Written by: Winifred Ling, Couples Therapist & Relationship Coach
As a couple therapist, the question I sometimes get is, ”Is my problem serious enough to warrant a therapist?”
I like to address this question in this article.
There are 3 key reasons why you’d want to see a couples therapist/relationship coach
- When you have issues in the relationship that you’ve tried to solve but you’re unable to.
- When you want to do a health check for your relationship
- When you’d like to enhance your relationship
Prevention is better than cure and this applies to relationship as well. If you’re in a committed relationship and not married yet, nothing should stop you from finding ways to strengthen your romantic competence.
The majority of couples that I see now in my clinic are those with troubled marriage or also known as ‘relationship recovery’. Increasingly, I have more couples who decided to seek help and they are in under category 2 and 3. It’s highly encouraging for me to see this trend as younger couples are less affected by the stigma of seeking help.
In enhancing your relationship, what you can expect is the identification of possible conflict areas, assessment of your communication and conflict management skills, emotional regulation skills as well as the strength of your relationship. The former framework of therapy is based on looking at the problems and trying to fix them. What was missing is how to focus on what is good in the relationship and magnify and fortify those strength? This is equally important and it’s also more positive.
For ‘relationship recovery process’, the types of cases that I see include infidelity, being stuck in conflicts, poor emotional regulation which leads to avoidance of conflict and rebuilding trust and commitment.
There is a certain transition in life where relationship coaching or therapy is highly recommended. This is as follows:
- Pre-marital: Before you make the lifelong commitment, you want to be ensured that your chances at staying married is as high as possible. You want to know what the non-negotiables are and learn skills that make the process of integrating your life smoother.
- Transitioning to parenthood: While bringing a baby into a family is a happy occasion, it brings about a lot of stresses to the marriage. 2/3 or 67% of couples who transition to parenthood suffer a decline in their satisfaction of marriage. Help and support is available for you to learn how you can mediate this and continue to keep the spark in the marriage alive.
- Couples who have suffered child lost or have unsuccessful attempts at assisted reproduction.
- Couples who are planning to adopt: You will want to know what are the expectations that you have of each other and what sort of rituals of connection you can establish so that you don’t lose sight of your own relationship.
- When you have a child with special needs either physical, intellectual or mental: This additional stress could make or break the marriage and often times, couples place so much focus on the child that he/she ends up neglecting the partner. What you want to cultivate is the mindset “we against the world” rather than “I am alone in this marriage”.
- Empty nest: There is an increase in marital break-ups at this stage because they have waited for their young children to grow up. The many years of emotional disconnection and busyness of life in caring for the children may have caused neglect to the marriage but it is possible to breathe a new lease of life to the marriage so that you can enjoy your golden years meaningfully.
Ultimately, relationship is hard work. You will need to consistently invest in it just like how you would a plant. You will need to Create an environment that’s conducive for the relationship to thrive; learn the skills that can help you connect better with your significant other and be intentional in what you want in the relationship.