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When You Want Marriage Counseling and Your Partner Doesn’t

by | Oct 16, 2020 | Communication, Connection, General, Marriage Survival, Relationships, Sex Therapy

Every couple’s therapist knows that when a couple walks through the door for therapy, chances are that one partner wants to be there and the other one doesn’t.

It’s ok, we’re not offended! We’re also not surprised.

Take Lori and Jordan for example. After years of struggle with their sex life, Lori got online and looked up “sex therapist near me”.

She tried to encourage Jordan to research online counseling but Jordan spent far less time on it than she did. Lori made the initial call to us and booked their first appointment. Jordan reluctantly attended the first session.

Believe it or not, I see value in both Lori and Jordan’s perspectives.

It makes sense that Lori would have confidence in a qualified professional to support them. It also makes sense that Jordan would initially be skeptical of placing his precious marriage in the hands of a stranger.

It took time before Jordan became comfortable with the process of sharing their relationship and sexual history with me. But with time and support, Jordan began to trust the process. They worked through their sexual misunderstandings and created a meaningful sex life together.

Why Your Partner Won’t Attend Counseling

Your spouse, like Jordan, might also balk at the idea of couples therapy, online counseling, online courses for couples, or any sort of relationship help.

While they may cite time, money, and energy as reasons to not engage, here is a list of the deeper reasons he or she may resist help:

  • Fear of rocking the boat and making things worse
  • Fear that the therapist will side with you
  • Fear of sharing intimate stories with a stranger
  • Fear of depending on anyone else
  • Fear that counseling means you have serious problems
  • Fear that you will use therapy as a vehicle for separation
  • Fear that needing outside help means your relationship is doomed
  • Fear of anyone finding out that your relationship is struggling
  • Fear of failure

Reaching out for help can feel paradoxical. Your partner might think that counseling or focusing on your relationship problems will only magnify the issue. But the reality is that if you play it “safe and silent”, your problems actually grow.

It becomes a quiet undercurrent that creates a deep divide.

How to Get Your Partner on Board

While there’s no guarantee that your partner will join you in therapy or any other self-help resource, there are steps you can take to help the process along.

Here are some suggestions for working with your reluctant partner:

  • Ask them what their concerns are for seeking help. Whether it’s a private option like reading relationship books, taking a self-help course online, or seeking therapy with a professional, ask them to specify what makes them uncomfortable about the idea.
  • Validate your partner’s resistance. As I mentioned above with Lori and Jordan, both partners had valid reasons for why they did or didn’t want therapy. Your partner probably does too. Acknowledge their concerns, even if it’s against what you think is right.
  • Address the fear factor. Read the list above and see if your partner names anything that falls into those categories. Offer your partner a different perspective to help counter the fear they might feel about needing help.
  • Solicit their ideas. Name a variety of ways you can get help as a couple. Ask your partner to add any of their own ideas and to rank them from most favorable to least favorable. As a start, consider choosing the method that feels most tolerable to them.
  • Play with hypotheticals. If you’re leaning toward therapy, ask what criteria need to be met. Male or female? Location? Faith-based or secular? Best time and day of the week? Specific race, age, or orientation? The ideal person to talk to? Expectations for therapy?
  • Explore the introductory model. Ask your partner if they’d be willing to meet once with a therapist for a meet and greet session. If you want your partner to sign up for an Ecourse, take the free webinar, or view the website together to become more familiar.
  • Make a commitment. Find one process to commit to. Whether it’s counseling, self-help books, or online services, ask your partner to pick one with you and make a weekly commitment to doing it together.

When You’re Partner Still Resists Help

It can feel hard to take all of these steps and still feel dismissed by your partner. The process may test your patience and tolerance for their resistance. It can feel unfair.

As you move through the suggestions above, be sure to add what all of this means to you.

