Relationships

When a couple comes to “Effective Counselling” for marriage counselling, it is almost always because tensions, upsets and disturbances of one kind of another have occurred in the relationship, and have not been thoroughly dealt with to the satisfaction of both parties.

This can be a single trauma, a miscarriage, an affair, or a loss of someone or something of importance; often the arrival of a new baby can have the effect of one partner withdrawing his or her attention from the other for example, or behaving in a manor that can appear unfair or unacceptable to the other. It is true to say that any form of stress can pressure one, or both partners, into showing a side of themselves that was completely unexpected, new, or disturbing to the other.

A familiar complaint at this point is often “he/she is not the man/woman I married”. Sometimes a minor behavioural trait which in the first flush of love or desire can be endearing, when encountered for the millionth time can become overwhelmingly distressing! This negative response is what causes the problem in any relationship. It will have the effect, depending on the intensity of the ensuing confrontation, of locking both partners into a negative and fixed pattern of response, which when triggered will illicit in each partner similar negative attitudes and responses each time it is brought up. This can now become the trigger for increasingly hostile encounters, causing the relationship to slide rapidly into a more and more negative place.

There are many different causes contributing to relationship problems but fundamentally it is a slide from a positive condition, i.e. a loving, caring and nurturing relationship, to a negative condition where upset, disturbance, anger and general mayhem rules to the distress and despair of both parties.

At Effective Counselling we are fortunate to have the key to unlock this condition and help the couple to turn their relationship around by:

  1. Re-educating both parties so that they understand what is actually happening in the relationship, and why it is in their own interests both parties to change his or her behaviour towards the other.
  2. Helping each partner to apply this new approach to their day-to-day interactions, and to understand and appreciate the benefit to themselves of each party working for the good of the other, and how that change of behaviour will produce a better result for them and begin to show an immediate benefit to both parties.
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