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Online Marriage Counseling
Do you find yourself getting into fights with your spouse about the same thing over and over again? Does it seem like conflicts have become more about “stupid” things? Do you find your spouse more like a roommate and business partner responsible for helping you with the kids and the bills?
If so, then we are here to help. Unresolved conflicts tend to gain momentum over the course of a marriage and the more conflicts go unresolved, the farther you move away from your spouse. Our goal is to help you and your partner navigate through these conflicts and connect with one another.
Some of the issues that we help couples work through in online marriage counseling are:
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Communication Problems
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Emotional Distance
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Infidelity
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Divorce
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Co-dependence
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Co-parenting
Building Healthy Communication Patterns
One important thing that we help couples work through is unhealthy communication. Unhealthy communication patterns can come from unhealthy communication styles formed over time with parents, siblings, and friends growing up, or over the course of a marriage where you feel unheard.
Usually when we try to communicate in a healthy, more vulnerable way and see that it does not work, we resort to more angry or desperate attempts to be heard. This is where name calling, shutting down and walking off, and blame deflecting comes into the relationship. Specifically, there are four communication patterns found in the research that signal a strong need for change within a relationship.
In order to establish a healthy communication pattern with your partner, we will help you to create a communication style where both you and your partner feel heard and respected. Being heard and feeling respected is the first step in moving towards healing in your relationship and resolving conflict.
How We Can Help
Another important thing we help couples with is developing healthy boundaries within their relationship. Sometimes conflict arises when one or both partners feel that their time, emotions, body, or goals are not respected by the other partner. One of the key factors in maintaining a lasting relationship is making sure each person knows where they end and the other person begins.
If one partner is sacrificing significantly more than the other partner, then space for resentment, shame, and exhaustion is created. This does not just affect the partner sacrificing significantly more, it also affects the other partner. By sacrificing significantly more of their time, emotional and physical energy, or goals, they are enabling the other partner to rely on them and others in the same way without becoming self-sufficient.
There are extreme circumstances such as grief or illness where this is appropriate, but outside of a few exceptions, sacrificing significantly more for your partner prevents them from growing and flourishing as an individual.
For these reasons we work with couples to create healthy boundaries. When each partner’s boundaries are respected, it allows them to be fully present in the relationship. This is a cornerstone of a healthy relationship and a key focus for online marriage counseling.
Setting Boundaries
Communicating Through Love Languages
Love languages are other important factors that our therapists take into consideration throughout the counseling process. Love languages are ways to communicate with your partner that convey how much you love and appreciate them. When partners are not communicating through the love language their partner needs, their partner can begin to feel underappreciated or worse, unloved. When this happens more conflict and barriers are created in the relationship. If this happens long enough, space can be created that leads to serious feelings of disconnectedness and indifference.
Gary Chapman wrote a book describing 5 Love Languages: Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, and Physical Touch. Using these love languages, and potentially others, you and your therapist will work towards finding the way that each partner receives love best. After understanding the ways in which you and your partner receive love best, you will work with your therapist to practice communicating through your partners love language.
The consequence of communicating through each others love language not only promotes a feeling of security in your relationship, it also provides “cushion” during conflict. When you get into an argument with your partner, the feeling of security developed through love language communication helps to disarm you. If you know that your partner loves and appreciates you, then the conflict you get into will less likely be interpreted as an attack or blow to your relationship.
This is one of the most important factors in developing or maintaining a thriving relationship. We work with couples to help them express their feelings towards their partner in a healthy and productive way. When conflict piles up in a relationship, and there is no way to resolve it, a lot of hurt and pain can be created on both sides. Feelings of loneliness, shame, resentment, guilt, pain, etc. can run rampant.
These feelings need to be expressed to your partner. Once healthy communication patterns have been established, and you feel safe sharing, your partner can be receptive, understanding, and caring. When you are able to share difficult feelings, while feeling understood and loved, deep transformation takes place.
Develop Emotional Intimacy
Instilling Trust and Security
All of these factors contribute to instilling trust and security in a relationship. Not only does it make you feel like your partner wants to be in the relationship with you and you only, but it also makes you feel like they are there to catch you when you fall. Knowing that your partner is there for you makes it easier to flourish as a couple. It also allows each person to be themselves freely and openly. We all desperately want to be fully known and fully loved. The online marriage counseling process encourages this to happen.
About Online Counseling
Due to counseling at Revive being online, it is important to establish the legitimacy and appropriateness of online counseling for each of our clients. First, we use a HIPAA compliant platform to conduct all of our sessions. This means that your information is entirely confidential and protected. Our job is to make sure that you feel safe and that all sessions and personal information is confidential. One of the ways that we do this is by using a HIPAA compliant tele-health platform as well as a HIPAA compliant scheduling software.
Second, establishing a connection with your therapist is important to us and more than possible through online counseling. If we did not believe that you could establish a relationship with your therapist or make strides towards your goals, we would not participate in online counseling. We are committed to making sure you feel that you are making progress and have a working professional relationship with your therapist. If you decide to participate in online counseling, you and your counselor will work together to establish goals to make sure you are moving forward and making progress. In addition, just as with face to face counseling, you will have time to build a professional relationship and feel comfortable talking with your counselor.
Third, due to the nature of online counseling all clients need to have a reliable internet connection and private place to meet virtually with their therapist. This is essential to get the most out of online counseling. If you need help with setting that up, then you can speak with your counselor to get a few tips on how to make this possible.
Finally, please send us an email if you have any questions regarding our online counseling service. We want to make sure all of our clients find the right fit for them. If online counseling is not a right fit, then we are happy to make referrals. If online counseling is a good fit, then feel free to schedule an appointment online.