You may want to say any of the following:

  • Nothing is more important to me than our marriage. But I feel frustrated and hopeless when you resist all of my suggestions. This hurts me. What parts can you reconsider?
  • I’m trying to meet you halfway but I don’t feel that you’re doing the same. We’re not resolving these issues on our own. I don’t want to live the rest of our marriage this way.
  • I understand your feelings about getting help but I’m asking you to push through the parts that are uncomfortable for you so that we can have a better relationship. Can you?
  • I’ll never offer you an ultimatum but I’m sure you know that if things don’t improve between us, our future is unpredictable. I can’t do this alone. It takes two of us. Join me.

Going Solo for Counseling, Therapy or Self-Help Options

If after all of these conversations, your partner still doesn’t want to get help with you, then commit to getting yourself the support that you seek.

While it’s not easy to reach this point, you want to make sure that you take care of yourself. That could mean reading your own books, taking an online class, attending a support group, or seeing your own therapist.

There are many paths to relationship wellness. Ideally, you want your partner along for that ride. Make every effort to get them on board. If ultimately, they resist, let it go and work on you.

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10 Communication Mistakes to Avoid {Tips from a Marriage Counselor}

by | Oct 6, 2020 | Communication, Conflict, Connection, General, Marriage Survival, Relationships, Sex Therapy

Are You Making These Communication Misktakes in Your Relationship?

Do you think to yourself, “We don’t know how to communicate“? Feel like you argue in circles, never resolving your differences? Sick of feeling unseen and unheard?

Good, healthy communication is a skill. It’s like a muscle that has to be toned through exercise. It requires intentional effort and practice and guess what? It’s something couples can learn how to do.

How often do you cut each other off, talk over each other, name call, or smirk at your partner’s comments? How many times do you create circular conversations that go nowhere?

In your intimate relationship, you will have differences of opinion. In fact, I hope that you do. That means that two unique personalities are visible. That’s a good thing.

But, how you navigate your differences matters.

Skills You Can Learn Through Marriage Counseling

In couples therapy, marriage counseling, or relationship counseling, we help couples see their own intimate communication dance. This includes learning about who tends to lead, follow, control, be aggressive or passive, pursue or distance, shut down, withdraw and so much more.

In fact, below is a chart that highlights skills we help couples avoid along with teaching them what they can do instead to help make their intimacy dance more fluid, connected, and loving.

 10 Communication Skills for Couples – Mistakes and Solutions

Avoid This… Instead Do This…
Talking over your partner Be quiet while they speak
Blocking your partner’s ideas and feelings Ask them what they think and feel, then listen
Name calling Manage your anger, take a deep breath
Blame and Shame Practice personal accountability
Bringing up old wounds and random issues Stay focused and stick with one topic
Belligerency (“You’re the problem, not me”) Remember it takes two to tango
Sarcasm or hostile humor Say, “I feel really angry right now”
Eye rolling, sighing Take a break, then come back to talk more
Personal criticisms Focus on the problem, not on character
Using words like “always” and “never” Say “sometimes” or “this happens a lot”

Center for Intimate Relationships ©2020 All rights reserved.

You can see that these communication skills are not complicated. Anyone can learn to strengthen and improve them. Over the years, we’ve seen thousands of couples in therapy. Every couple comes in with their own unique story that needs some form of guidance and healing.

As couple’s therapists, we use charts just like the one above to provide concrete tools for you to draw from, homework to practice and new skills to learn.  Your therapy sessions help you practice these skills so that you can bridge the divide between you.

Let’s consider the story of Harriet and Kirby.

Relationship Counseling with Harriet and Kirby

Harriet and Kirby came into therapy because they were at odds in most subject matters – sex, money, parenting and work. They felt deep marital dissatisfaction but weren’t ready to call it quits. They knew that they loved each other but didn’t know how to manage their differences.

We met weekly. Harriet expressed feeling overwhelmed by their work and parenting schedule, changes in her body after having kids, overall exhaustion on most days and missing the “little things” Kirby used to do for her to make her feel special.

Kirby talked about his stress around being a father due to how he was raised, numbing out each night with social media, feeling like he was always “in trouble” with Harriet and that he didn’t do anything right by her standards. He also said their sexless marriage had him feeling like less than a man.

