Individual Counselling

You can make a difference to your marriage!

A good marriage will make life more meaningful as well as teach and support you in life’s endeavours. When a person is open to the lessons that a relationship has to offer and they apply a genuine effort to learn, then a marriage is simply an awesome experience that informs us about ourselves and how to be in relationship.

However, when we don’t do this, a marriage can be like a bus ride from hell, with the same issues reoccurring again and again until finally there is such a hard knock, or last straw, that you have no choice but to take a good, hard look at yourself, your partner and your marriage.

When the disconnect between a couple is weighing heavier than the good in the marriage, then its time to get some outside professional help.

Marriage teaches us about ourselves

A marriage is like a classroom for personal development. The issues that are holding you back from really embracing life will show-up in a marriage.

These issues do not appear, at least not to any great extent, in any other relationship. Issues about ourselves are often difficult to identify, let alone to truly understand or to take positive action to address them.

“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.” Elizabeth Gilbert

It is at this point that individual counselling can help a person to identify, understand and change behaviours giving their marriage its best chance of success.

Getting “fresh eyes” onto the problems from a qualified and experienced couples counsellor helps people get their relationship to a place where they want it to be.

My partner doesn’t want to come to marriage counselling

Sometimes one partner is far less motivated to be open to getting professional help when needed. This could be because the problems having been going on for so long and have become entrenched. One person in the relationship may become grid-locked into their beliefs and feel that nothing could make a positive difference.

Another reason why one partner may be unwilling to seek outside help is the belief that couples should be able to work things out themselves. This belief could be for several reasons such as ‘not making problems public’, or ‘if can’t sort it out ourselves, then maybe we are wrong for each other’.

For many reasons, even one person seeking professional help for their marriage can make a significant and positive difference to their relationship. The process of positive change however, may be slower than if couple attend together, but in our experience, it may not be a lot slower.

By attending counselling personally, you are showing your partner that the marriage is important to you, and that you are willing to go that extra mile to make it work. You may think quietly to yourself that the opposite could be said for your reluctant partner.

Whilst this is a natural conclusion, the line of thought is unhelpful at this stage. The Marriage Counsellor is likely to discuss strategies to encourage your partner to participate in couples counselling and to help figure out your next course of action to achieve this.

In our marriage counselling sessions with couples across the years, we have seen many times over that when just one person works on just their self, with a focus on the marriage, this can lead to good improvements both within themselves and their marriage.

This approach does lead to a reduction in the stress levels in the marriage, which creates a safer space for the couple to begin constructive conversations about restoring and rebuilding the love and connection that they have for each other.