Couple Therapy / Marriage Counselling

Couples might seek counselling for many different reasons, not always seeking to save their relationship.

After establishing what each partner's expectations and hopes are, we look at the problem in depth, considering each of your views equally.We work with heterosexual and same-sex couples, couples from different cultural and ethic, as well as religious backgrounds.

Additionally we have psychotherapists specialized in Imago Relationship Therapy. Whilst Couple therapists draw on different models and approaches in psychotherapy that has been developed for individuals and adapted for couples, Imago has been specifically developed for relationships.

 Why you might consider couple counselling
There are many reasons why couples seek counselling and often each partner has different expectations. Maye you can identify with some of the points listed below.

• maybe you live together but feel lonely in your relationship
• you seem to find it difficult to communicate without arguing
• you want different things from life or you have changed your expectations and goals and these might not be acceptable to the other partner
• you have recently become parents and find it difficult to adapt to the changes in your relationship
• you want to get married but have doubts
• one of you or both have been unfaithful
• you might feel that one of you is investing more time and effort in the relationship than the other
• you have different views on what constitutes commitment, e.g. one of you wants marriage or children or both, the other one does not
• you have differing views on parenting your children
• you might be a carer for your partner and struggling
• your partner might be too dependent on you or you on him/her
• you might feel that you always give in to what one of you wants or feel controlled
• maybe you have a different cultural or religious background and find it difficult to find common ground
• you are not sure if you want to continue your relationship
• you have decided to break up and want to do this in a respectful and amicable way

As you see, there are many different reasons and the list could go on. What is important however, is that you are considering couple counselling and that shows your commitment to your partner, be it to improve or save the relationship or to find an amicable ending.

What happens in couple counselling?
 When working with couples we do not take sides and strive to give each one of you equal time. Our loyalty is strictly with you as a couple, not to you individually.
.When working together we might consider several aspects of the relationship and you as individuals, such as:

• your individual hopes and expectations
• your goal as a couple
• your background (cultural, religious, etc.)
• the dynamics of your family of origin or other people you grew up with
• where you are now in your relationship and the dynamic
• what has caused the problems you are experiencing
• where you want to be as an individual

Important to know: 

It is important that you let your therapist know in advance if you are considering not to return to sessions.

This is to discuss if this is a decision you have both made equally. 

Couple counselling and therapy can bring up feelings of discomfort and anxiety as you are working through what you want to resolve. This can mean that e.g. one partner might start gaining confidence in speaking up which is important to address power imbalances in the relationship. However, this can mean that the other partner might not feel save giving up control and at this point couples stop coming to therapy. 

If you want to continue but your partner does not want to, it is important that you bring this up in your couple session or contact your therapist individually and continue individual work rather than just not showing up to the next couple session.