Both partners came from high conflict families. As kids, they were the “parent pleasers”, in an attempt to keep their parents from fighting even more.

They carried this into adulthood. They tried to please too many people – bosses, external family, the kids, friends, neighbors, the school community, church members – leaving nothing left for their own relationship. They worked to please everyone but each other.

Each felt weary, bitter and resentful towards the other.

Those hard feelings showed up in their poor communication style.

They exercised behaviors from the “avoid” column above. With the guidance of therapy, they learned how those behaviors kept them stuck in a negative cycle.

After about 12 sessions, they started to connect the dots. They saw how their upbringing influenced their interactions with each other.

In fact, they got so good at seeing their own negative pattern that when caught up in it, they would name it themselves! “We’re in it again”, they’d say.

Except this time, they had communication tools to get out of that awful cycle.

With enough practice, that cycle showed up less and less as behaviors from the “Do this Instead” column showed up more and more.

Rather than get heated quickly, like their parents did, they practiced slowing down, conscious breathing, responding (Do Instead) not reacting (Avoid).

They focused on connecting instead of winning.

They lived for 10 years in a dissatisfying marriage. Through marriage counseling and commitment to the homework, they improved their marriage in just six months.

 

Healthy Communication With Your Spouse or Partner

Healthy communication skills are available to you too. As you can see, the skills are not mysterious or complicated. They are not vague or abstract.

They are concrete, tangible, do-able behaviors that you can start to practice right away.

Far too many couples fail to get the right help that can transform their relationship. With simple behavior changes, you can stop suffering year after year in an unhappy marriage and start to feel alive and happy again.

If you find yourself stuck in a negative cycle and can’t get yourselves out of it, consider working with a marriage counselor or couples counselor who has experience and can offer you research-based tools to support your relationship health.

 

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Power Struggles in Your Relationship?

by | Sep 22, 2020 | Conflict, Forgiveness, General, Relationships, Sex Therapy

Do You Have Power Struggles in Your Relationship?

Couples are often told to learn the art of compromise. Find the middle ground. Make your decision a win-win for everyone involved. Satisfy both needs.

Those are wise words and yes, you have to find ways to factor in what you and your partner want when making decisions. In many situations, that advice works. 

But, what if you can’t do that?

What if your situation is a bit more black and white? What if, whatever decision is made, somebody loses out?

There are some conflicts with no easy compromise.

Examples Include:

  • You want another child and your partner doesn’t
  • You’ve dreamed of moving to another state but your partner doesn’t want to leave family
  • Your partner wants to adopt a pet and you don’t want to
  • You both want your child to have a stay-at-home parent – each wants the other to put their career on hold
  • You want an open marriage and your partner wants monogamy

You can see that, in the situations above, neither partner is “right” or “wrong” for wanting their desired outcome. There’s no malice here. Just two good people with two very different desires.

For many of these examples, it’s not easy to find middle ground. Most couples go around in circles, debating their points, trying to sway their partner in their direction, ending nowhere but frustrated and back at square one.

Or someone feels repeatedly, “unheard”.

 

Here’s how it plays out once a decision is made:

  • One partner gets what they want, the other partner feels angry, bitter, powerless, shocked and dismissed
  • Their relationship divide grows
  • No one acknowledges an important word in the experience: GRIEF

It would be nice if each partner could always get what they want, equally. But some decisions can’t be divided up that way.

It’s not even the final outcome that tears couples apart. Instead, what trips most couples up is the process of how they got there.

In marriage therapy or couples counseling, couples usually call me after one partner went ahead with a decision; either out of assuming their partner was on board, confusion and misunderstanding or lack of clarity around their partner’s wishes. 

When you find yourselves in that situation, know that the person who didn’t get their way gave something up (even if they weren’t involved in the decision). 

So, even if you weren’t trying to “win”, your partner will inevitably feel like they lost. 

