By Shirley Shropshire Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

I once heard that therapy was like telling on yourself.  As a therapist, I had never thought of therapy that way.  It makes sense though.  In essence, it is going to a complete stranger and telling them, in some form or fashion, what isn’t working in your life.  Even more so, it can mean telling your partner information you have a hard time telling yourself.  Like being exposed, the thought of beginning therapy can feel too risky.  It is easier to focus on all the obstacles of therapy like having a busy schedule, no one to help babysit the kids, or getting an outright “NO” from your partner.  It is often easier to find excuses not to go.

While no couple can get an insurance policy to protect them should therapy not work, many couples mistakenly fall into the mindset that therapy is somehow a sign of failure.  In short, it is anything but failure.  Often equal to a couple’s disillusionment, is trepidation about therapy.  So what do couples really want to know but don’t know how to ask?

Will I get blamed?

Sometimes couples come into therapy with obvious injuries, an affair or years of silent treatment.  This does not mean that therapy will focus on how “bad” one partner is over another.  Quite the opposite, the therapist seeks to help the couple find a way to communicate so each partner can help heal the injury.  Blaming often prevents partners from gaining new perspective or opening themselves to information that might require them to change positions.   When certain conditions arise, it rains.  With couples, when conditions aren’t favorable partners can blame one another.  Therapy is often more about the “conditions,” once the conditions change so does the weather.

Can you fix my partner?

This is the million dollar question.  Why else would you be considering couple therapy!  What is really behind this question is something else altogether though.  Often, the real question is “Will my partner ever get me?”  And if we take it a littler further, “If my partner gets me, will my partner be there for me?”  I know, I know, you are begging me to stop answering a question with a question.  I get it!  However the questions are at the heart of the problem, it is sometimes next to impossible to ASK for what you need when the conditions in the relationship are not favorable.

Are we hopeless?

This question really shows that couples feel like they are failing when they have to seek therapy.  Not only does going to therapy mean something isn’t working, but it increases the possibility that some outside person may say something you and your partner are completely unprepared to hear.  While there are certainly therapists who assert their opinions, I would push a couple to consider what going to therapy says about them, their relationship, their hopes and dreams for the relationship.  I have personally not met a person who was angry, upset, or hopeless about something unless the something that got them there mattered.  Beginning therapy can actually be a sign of a couple’s hopefulness.

How fast can our situation be improved?

Unfortunately there are no money backed guarantees in therapy.  Working with a therapist trained in evidence based couple therapy is important.  Some couples report new insight after several sessions, while others need more time to report improvement.  Therapy is not a magic pill that will immediately dissolve problems.  A general guideline is the longer the couple has been discontent the longer therapy can take.  Sometimes couples only go to therapy when both partners have past the point of a quick return.  For these couples, therapy is a last resort in longstanding gridlock of endless arguments that can take much longer to address.  On the flip side, some couples seek therapy once they feel themselves repeating the same pattern or have disagreements that always feel the same, which can lessen the time it takes to see improvement.  Neither scenario is a hard and fast rule for how many sessions any one couple needs.  The simple but true response is, it varies.  At Foundations Couple and Family Therapy we use a highly researched form of therapy called Emotionally Focused Therapy and typically see couples between 8 and 20 sessions.

Should we be together?  

I’m a therapist, so I hear a lot of pain in this question.  I get to thinking who else has told this couple they shouldn’t be together.  Where did this idea come from?  Listen, there are therapists and counselors out there who dish out an answer to this question.  I’m just not one of them.  Some situations do not allow for couple therapy, regardless of who the therapists is, such as in cases of intimate partner violence.  When I see a couple sitting in front of me, I believe they care enough about one another and their relationship to want to make it better.  So I believe them, and we begin our work together.

Foundations Couple and Family Therapy offers therapeutic counseling services that promote healing through relationships.  Visit us to learn more or Follow us Facebook.