Relationship counseling: couples therapy, marriage
counseling, and sex therapy practice
In our culture, we do not have formal education on relationships, communication, or
parenting. Couples often do not have the tools on how to relate to each other and
parent children.
Many problems in relationships stem from inexperience or difficulty with conflict.
Family history has taught each partner different ways or rules of relating and
dealing with conflict. For example, one partner’s family may have yelled to resolve
issues, while the other’s family avoided conflict entirely. Each partner expects the
other to automatically abide by these unspoken rules.
In relationship, each person brings his or her own expectations and roles, often
believing that these should be understood and accepted. Couples counseling
often starts with having the couple identify and establish mutually agreeable, new
“rules of engagement”, communication, and understanding their partner’s
temperament, expectations, and personality.
Together we talk about each partner’s vision of relationships and identify personal
goals. What is important in couples therapy is to bring partners together, so they
can grow and become allies rather than become alienated from one another. We
work on issues of acceptance, intimacy, and sexuality, so that the couple
understands and tolerates the relational mine-fields.
The challenge of infidelity in marriage counseling and relationship therapy:
I help couples deal with infidelity in my Denver, Colorado, mental health practice.
An affair is a sign that the relationship is struggling and in trouble. It is not the affair
that creates trouble, the relationship may already have a history of challenges.
We look at what the affair is trying to say about the state of the endangered
relationship. Why did the unfaithful go outside? What needs were not being met?
These are examples of the hard questions each partner must ask himself or herself.
Infidelity involves hurt, wounding and betrayal. The bulk of work is to regain trust.
Staying together requires the partner who has been betrayed can come to forgive,
and the other to ask for forgiveness.
Together we look at the history of wounding and mistrust in the relationship. After
sorting out the reasons for infidelity, the couple will be able to decide whether the
relationship is salvageable.
Don’t wait for your challenge