Maybe they’ve given up their dream to have a second child, or build their dream home, or make partner at the firm. 

Maybe they’ve lost their freedom and independence and now have to take care of another life (child, in-law, furbaby).

It’s not your job to try to convince your partner that the outcome is “for the best”, or that they somehow “gained too” from the experience. 

It’s not your job to help them see “the bright side” of things or in any way convince them to feel anything other than their grief.

In fact, when you acknowledge their pain and loss around these black and white decisions, you see and hear them. You validate their experience. This helps them feel like they matter, even when things don’t go their way. 

Knowing what to say and how to say it is key to repairing this type of relationship rupture. Below, I offer you language to help you hold healing conversations together.

In the examples below, we’re assuming that one partner went ahead with a decision that the other partner did not fully agree to. 

 

Here’s how to speak to your partner when they didn’t get their way on an issue:

  • I know I didn’t go about this quite the right way. My decision has clearly caused you pain. I’m sorry that I didn’t factor in what you wanted. 
  • I know there were no easy answers here. I can see that you feel like you lost out on this. I’m sorry for that. 
  • I know you weren’t really on board with my decision. And now that this is done, I can see how hurt you feel. What can I do to help you manage your grief around this? 
  • I understand how this outcome bothers/hurts you. What can I do to make it right?
  • I know that you didn’t get what you wanted out of this. I want to talk about what this loss means for you and for us. 

While it’s nice to idealize power as a shared experience in relationships, there will be times when one partner exercises more power than the other; when one partner feels more powerless than the other. These moments are inevitable.

In relationship counseling, I help couples work through those power struggles, whether it’s around intimacy, parenting, domestic life, finances, sex, career; and even in all of the small decisions partners make throughout the day that influence power in the relationship.

 

What You Want to Strive For

In healthy relationships, you want to strive for as much balance as possible when it comes to shared decision making. Maximize that to its fullest.

But also know that, at times, shared or not, it may not always feel equal. 

If one partner doesn’t get their ideal outcome, make sure that you acknowledge and validate the grief that accompanies the loss. Hold space for them and find ways to move forward together.

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Get Your Sex Life Back on Track

by | Jul 5, 2020 | Communication, Connection, General, Intimacy, Loneliness, Love, Marriage Survival, Mindfulness, Relationships, Self-esteem, Sex, Sex Education, Sex Positive, Sex Therapy, Sexual Dysfunction, Sexual Shame, Sexual Trauma, Stress

 

Get Your Sex Live Back on Track

Your sex life doesn’t sit in a vacuum.  In a long-term relationship, good sex is dependent on many things.  If there is any part of you that thinks sex should “just happen” – organically, naturally, fluidly, spontaneously, at will – well, you will be sadly disappointed.

I wish it was that simple.  Can sex happen that way? Absolutely… sometimes.  Which means that at other times, it takes conscious work.  My question for you is – Are you willing to do the work?

Life Obstacles

When you create a life together, you grow beyond the role of lovers.  You become life partners. You might be business partners. You may even opt to become parents.  And, you wear many hats in between. But somewhere in your journey, you begin to separate your sexuality.  It’s as if it becomes a separate entity, disconnected from all of the roles you play.

Your Sexuality

Remembering that your sexuality is part of you, part of your identity while you play all of those roles in life, is key to stoking the fire from within.  Paying the bills, shopping for food, or giving your child a bath does not erase your sexuality.  

The problem is that you become disassociated and disconnected.  You disassociate from that part of yourself. You disconnect from the fact that you’re a sexual being.  But, guess what? It’s there. It’s within you.  It hasn’t left.

Relationship Problems

Conflict in your relationship can also cause a disconnect.  Unresolved wounds, disagreements, absences, sexual incompatibilities, and more can make sex awkward, uncomfortable, and unwelcome.  Working through relationship difficulties can lead to a better sex life but even that is not a guarantee.

