COUPLES COUNSELING

Couple A came into counseling because the were “fighting all the time”, angry with one another over a list of seemingly minor matters, such as one of them never shutting the closet door and the other one forgetting to buy an item at the grocery store that the other wanted. They were rarely intimate. One typically initiated intimacy, the other was rarely in the mood. This created a lot of anger and guilt within both of them. They finally decided to go to counseling because they were talking more and more about splitting up. They both thought that it might be easier to get out their perpetually angry relationship and start over with someone new but they were miserable about the fact that they would hurt their children if they split up the family. They needed help to figure out where they’d gone wrong with each other and why they were so unhappy.

During their counseling sessions each member of the couple had a chance to voice their feelings about their marriage and partner. The safe haven of a therapeutic setting gives people a place to voice feelings they may never have verbalized. It was clear that each member of the couple was not having their needs met, which resulted in anger and disappointment and seemed to snowball into a chronic state of unhappiness. By getting to the essence of each individual’s grievances, each individual had a chance to be heard. By practicing active listening skills, each was listening as well as being heard. The couple learned to compromise more often and learned to agree to disagree on some issues. They gradually moved away from blaming each other, toward feeling empathy for the other’s point of view.