There are some indicators of a healthy relationship, so what makes a happy connection? How does one know when their marriage needs some help. Many relationships can look like they are working, but underneath they are lacking intimacy or connection because they ignore issues and do not resolve them. After a while, the spark disappears and it feels like two house mates living together, until one person decides they want more and leaves the partnership.

Causes of Marital Breakdown

Relationship issues

As a relationship therapist, Nancy Carbone has found that simply trying to make each other happy, by accommodating each partners needs, doesn’t maintain a healthy relationship in the long term. In fact, it often leads to bitter resentment or detachment when couples feel that their own needs are no longer being met because they are investing all their efforts making their partner happy and stop focusing on themselves or how they feel, and so they start to stop caring for their partner and become more self focused, sometimes drifting apart from each other. If they do not express their needs, concerns or raise issues that affect them, then they become disinterested in the marriage or can lead to distressed couples conflict. When things that matter to them get ignored or they’ve given up aspects of themselves for the relationship, then relationship breakdown occurs. The more that spouses feel their life is not fulfilling their needs, they feel unsatisfied because they are not living a self enriched life. Failing to activate their self and register what they feel, need or want, means they live a lifeless marriage. So it makes sense that couples disconnect, fall apart or end their relationship, without marriage guidance solutions.

A healthy marriage or relationship usually begins with a healthy sense of self. If you have a cohesive sense of self, you are likely to know how you feel, so you can express it. Those who have deficits in their self, lack self regard and cannot get in touch with their self, needs or feelings, so they cannot advocate for themselves, to promote a connecting relationship. A healthy self means you know how you would like to be treated and be able to make a stand for yourself, when you are not being treated well. Making a stand for ones self, makes a stand for healthy relationship, too. Letting your partner know what is not appropriate, when your boundaries are violated or when something upsets you, means you are likely to be respected in your partnership. Being heard and received by your partner is important. As long as your concerns are fair and not unrealistic, it is important that your thoughts are taken on board and acted upon. Many couples feel they do not have the communication skills to express themselves assertively without causing an aggressive reaction, marital therapy enables them enhance their communication tactics.

Anger Counselling in Perth

Marital discord occurs when spouses cannot raise issues with each other, so the issues get way out of hand, causing distress in the relationship. These partners appear loving and caring at first, but their efforts to preserve the relationship actually work against forming a healthy couple bond, causing couple conflict issues. What allows us to connect to our partner, is being ourselves. Being honest about our feelings, needs and vulnerabilities. If hurt feelings cannot be expressed, heard or received in the relationship, then the couple cannot repair the relationship rupture, so the tension builds and can cause a rift. Often anger can be expressed or acted out towards their spouse, but anger covers the real underling hurt or feelings that cannot be expressed. Angry outbursts can be a self protection against feeling vulnerable, hurt, longing, jealously or fears of rejection. Expressing these underlying feelings, builds connection and understanding. Yet, often, spouses do not know what they feel underneath their angry reactions. Being angry to ward off pain, causes more problems, misattunement and misunderstanding, often pushing the loved one away.

How to prevent marriage breakdown

Marriage counselling in Perth assists couples to dismantle the defensive reactions and get in touch with their underlying feelings, that builds connection and understanding. Once their partners get to see what underlies their behaviour, they feel more desire to understand and less likely to distance or react. When hurt or distressed, partners get s caught in their emotions, so the only way they can protect themselves is to discharge the hurt or anger, often leading their spouse to feel blamed, judged or criticised. So their partner does not get to hear the real distress or pain. Instead, as a response, their partner counter attacks or distances , to protect themselves from feeling wounded. So the anxious feelings get displaced and misattuned, causing more disconnect and tension. Often couples get so caught in the emotional storm, that they can lose grip on themselves and each other. Couples therapy assists spouses to hear and respond to what really goes on for each other, instead of reacting to the defensive reactions. So they can rebuild the marital bond, move past impasses or stuckness, so they can feel more secure, close and connected to each other. By working through difficult emotions, married couples can repair and rebuild the couple union, with a stronger platform to manage martial issues.

Marriage Counselling

When spouses attend martial counselling, couples often feel drained, fragmented or exhausted from fighting, arguing or feeling futile that nothing they do can get through to their partner. Often the ways couples cope and protect themselves from the hurt, can actually work against their relationship. Counselling for married couples, works at building the self for each partner, so they can each feel more cohesive and stable, so they can deal with relationship difficulties. As a marriage counsellor, Nancy Carbone works at dismantling the defensive behaviours that causes anxiety and heated tension, so couple feel safer to raise all kinds of issues. Once they feel their own emotions are more manageable within, they become less reactive and can begin to express their feelings, needs or hurt more clearly, without aggravating their spouse. Couples therapy assists spouses to communicate more effectively with each other, reducing the anxiousness, anger and hurt, so that these feelings are processed and worked through, and understood by their partner. Eventually each partner can do the same for each other, by being a stable platform for relating to each other, by being able to respond from a reflective place and not reactive. Marriage counselling assists to resolve issues and repair the couple bond.

Counselling Perth

Nancy Carbone

For information regarding relationship counselling contact Nancy on 0449 861 147 use the enquiry form below

For more details visit Facebook http://www.counsellingservicemelbourne.com.au/ Twitter and LinkedIn

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