When Is the right time for couples therapy?

One of the hardest things I see as a couples therapist is that couples are coming in to therapy too late to salvage their relationships. Most couples wait until things are very bad to come into therapy and at that point, both people are more fully entrenched in their positions and are in a standoff, and a lot of hurt and damage to the relationship has already ocurred. There is sadly, very little a couples therapist can do when one of the partners has one foot out the door. Many people view couples therapy as a last ditch effort prior to divorce or separation, which sets both the relationship and the therapy up for failure.  Couples therapy is so much more effective when people come in when they first start to see a problem. Just like in medicine, prevention and early detection are much better predictors of a successful outcome than when there is already a big problem. The negative communication patterns, or dances, in a relationship are much like cancer-the more they are left unchecked, the more they grow and take over the relationship until there is little or nothing left of the couple's original connection. Unfortunately, many couples come in when their negative patterns have eaten away at the foundation of their relationship.

I can see why people would wait to go to couples therapy. It is an expense, it is a time commitment, and it can be emotionally uncomfortable. But when you are not happy in your relationship, nothing else seems right and you are actually at a much higher risk for depression, anxiety, and physical health issues. We are wired for connection and when we do not have that safe and secure bond with our beloved, our stress hormones go through the roof and we cannot function at an optimal level emotionally, physically, or spiritually. On the reverse, when we feel a safe emotional connection and when we feel seen, heard, and loved by our significant other we feel safe to explore the world. Just as a two year old needs to know that his trusted caregivers are nearby to catch him if he falls, so do us adults. it makes us all feel safer to explore the world if we know that there is someone at home who really has our back.

Here are some signs that couples therapy may be right for you at this time:

• You don't feel the same connection to your partner that you used to
• You feel misunderstood by your partner
• You feel angry at your partner often
• You avoid coming home or seeing your partner
• You get anxious or nervous at the thought of seeing your partner
• When you try to connect with your partner it often ends up in a fight
• The bad times are outnumbering the good
• One of you is contemplating (or is in) an affair
• You fantasize about leaving and feel like you would be better off on your own
• Your main emotional support is someone other than your partner (other emotional supports are great-I am talking about your primary person)
• You feel like your partner does not have your back or is constantly undermining or criticizing you
• You feel like you are the last thing on your partner's list or that your partner cares about other things or people more than you
• One or both of you is struggling with addiction (or overuse of): porn, alcohol or drugs, video games, TV etc.
• Your sex life is not what you want it to be
•  You have tried to talk about your relationship, but it ends up in a fight or just doesn't happen
•  The issues in your relationship are being pushed under the rug
• You are going through a particularly stressful time, such as: the birth of a child, a medical issue, difficulty conceiving, the death or illness of a loved one etc.
• There is a particular issue that is leaving the two of you stuck, like: whether or not to marry, ahve a/nother child, where to live, how much sex to have etc

No relationship is perfect and even in the best of relationships, couples fight and that is normal. It is often not the fighting in relationships that is the problem, it is the way that certain types of fighting or communicating can erode the feelings of safety, trust, comfort, and connection in the relationship. I feel that even the healthiest of relationships can benefit from couples therapy at one time or another in the course of the relationship. Let's face it, relationships are very hard and most of us do not have models for how to do it right. Couples therapy and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) in particular, helps couples understand their negative cycles, or dances, that they get caught up in and then helps them rebuild their connection from the bottom up. When you have that connection with your partner in which you feel loved, cared for, heard, understood, protected it gives you a safe haven to come home to every day so that you can go out and rock the world. Why put that off? Why put your happiness as an individual and as a couple off to a future date when things are really bad? You both deserve better than that. 

Lightening the load of mothering

A fellow Brooklyn mama recently asked for my take on this post. The gist being that we need to delineate between the relationships that we have with our children and the jobs of parenting, and that it is the relationship that matters and the jobs (cooking cleaning, laundry, nap time, etc.) that can really create the grind of mothering. I particularly love the last sentence which asks us to reflect on how to have the intensity of the relationship with our children without the grind of the jobs of mothering, and that we each need to find our own way through this.

