Austin Marriage & couples Therapy
Find answers to your relationship challenges
Do You Feel Like You’re Losing Your Footing In Your Relationship?
Are your needs last on the list? Do you struggle to feel heard and don’t have the support you crave? Are you having trouble communicating with your partner, and you don’t know how to express what you truly feel?
Maybe you feel emotionally detached. Or problems in the relationship may have affected your mood, and you feel more depressed lately. Your body might feel tense, and you find yourself anxious throughout the day. Or maybe you’re feeling guilty about the anger that sometimes wells up from unresolved issues.
Coming to terms with the fact that something in a relationship feels off can be difficult. You might have gotten along beautifully for a while until you hit a hump. You say one thing, but your partner might interpret it as another. And vice versa. As a result, the comfort you once felt at home might be slowly dissipating. What’s happening?
You might try to ignore it, but eventually, it becomes clear that if your relationship lacks something—like empathy, communication, or intimacy, for example—then you don’t really know what could happen. And that can be unsettling.
One way to start to find the answers to your relationship challenges is by seeking help from a couples counselor. A counselor can help you and your partner build the skills to better communicate with one another, feel understood, and learn to view issues from the other’s perspective.
Many Of Us Let Issues Pile Up For Years Before Seeking Help
Most couples experience conflict, be that a simple miscommunication or an occasional argument. As a result, issues can slowly mount to create a barrier if they aren't addressed as they come up. In fact, couples can allow problems to mount for years before seeking professional help—six years on average, according to psychologist John Gottman.1
Of course, seeking therapy can also be worrisome. First, the stigma attached to it can make us fear that something is wrong with us for seeking relationship or marriage advice. (The truth is that this level of self-awareness suggests that we’re instead mentally sound for seeking help.) Second, what if our partner simply wants to use therapy as a way to end the relationship? The idea could be terrifying, yet couldn’t be further from the truth. If a partner has taken the time to find a therapist, this in itself suggests that the goal is to make a relationship better, that there’s a willingness to fix something rather than accept unhappiness and end things.
Therapy is oftentimes a means to a good end.
Addressing the issues alone is only part of the solution. Working one-on-one with your partner to figure out how to “save” a relationship or marriage can only take you so far. The same goes for believing that time alone can improve communication. Yet no matter how much work you try to do as a couple, you could never truly be 100 percent objective because you’re still emotionally invested.
A couples therapist, on the other hand, can be objective. They have no personal connection to you or your partner and can see a situation transparently for what it is. Seeking help from a therapist can provide you with the know-how to work through problem areas in your relationship, identify the source of your challenges, and change your behavior for the better.
Couples Counseling Can Help Your Relationship Get Back On Track And Reach New Heights
A lot of couples think that challenges are par for the course. And while this is true, the reality is also that these challenges—if unchecked—can threaten to derail your growth as a couple. As therapists, we understand the benefits of addressing issues as they come up, and even in some cases before they start.
In therapy, couples have a safe space to express their individual stories, find new ways to communicate with one another, and form new habits. Therapy also offers a space to bring up specific issues that might be difficult to discuss elsewhere. With the right approach, you and your partner can build the skills you need to set a stronger foundation for your relationship to rest on and move forward.
In our first session, we’ll ask you to fill out paperwork to gather basic background information and help you identify your goals for couples counseling. From there, your therapist will craft a personalized couples treatment plans.
Ongoing sessions will consist of executing your treatment plan. We will identify which needs to prioritize and then use evidence-based strategies to address them until you learn which strategies work best for you. We will also work with you to express what you feel while understanding another’s perspective and show you ways to build connection and express connectedness when it is missing.
In addition to communication issues, we also help couples work through challenges with intimacy, emotional distance, trauma, sex, finances, and more.
At Enteave Counseling, we utilize modalities such as Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and others. Emotionally Focused Therapy uses expression as a tool to work through fights and emotional distancing. EFT aims to reveal emotions that sit beneath the surface to understand the source of a problem. CBT helps you learn to reframe negative thinking more constructively so you can think and act more positively, and regulate your emotions. DBT can help you work through destructive emotional patterns that can leave you or your partner with feelings of self-blame, defensiveness, or criticism and teach you skills to break these patterns. Skills introduced in sessions are applicable for you and your partner to use in any setting.
If you’ve ever wondered about when the time is right to try counseling for couples, the fact that you asked the question may be a sign that now is the time to consider it. Couples counseling utilizes evidence-based techniques to help you overcome challenges. Ultimately, it assists you in building a stronger relationship so you and your partner can live your best life together.
But you may still have questions about couples counseling...
What if one partner doesn’t want to participate in therapy?
Couples therapy can be challenging because it requires equal commitment from each partner. Without both of you, you stunt your relationship’s potential for growth. Your joint presence shows that you’re each committed to improving your relationship. As a result, you each stand to benefit from the motivation you both bring to the sessions, to see what already works well and where things could be better.
What if the therapist and my partner gang up on me, making me the “bad guy”?
It’s a valid fear to wonder about this dynamic in couples counseling. But luckily for both partners, couples therapists at Enteave Counseling are completely objective. Our work requires that we remain neutral and not take sides. Instead, your therapist will look at the positive areas of your relationship and see how you can use this in developing new skills to work through challenges.
We don’t have the time or money for therapy.
Life is an expense in and of itself, with time and money committed to children, careers, hobbies, extended family, friends, to name a few. But without a solid relationship between you and your partner, how will anything within your relationship’s parameters succeed fully? Therapy can help you to find solutions and tools that can set your relationship on a solid foundation that allows everything else connected to sit firmly on that as well.
Couples counseling is an expense in time and money—yes—but your overall quality of life can benefit in immeasurable ways. And one of the default benefits is that you also become a positive model for a well-functioning relationship for others.
Are You Ready To Improve Your Relationship So It Rests Firmly On Solid Ground?
If you’re ready to build a relationship in which you feel seen, heard, and loved, I invite you to contact us via email at admin@enteave.com or our online appointment scheduler to set up your first appointment. Our admin and owner are available by phone and will be happy to answer any questions at 512-350-6236.
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1: https://www.gottman.com/blog/timing-is-everything-when-it-comes-to-marriage-counseling/
