7 benefits of marriage counselling

Marriage counselling can be a very powerful way to forgive, heal and reconnect with your partner. Drawn from my experience as a couples therapist, here are 7 benefits of marriage counselling:

1. You get unstuck.

Marriage counselling invites you to step outside of your life for one hour and focus on your relationship. Your therapist acts a mediator, providing you and your partner with the guidance you need to listen to each other uninterruptedly.

Counselling creates an environment encouraging open, two-way communication. When we’re stuck in old patterns we often forget that whatever we’re doing isn’t working.

We create stagnant energy in our relationships when we’re unaware of these patterns, and we end up feeling disconnected. Marriage counselling helps you overcome the lack of intimate communication so you can better understand each other and create meaningful change.

2. You realize your fears.

You get past the surface level issues and repetitive arguments. These repetitive arguments are symptoms of underlying issues often related to fear.

Surface level issues typically fall into certain topics in your life, such as finances, sex and parenting. When you get past the symptomatic issues, you can finally deal with the underlying unmet needs and emotional injuries.

Your underlying fears and perceptions manifest in very particular (and often recurring) ways, and a therapist can help you see how this happens for you in your marriage. If you can get to what lies beneath the negative patterns in your relationship, your arguments will eventually dissipate.

3. You commit to growth.

When you go to marriage counselling, you’re investing in something that will grow. Just as neglecting your health and finances could lead to illness and debt, neglecting your relationship could lead to divorce or an unhappy marriage at best.

When you invest in counselling, what you’re really investing in is the will to change. Accepting help from someone else in a intimate area of your life is a wonderful thing. Your willingness to change and ask for help and guidance is a big step in a better direction.

4. You deepen intimacy and connection.

Marriage counselling helps you deepen intimacy and connection. Your ability to have meaningful conversations with your partner is typically interrupted by work, kids, and even feeling tired after a long day. Marriage counselling creates space for deeper emotional intimacy in your relationship. This new awareness infiltrates your sex life, connectedness, and your overall happiness.

5. You get a personal trainer, but for your relationship.

You have a health professional to point out your blind spots. Your therapist is focused directly on your relationship. They are able to identify fears and patterns you’re not aware of so that you can realize your part in the recurring issues.

6. You’re held accountable.

You’re required to put change into practice. Therapists will often give you homework and experiments to take into your life. Putting what you’ve learned into practice is key to parting ways with old perceptions and patterns to create lasting change.

7. You learn to forgive and let go.

Marriage counselling always leads you somewhere different and somewhere better. You get the benefit of forgiveness and release. You come out of therapy as someone who has learned a new language. You’ve learned how to communicate and connect in a new way.