Marriage is a special relationship, where the couples decide to live with each other forever, both in good times and in bad times. We do everything possible to nurture the relationship after marrying our partners, but sometimes things can go really sour, causing serious strain in the relationship.
If your married life has reached such a juncture, then you must seriously consider getting help from an expert or a relationship counselor. It is also called as marriage counseling or the couples therapy.
Make sure you go for the therapy at trusted centers like the Naya Clinics. They have their counseling offices in Cincinnati and West Chester Township in Ohio State, and also at Boston, MA and Florence, KY. They offer the services of trained and certified therapists, who have a good track record of helping people in solving many types of life related issues.
What can lead to strain in relationship among married couples?
Lack of communication
One of the main reasons which ruin relationships is the communication gap that is created over a period of time. After sometime, they don’t even find the necessity to talk about the issues, and find the solutions.
Negative interaction
It is important for us to have positive interaction, in order to nurture and sustain long-term relationships. Lack of understanding, empathy, and indifference, will cause negative interaction, which if not addressed on time, can even lead to break ups and divorces.
Not opening up to each other
If one of the partners in the marriage is unable to open up and express his or her feelings, then it can lead to misunderstandings and suspicions. The other partner will find it difficult to behave naturally, because of the uncertainty hanging between them.
By not being kind to each other
Life will have its ups and downs, and we as humans will make mistakes. However, if we resort to punishing each other by being mean, then it will lead to further heartbreaks and disappointments. In a relationship, it is important to understand each other, rather than trying to find faults all the time.
You start feeling like individuals rather than partners
Marriages are all about deep sense of bonding and love. Couples will need to work with each other like a team, and supplement their strengths and weaknesses. If you start feeling like individuals living together just because you are married, then it becomes difficult to bridge the crack that is formed. If your married life has reached that stage, it is best to take up couples therapy, and find solutions to improve the relationship.
Being dishonest
The key for strong marriage relationships is honesty and trust. If any one of the partners breaks the trust, then it becomes very difficult to live with that person. However, you must seriously consider about giving your marriage a chance, before taking any impulsive action that you will regret later.
Extramarital affairs
You can’t be true to your marriage, if you are seeking an affair, or if you are already having an affair outside the marriage. Things can go bitter, if the partner gets to know about it, and it could also lead to domestic violence. Whatever may be the situation in your personal life, the matter can be resolved amicably by taking help from trained or professional counselors.
Children
Children will always have a special place in the hearts of their parents, but if parenting is not done correctly, then it can create a serious drift in between the parents itself. As a couple, it is in your best interest to get in touch with an experienced life coach, who can help you in bringing up your children, without ruining your personal relationship.
If you are looking to change the behavior of your partner
Success of marriages will depend mostly on the compatibility and understanding of each other. If you try to hard to change your partner to suit your liking, it could backfire and create problem to your relationship itself.
Marriage is not about finding the perfect person to lead a life. It is more like 2 imperfect people getting together to build a perfect life. There will be a lot of ups and downs in our lives, but we cannot expect our partners to change from what they are, and expect them to always do exactly like what we want.
When you start losing intimate sexual feelings for each other
Sex is another important ingredient for a healthy married life. As we keep getting busy with our professional lives, the frequency of having sex with our partner tends to reduce. It is important for you to not let that fire of passion and intimacy for each other, die down.
Therefore, you must always remember to maintain a healthy sexual life in order to deepen the intimacy and affection for each other. If any of you are having health related issue which causes the lack of libido, then you must take medical help and counseling to get it back on track.
Why you should take up relationship counseling
If you decide to take up counseling to save your relationship, then you have already taken the first step in the right direction. It means is that you are willing to make the changes on things that had led to the strain in your married life.
Your counselor may take individual counseling with each one of you to understand individual sides of the story. It is the part of the relationship counseling, as it will help the expert in conducting productive couples sessions.
In most of the marriage relationships, the husband and wife are unaware about the things that are actually causing the problem. They don’t see any problem with the way they talk and behave with each other.
Counselors are trained to identify those problems, and help them in bridging the gap that is created. That is one of the main reasons why these types of couple therapies and relationship counseling have helped in saving many marriages.