Counseling for Relationships
First and foremost, one must resist comparing one’s relationship to others’. It is impossible to evaluate the strength of your relationship in terms of how it resembles the external features or emotional dynamics of other relationships. The “perfect’ or “normal” relationship simply does not exist. The truth is, the healthiest relationship is the one that “works” for you and your partner. General characteristics such as trust, safety, feeling protected, effective communication, mutual respect, and honesty, typically occur in many relationships whose partners report satisfaction.
What to do when conflict arises in a relationship
Disagreement is a natural and essential process of partnering with another human being. It is not the amount of conflict that arises in a relationship that is indicative of the “health” or “dysfunction” of a relationship. Instead, it is the way in which the couple attempts to re-set and repair the dissonance that indicates how well the relationship is functioning. Often, partners enter a relationship with differing patterns of expressing disagreement, commonly learned from the family of origin. Couples counseling can provide a safe structure within which to explore unrealistic and realistic expectations. Often a couples counseling session can provide tools for each partner to truly listen to and “hear” the other. Partners can learn to “edit” themselves in favor of a “win-win” outcome. Couples and marital counseling offers a structured and professional atmosphere of emotional and procedural support to guide this process.