When to Seek Professional Couples Therapy
The sun is shining, you’re having a great hair day, you got accolades from your boss during your team meeting at work, and you solved the Wordle in two, and then your eyes zero in on a dirty dish in the sink. You’ve repeatedly told your partner that you prefer dishes to go straight in the dishwasher after a quick rinse, of course, but alas, the horrors persist…and so, too, does the dirty dish.
You feel the tension start to rise in your neck and shoulders, and your thoughts start racing: I’ve told my partner a hundred times about how I feel about dishes in the sink, and they repeatedly ignore me. I feel really disrespected. Do they think my way of doing things is dumb? Do they even care about me? Judging from that dish in the sink, clearly the answer is no!
After working yourself up to a state of rage, you rush over to your partner, AKA the deplorable dish demon, who’s lollygagging on the couch, and you say something biting like, “How many times do I have to tell you that I do not like dirty dishes in the sink? It’s like you deliberately don’t listen to me. Or are you just incapable of following through with a task?”
Caught off guard, the delinquent dishwasher, AKA your partner, immediately gets defensive: “What do you mean I’m incapable of following through with a task? What about all the bills I pay? What about taking out the trash all the time? What about being the one to make sure we’re never out of dark chocolate peanut butter cups…? How does that make me incapable of following through with a task? What about when you…”
And so on and so on until it escalates to the point where both partners are attacking each other while feeling unheard, unappreciated, and completely disconnected.
And then, the next day, maybe you both wake up and quickly say you’re sorry or just move on without a discussion at all.
You may think you squashed it, but then the next week, you walk by the kitchen and catch a glimpse of what’s going on in the sink and—duhn, duhn, duhn—the whole thing happens again.
And again.
And again.
Perhaps you and your partner finally realize that you’re both caught in a conflict cycle you can’t seem to get out of. Perhaps you’re finally noticing some of the common recurring challenges that many couples find themselves in before seeking therapy. These patterns might consist of:
Cyclical arguments about repeated topics or themes
Escalating fights that begin about something small and snowball into the Abominable Snowman
Compassion fatigue, or finding that it’s difficult to understand or even want to understand your partner’s perspective
Increased resentment, or a persistent feeling of injustice in the relationship, with no sustainable way to talk about it
Difficulty communicating, especially during disagreements or conflict, where neither partner feels heard
An increased feeling of disconnection
Cue: picking up the phone to seek out couples therapy.
This is usually the state in which I meet couples in my office. They’re tired, shut down, exhausted, and can’t seem to figure out how or why they keep clashing in the ways that they do. Even worse, sometimes couples come to therapy years, maybe a decade, into their negative conflict cycle (and that's a lot of dirty dishes), where they’re actually wondering if it’s even worth working through.
If you resonate with any of the above, in any way, it might be wise to consider therapy!
Barriers to Couples Therapy (Why Getting Started is So Hard):
Deciding to go to couples therapy can be difficult. Especially if you’re finding yourself at your wit’s end. Many couples struggle with getting started or just picking up the phone. Some common barriers to seeking couples therapy might be:
Avoidance: Sometimes we’d just rather not reconcile with the fact that our relationship hasn’t really been feeling functional in a while. Sometimes it’s just “easier” to keep on keeping on.
Stigma: Though it’s diminishing more and more in our culture today, sometimes going to therapy, let alone couples therapy, feels like it’s a marker of failure, a punishment, or something reserved only for toxic couples.
Denial: Not just a river in Egypt, but sometimes we fear that therapy might reveal something about the relationship that neither partner wants to know or face, that could lead to the end.
Scheduling: It’s hard enough to prioritize and schedule our own therapy! Working with two people’s schedules in addition to the therapist’s can be defeating or exhausting.
Whatever the barriers may be, many couples who work through their resistance to couples therapy ultimately find that the experience becomes a meaningful, weekly ritual of caring for their relationship. What once felt like a stop sign often turns out to be little more than a speed bump. When it comes to therapy, whether couples or individual work, resistance, if present, is often one of the most effective places to begin. Bringing your fears, hesitations, or anxieties into the room can become the gateway to more awareness, honesty, and change.
Couples Therapy Doesn’t Have To Be The Last Resort:
Couples therapy doesn’t have to be a last resort! It doesn't have to begin right when you’re contemplating the end! Just like some people start individual therapy to engage in a process of self-discovery and greater self-knowing, others seek out couples therapy to learn more about their relational dynamics, especially when they’re not in crisis. When the relationship is functioning and is not seemingly on fire, that can be the most informative, effective, and constructive time to be in couples therapy as a way to examine patterns or maladaptive cycles from an emotionally regulated, safe, and calm vantage point.
We Heal In Relationships
I also like to remind my couples clients that sometimes we can have the most transformative realizations about ourselves individually while doing couples therapy.
The whole foundation of therapy undergirds the idea that we heal in a relationship, held by the therapeutic alliance, or the trust and bond between therapist and client. So it makes sense that in couples therapy, we can also explore ourselves in the context to our relationships. The relational work provides a special and specific angle through which we can examine ourselves, where we may come in contact with triggers, attachment wounds, or parts of ourselves we may have never discovered in one-on-one therapy.
If you and your partner(s) feel ready (or not ready) to begin exploring your own relationship (like it’s a new bombshell on Love Island), schedule a call with our Client Care Coordinator, who will connect you with a couples therapist who can help slow you down, witness your dynamics, process multidimensional feelings, implement communication tools, and guide you both back to each other with more compassion and understanding.
Starting couples therapy can be intimidating. (But also, nothing’s more intimidating than a dishwasher dictator.) Picking up the phone might be the next best step.
