feelings.
- Often, if one person makes the decision to give counselling a try, the other partner will decide to go too.
- If one partner flatly refuses to join, there are many things a marriage counsellor can help the other partner to sort out on his/her own.
- There may be choices one partner can make alone that will have an impact on the couples’ relationship.
Couples come to counselling because they are experiencing relationship problems that are the result of :
- Poor communication
- Conflict
- Emotional distance
- Affairs
- Lack of trust
- Lack of either physical and emotional intimacy or both