Here's Why Every Couple Needs Therapy

The majority of people will find themselves married by the age of 50, but 40 to 50 percent of these couples will ultimately divorce. Whether you’ve been together for 10 months or 10 years, couples therapy can help you build stronger bonds and avoid splitting up. Here are the reasons why every couple needs therapy.

You can work through specific issues.

When working with a couples counselor, you’ll develop a personalized plan to work towards your goals. This means you and your partner can work on specific issues that have been troubling you. Problems vary from couple to couple, and straight couples might not tackle to same problems as the people in gay couple therapy.

Sometimes you and your partner might not even know what’s going wrong in your relationship. Maybe you feel like communication is a strong point or you’re always supportive of one another, but something still doesn’t feel right. You fight more than you’d like or you become irritated easily with each other. A couples therapist can help you identify what’s going wrong in your relationship and work towards fixing it. Healing specific problems will make you stronger as a couple.

You will build (or rebuild) trust.

Trust is the cornerstone of any healthy relationship. When partners trust each other, they feel secure and stable. They aren’t worried that one partner is cheating or gambling away their savings. They know that their partner will love and care for them. You can’t have communication without trust, but trust can get broken. Couples therapy is an excellent way to build or rebuild trust. If your partner has a history of cheating, you might not trust him or her to stay late at the office. Working together to rebuild trust will make your relationship stronger and more healthy.

You’ll learn to communicate more effectively.

Communication issues are among the biggest reasons why couples go to therapy. They don’t know how to talk to each other. One partner might take everything the other says in the wrong way. Poor communication can lead to constant fighting, broken trust, and hurt feelings. Thankfully, great communication is a skill you can learn together.

Working with a professional will help you learn how to say what you mean without being unkind or cruel. You’ll learn why your partner hears something different than you mean and what you can do to be more clear. If you’re a more reserved person, working with a therapist will help you open up and be more honest with your partner. The skills you’ll learn in couples therapy will help you communicate more effectively, which will help you stay together longer.

You’ll grow together.

People change. The longer your relationship is, the more you will change. What’s important is that you can change and grow together. Attending regular couples therapy will give you and your partner the chance to grow towards a better future. You’ll work on your relationship together and work to understand how to be a better team. It’s perfectly normal to grow in different ways. Your partner might try a new activity that you don’t have any interest in doing.

It’s healthy to each have your own things to do, but having weekly check-ins with a counselor will help you continue to grow in the same direction. Allow your partner to have space while also understanding how you can connect. Knowing how to achieve this balance will keep your relationship strong, and working with a professional can help you understand how to connect and grow.