COUPLES THERAPY & MARRIAGE COUNSELING
It feels like you’ve tried everything to improve your relationship. You’ve tried talking. In fact, you’ve tried not talking. Or arguing. Perhaps you went on a trip together hoping to reconnect. But it stil just doesn’t feel like you’re on the same page anymore.
By the time a couple is considering therapy, there’s often a thick wall with very specific bricks. Those bricks are dividing them, preventing the couple from hearing one another and connecting. Fear and hurt are the prevailing feelings, and the patterns are well-worn in the relationship.
Every couple has its own specific challenge. And, although no two couples are the same, there is this unifying challenge around intimacy and how to be connected and stay connected. There is no cookie cutter approach to couple’s counseling. Rather, our couple therapists meet you where you are in your own relationship. For instance, our therapist may help couples use the inevitable problems with sex and intimacy to help them grow present time consciousness in relationship to one another.
Some issues addressed in couples therapy include:
Conflict Resolution
Communication Skills
Infidelity
Substance Use Disorders
Intimacy Issues
Common Relationship Complaints: Communication, Courting and Change
When coming in to begin couples therapy or marriage counseling, you’re often in a period of your relationship very different from any other. Couples beginning counseling often complain about communication problems such as feeling unheard or misunderstood by their partner. They may say they have grown apart or changed. In fact, they may worry that too much distance now exists to even mend the relationship.
At times, one or both partners feel they are not being made a priority by the other. A couple may complain of the criticism they receive from their partner. One spouse may be feeling they are never good enough, and will never be good enough, for their partner.
Common problems at the top of your . complaint list may include intimacy/sex, finances, child rearing, extended family and more. One or both partners often feel taken for granted for all they do in the relationship. Most often, couples have stopped dating and courting each other, and when one puts in effort, the other may express the effort is too little too late.
Signs It’s Time to Begin Marriage Counseling, or Couples Therapy, in Bozeman, MT
You’re wondering if marriage counseling or couples counseling can really work. Or, you may be asking, “Is now the right time for us to come to couples counseling?” Here are some changes you might be noticing in your relationship that could indicate it’s time for couples counseling:
Fighting or arguing without reaching an end both can be okay with
Avoiding being where your significant other is
Not putting effort in to the relationship or the work needed to better the relationship
Passive aggressive behavior toward each other
Feeling alone, even when you are together
Constant exhaustion when thinking of the relationship
Inability to communicate with, listen to, and truly hear each other
The Bridger Peaks Approach to Marriage Counseling in Bozeman:
Part of our job, as we see it, is to help every couple appreciate and understand the bricks that make up that wall in a relationship. Furthermore, or couples therapists want to help couples truly understand how these bricks formed.
At Bridger Peaks, our therapists truly believe that with listening, understanding, and teaching, couples can learn to resolve conflict. Through couples therapy or marriage counseling, we can improve relational satisfaction and communication skills. Finally, couples can learn more about dysfunctional interactions in their relationship with evidence-based interventions to meet relationship goals.
In ongoing relationship therapy, our couples counselors can help couples reduce distress and conflict. Couples can improve communication and have more positive, healthy interactions. The counselor helps the couple view problems as patterns, or systems that need adjusting. This helps to avoid viewing problems as residing in one person, ultimately reducing the blame.
Couples counseling Works To:
develop and maintain healthy boundaries
improve communication skills
promote problem solving through understanding of relational patterns and dynamics
build empathy and understanding
reduce conflict
Why Bridger Peaks Counseling for Couples Therapy?
At Bridger Peaks Counseling, depending on the needs of the couple, several different methods may be be applied in couples therapy or marriage counseling sessions. In other words, our couples therapists are trained in evidence based counseling methods that can help save your relationship or marriage. However, we know that now two people are alike so we will use the specific counseling methods that will be most helpful to you in your unique relationship.
Two of the most notable methods for couples counseling are Gottman, and Johnson's EFT.
One couple shared the fact they had never been in "such a good place" in their relationship after several decades of trying alone.
Many couples have shared the fact they enjoy being around each other again after working with our therapists. They feel like friends again and can enjoy intimacy in a way they had not been able to for some time. Others have expressed pride in their new ability to communicate with each other, even when the issues are hard. You can have this kind of hope for your relationship too. And, we can help you get there.
Begin Couples Therapy, or Marriage Counseling, in Bozeman, MT
Your marriage is worth making an effort for. Couples who work with our professional, caring team of therapists often feel more satisfied with their relationship after therapy. When you are ready to visit our Bozeman, MT counseling clinic, follow these simple steps:
Make an appointment online, at your convenience
Meet with one of our expert Bozeman marriage and family therapists
Begin to feel more confident, connected and ready to live life full of love
Additional Therapy Services, Workshops and Resources from Bridger Peaks Counseling
In our Bozeman, MT counseling clinic, we can help you through a number of issues including anxiety, worry, stress, depression, and more. Our caring team of therapists and professional mental health staff are here for you and your loved ones. Visit us for addiction treatment, group counseling sessions, depression therapy, EMDR, and relationship coaching. As well as psychiatric care and medication, opportunities to explore coping patterns, postpartum depression and anxiety counseling, mindfulness training, workshops and more tools for client education. We look forward to talking with you soon!