5 Common Couples Issues and How Therapy Can Help
No relationship completely sidesteps friction, confrontation, or simply drifting apart. Couples therapy can help you manage these relationship challenges with a personalized blend of evidence-based therapy methods.
No relationship completely sidesteps friction, confrontation, or simply drifting apart. How we manage these breakdowns in connection defines success or failure.
While every couple has their own unique spin, they often encounter common issues that challenge the relationship's success. The couples counselors at Happy Apple® in New York City can help you successfully navigate these rough waters through effective, targeted therapy.
Today, we’ll examine five common couples' issues and how therapy can help you overcome the problems and create a stronger partnership.
Significant life changes
There’s nothing as constant in life as change. Happy or sad, changes shake up the status quo, which means stress. Everyone reacts in their own way to events, and what’s inherently stressful to one partner may not concern the other.
Events like having a child, changing jobs, buying a house, or losing a loved one can introduce stress-driven communication differences. These don’t stem from positions of right or wrong; instead, they often come down to personality or style differences.
Differences in values
Things like religion, political views, or even something as simple as the types of movies you like can lead to uneasy conflict that may disconnect you from your partner. It might feel like you lack common ground, or, at worst, these differences could introduce criticism and resentment into a relationship.
Financial views
Unexpected financial problems create unwelcome changes in your partnership, and how you view finances and money can sometimes be widely divergent within couples. There’s also a general tension about money that creeps into the fabric of many partnerships.
Emotional and sexual intimacy
Expressing emotions and sexual compatibility are each a potential cause of communication difficulties that have complex and deep-seated origins. These can be a significant departure point for couples who feel their distance is growing. Combined with the memory of when intimacy was easy and taken for granted, this feeling of disconnect can grow quickly.
Trauma
Significant life changes aren’t always current or originating within the time frame of a relationship. Past traumas like sexual abuse, serious injury, or military service can haunt a person years after the original event.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) makes it hard for a person to find peace within their own life, without which they’re more likely to exhibit challenging behaviors and reactions, while their partner struggles to understand the reasons behind these actions.
How therapy can help
When you feel that the ties connecting you with your partner are expanding and you’re unable to reel in the lines, couples therapy serves as an anchor point for those who sincerely want to find ways to bridge the gaps and overcome the obstacles that come between them.
Using a blend of therapies like cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), emotionally focused therapy (EFT), or internal family systems (IFS) therapy, our team of counselors can help you and your partner develop practical systems and techniques to overcome the barriers to communication that often get lost as you function through busy everyday life.
Call or click to make an appointment with Happy Apple today.
