Couples Therapy: How to Succeed and Make the Most of it
The basic and ideal goal of couples therapy is to improve the quality of you and your partner’s life together. Sometimes in a relationship, there may be changes in your life that are not desired by your partner and vice versa. When such problems are not communicated well to one another, it causes a stressful atmosphere and creates bad energy between the couple.
Thus, for the sake of moving forward and ensuring a happy relationship with their loved one, couples therapy is solely based on fixing these problems by coming up with compromises and solutions.
Couples Therapy – Here are some ways to help ensure success:
#1 Readiness
To bring any form or change, one must have the desire to change – The moment you both realize there is a problem in your marriage that needs fixing and have the desire to fix and work on it, there is nothing that can stop you from achieving your goal.
One common reason why failure is observed in such therapies is usually when one of the partners is forced to unwillingly attend the session and thus was unresponsive throughout the sessions.
#2 Decide Together
Every person has a certain preference or connection when it comes to therapists. This is why couples must first explore and have a few trial sessions with different therapists and then decide which one suits them the most.
It is important that both are in agreement with one therapist. This is because trusting the advice, solutions, and opinions of your therapist is the key to progress. This is why you’re going to therapy in the first place- to receive proper guidance.
Fixing problems in your relationship, Credit: flickr
#3 Keep an Open Ear and Mind
When something is stressing a person, their thoughts tend to get clouded with their problems and point of view. However, it is very important to break this pattern and keep an open mind during your sessions.
This is because you will be able to understand the problem from your partner’s point of view and you may be able to empathize and work towards uncomplicating things for both of you.
Therapy forces a person to express themselves and listen to other people. In short, it helps you communicate. The act of communication for both of you to share your expectations and needs and this act alone can make you feel so much more connected to one another.
#4 Be Honest
You’ve come this far to try to fix your issues so there’s no point trying to be dishonest about your feelings to one another. Your concerns and issues must be voiced out clearly because your problems cant be resolved if someone doesn’t know what your problems are.
Communication and honestly, Credit: Pikist
#5 Commitment
Remember, progress in any form of therapy comes slowly. Therefore, you must be willing to commit yourself to around six months of therapy and not expect progress during your first session. This is because it takes a significant amount of time for people to learn, change, and evolve.
Thus, to ensure success, one must prioritize therapy and create a flexible time and budget for it.
Remember!
The most important thing to remember during this session is that it is you and your partner against the problem and not against one another. So, don’t victimize yourself and villainize your partner but instead work together resolving your issues.
Sex Therapy Exercises, Credit: Pickpik
Couples Sex Therapy Exercises
It is a form of psychotherapy that helps couples overcome their anxieties and make them more emotionally confident in their sexual relationships.
It is important to understand if sexual contact is not an option because of lack of secual compatibaity or performance issues, general anxiety or any other reason, you both need to ease your way into it. There are a lot of non-erotic or no genital contact exercises that couples can practice until they’re ready again.
Some of these exercises include:
A full-body hug with your partners will help release hormones that will help you relax and feel more comfortable. The purpose of this exercise is to try and ease your way into getting comfortable with your part and feel more connected, psychically.
Lie down in your bed, head on a pillow, facing each other. Look into your partner’s eyes and feel the emotional connection between each other. Touching one another is okay and awkwardness at the initial stages is normal.
Once you and your partner start touching each other, you will start to feel and flow or a mental and physical connection with one another. While doing this, one can also light a candle or play some music to set in the mood.
Keep in mind: These exercises cannot lead to sexual intercourse. This is because this practice is meant for the initial stages when you are still trying to earn your partner’s full confidence and comfort and eliminate any form of anxiety.