Have you ever felt lost in any of your relationships with someone you loved and didn’t know what to do or say anymore? You may have thought of breaking up or getting a divorce, but you knew that your will to stay was stronger than your will to leave. Well, feel lost no more as there are things for couples to do, even if they seem unworthy of what you might want your next date to be.
In this article, I explain a few benefits from individual and couples therapy. Keep in mind that things for couples to do, such as going to therapy, don’t have to be a chore. You can think about it as a date with yourself to check in and see how you are in the present moment; a common practice called mindfulness. Remember that you are the one who must make the final decision to progress in therapy or not for a better relationship with the person you love, or even for a better relationship with yourself.
Individual Therapy
Communication
With individual therapy comes the benefit of being able to talk freely all about yourself and where you are in life regarding your problems. There are fewer distractions to keep you away from the thought processes at hand. This can be beneficial if you are apt to distract yourself from yourself. It may be more difficult for you to relate to your partner when you are unable to relate to yourself and yourself to your therapist. By communicating your thoughts, feelings, and emotions to your therapist, you enlighten yourself as you journey towards self-awareness.
Self-awareness
One on one therapy helps your therapist communicate to you what role you have played or are currently playing in relationship to the person whom you love. By knowing, you are essentially able to pinpoint where it is you are going wrong and where it is you are going right in your actions and thoughts towards your partner and towards yourself.
For example, you may dislike the behavior of your partner, but that may be how you perceive the expression of yourself. Self-awareness is essential to building the foundation of support. Without self-awareness, you may never know the cause of your distress and may blame it on things that have nothing to do with your problems at all.
Support
A therapist’s job is not only to help communicate any solutions to your problems but to support you in whatever way they can as you develop awareness of the situations causing you distress. Individual therapy may get you the help you need sooner rather than later and can help you get the right diagnosis with fewer complications. You may need more support, such as seeing someone else whose job it is to help you more than your therapist can, or you may be encouraged to invite your partner to join you in therapy, as they too may be in desperate need of immediate attention.
Couples Therapy
Communication
Relationships are all about relating to one another in a friendly way. When a couple regains their ability to communicate their fears and desires in a safe environment, they are then able to feel safe enough to explore those fears and desires on their own.
Communication problems are one of the main reasons why couples fight so much. Maybe one person gets quiet, or someone else loses their temper, or perhaps someone gives up and walks away. Men are called out for not showing their emotions as easily as women, and women are called out for being crazy for feeling all their emotions. Maybe it is the other way around, but the whole point of communication is to be in touch with your reality. By going to couples therapy together, you can then work on communicating the solutions to your problems and to gain insight from that.
Insight
When another person is introduced to therapy, there is a sea of memories that can be discovered. When these memories are discovered and given proper attention, it may turn out that these memories provide you with insight into your problems that you could never know about in individual therapy.
Some people may like the idea of asking others questions to uncover knowledge, but others may need to be prompted to share information that would make them feel vulnerable if they were to share it in any other way. If this is the case, support may go a long way towards helping your partner regain their sense of self and to find peace and happiness within the core of their being.
Support
Support can come in many forms, especially when support is to be found in couples therapy. This support may be more of the emotional, mental, and physical support you and your partner share with one another that your therapist may be unable to give either of you to build your relationship on.
When you are given support, you may be able to trust your partner more as they seek to help you on your way to your highest self. This may lead you to feel respect for them in return. When you can give support to your partner, you are then able to begin being trusted as well, and this may accelerate the beginning of the healing process.
If individual or couples therapy does not work for you, then you may want to be honest with yourself about how much effort you are putting in, regardless of the effort your partner may be putting in. If your partner is willing to understand you and you them, then that is an effort.
If both of you are putting in an effort and nothing seems to be working, perhaps you may not be as compatible with each other as you might think. It doesn’t matter if both of you are good people who try the do the right thing.
What matters is finding someone who is good, but who is right for you and can provide you with the chance to grow into your highest sense of self, which will, in turn, help your partner on their way to their sense of highest self. Relationships begin with one person, yourself, so if you are not in a good relationship with yourself, then hopefully by now you know what you need to do.
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