A Day in My Office

Here are 10 typical scenarios I see in my office that leave couples with a lackluster sex life:

  1. The couple feels stressed out by life
  2. One partner wants more sex than the other
  3. One or both partners have had affairs
  4. The couple struggles with parenting challenges
  5. The couple holds different marital expectations
  6. One partner is depressed or anxious
  7. One partner is a functional alcoholic
  8. One or both partners have body image issues
  9. One partner is struggling with a sexual dysfunction
  10. One partner has a previous sexual trauma

Why is Sex So Complicated?

Well, because it just is.  As you can see from this list, some issues tie directly to sex but not all of them.  Yet, sex is impacted by all of them.

My therapeutic approach allows me to take on a holistic lens and bird’s-eye view when addressing your struggles; so that together, we can create the right solutions for your relationship and sex life.

But, it takes some work.  As we work through the issues, obstacles, or disconnects that you feel, we also cultivate sex-positive energy, vibrancy, and excitement for your future sex life. Because it can be better.  At some point, what feels like work actually starts to feel like fun! 

The Secret Behind Your Sexless Marriage

by | Jun 20, 2020 | Communication, Connection, General, Intimacy, Loneliness, Love, Marriage Survival, Mindfulness, Relationships, Self-esteem, Sex, Sex Education, Sex Positive, Sex Therapy, Sexual Dysfunction, Sexual Shame, Sexual Trauma, Stress

Are you living in a sexless marriage?  Perhaps you’re one of those couples that from the outside everything looks picture-perfect, but you carry a secret that no one knows about.  You and your partner don’t touch each other, you don’t get intimate with each other, and you don’t have sex together.

Low sexual desire is the number one reason that couples seek out my services.  This is not an uncommon issue for many people in long-term partnerships.  In fact, my work with couples helps them navigate the dynamics in their sexless marriage.  

How to Navigate Your Sexless Marriage

Your sexless marriage is not always just about sexual desire. It can be a combination of things.

  1. First, before you can tackle your sex life, you and your partner have to resolve complications in your relationship. I’ve seen sex fall off the map due to other non-sexual relationship problems. In order for you to create a hot sex life, it helps to resolve the relationship problems first. This can be anything from betrayal, to parenting, money, the in-laws, career, stress or other issues.
  2. Second, resolving your relationship problems doesn’t mean that sex magically starts happening – or that sex will be spontaneous and amazing. You may have to rebuild your sex life.  You still have to work at it and that’s okay. Working directly on your sex life can feel fun, freeing and rewarding once you’ve conquered those non-related issues noted in number one.
  3. Third, after months or years of a sexless marriage, you and/or your partner have probably shut your sexual systems down.  This is where we tap into your sexuality as an individual so you can come together as a couple.  Because sex and sexuality is really about your life force, your life energy, your vitality. That force starts with you.

How to Raise Your Sexual Energy

Let’s get vulnerable for a second.  I want you to think to a time when you’ve had a really charged sexual experience. Can you remember all the sensations associated with this memory? If you hold that memory in your mind, you’ll remember that you radiated energy throughout your entire body.  You were fully embodied in this life force, this vitality, that is almost indescribable.

So, how do you raise your sexual energy once it’s gone low?  You have to tap into your own sexuality before you can tap into your sex life as a couple. It starts with this question:

What makes you (as an individual) feel most alive?

  • Maybe it’s going to the gym to get your body up and moving
  • Maybe it’s eating a luxurious meal that reaches all of your senses
  • Maybe it’s participating in a risky sport or adventure consistently
  • Maybe it’s reading an erotic novel to get sex on the brain
  • Maybe it’s wearing certain fabrics that feel sexy on your body
  • Maybe it’s touching yourself while showering to activate your arousal

Love and Live Sexy

I have worked with many couples who live in a sexless marriage.  You don’t have to keep your sexless marriage a secret anymore. You can do something about it!  Remember that – in addition to all the other roles you play in life – you are also a sexual being.  I encourage you to use the suggestions above or come up with your own and try them.

If you’re looking for other ways to enhance your sex life, here’s where to start!

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