I am going to suggest, that it is the pressure that we put on ourselves to be "prefect" moms that creates much of this grind, or at least adds significantly to it. Perfection is a myth, something that we will never attain, because there is always someone who is doing ________ better. In Brene Brown's new book Daring Greatly, which I will probably referenece many more times-it is just that good, she talks about how mothering is one of the greatest sources of shame for women. Shame can suck the life and joy out of us. Shame is the grind to me.

Most mothers, compare themselves to other mothers, or what we think other mothers are doing, and determine that we do not measure up. When we are in a place of shame and our inner critics are yelling, it is all consuming and puts us in a state of fight, flight, or freeze. I know that I have been at the playground with my son and saw another mother, "doing it better" by singing more, "playing better", saying wittier things to her children, being more emotive (the list goes on) and I immediately go into "compare and despair" and into a shame spiral in which I am not present for my child or myself.  Because I am a therapist, who focuses on attachment, my shame gremlins (as Brene Brown calls them) tell me that I am not connecting with my son enough on an emotional level, despite my intellectual knowledge that I am a good mom and that my son is securely attached to me.

Even if we are not mothers, there can be shame about why we are not mothers yet for whatever reason, be they that we are not in a relationship, have had difficulty conceiving, do not want to be mothers, etc. Some  mothers' inner critics get loud about our housekeeping (or lack of it), the way we feed our children, how much we work outside the home, how our children are comparing to other children their age-again the list goes on.

I ask that we all take a stand against our own inner critics and when we hear them talking (or yelling at us-they can be nasty!):

1) Acknowledge that your inner critic has the floor
2) Quiet the inner critic-take some deep breaths, thank it for trying to help you be a great mom and then tell it to shove it, re-connect with your child or your purist intentions as a mom
3) Share how this inner critic took over momentarily with a trusted caring person in your life

Furthermore I ask you to consider:

1) What do I do as a mom/parent that REALLY stresses me out?
2) Can I get help or support around these particular tasks (either paid or ask partners, friends, family)?
3) What are some of the expectations of myself that I can let go of?
4) What are my standards and how did these come to be?
5) Are these standards realistic?
6) Where can I ease up on myself?
7) Know that it can't ALL get done and be OK with that. A very dear and wise friend said if the dishes are done and I cooked dinner all week, no laundry is done, if all of the laundry is done and put away-no cooking dinner, and if I want to actually see people hardly anything gets done-so true!


In the end, when our children are grown up, we are not going to wish that we did a better job cleaning the house, making sure the laundry was always folded neatly and put away right away, or that every meal was organic. We will be thinking of our relationship with our children-how we nurtured them, provided for their emotional needs, gave them a secure base, loved them completely and wholly for who they are, and all of the many joyful heartfelt moments that we spent with them. That is what matters and tell THAT to the inner critic.

Welcome and invitation for questions

There is never enough time in therapy to get to everything. With every individual and couples session that I have, there is always more I would like to say, more valuable resources to pass along, and more insights that I could share. Although every person and couple are different, I believe that much of what I have to say can apply to many of us. In thinking about topics for this blog, I want them to be relevant.

So here is my request to you: Send me your questions!

Whether you are in therapy with me, have been in therapy with me, in therapy with someone else, never been in therapy before and are curious, want to ask a relationship expert (meaning me!) something and never had the opportunity to etc. I would love to hear from you.

Questions can include, but are not limited to: if you, or you and your partner, are having a hard week and need some help getting unstuck, if you want me to expand upon something I said or did with you, or want a resource. Please email your questions and say that they are specifically for this blog or comment anonymously so that I can maintain confidentiality. In the reply that I post, I will not reveal any confidential or personal information and the post will be written in general terms-if you had the question, someone else has it too. I plan to answer one question a week and if the question would be better addressed in a therapy session, I will let you know personally.

If this is too personal a request, the topics that I am already thinking of covering are:

• Book, movie, and resource, recommendations for couples, parents, individuals
• Stress Management Techniques
• Ways to get out of your negative cycle (for couples and individuals)
• Ideas for connecting with your partner, friends, or family
• Personal insights regarding doing this work, being in a relationship, being a parent
• Sex and relationships
• Money and relationships
• Bringing up a potentially difficult/conflict ridden subject with your partner/child/boss in a way that they can hear you

Let me know if there are additional topics that appeal to you or if there are ones on the list above that appeal to you.

I can't wait to hear from you!