Couples / Marriage Counseling & Therapy – Austin, Texas

The high of new love is caused by a chemical in the brain called phenylethylamine (PEA). This chemical is designed to stimulate mating, not bind people together emotionally. When those wonderful feelings wear off, you might think you’re falling out of love.

That’s where deep, lasting love can begin. However, relationships are complex and challenging and most couples don’t know how to reduce and resolve conflict amicably. The key to deep, lasting love is learning how to properly communicate with each other.

Couples counseling can help dating couples, married couples and blended family couples. Are you step-parenting? This is a common problem for couples in blended families. Sixty percent of second marriages and seventy-three percent of third marriages end in divorce. This is often the result of very complicated issues inherent in stepfamily situations. Couples counseling can help you unravel the areas where you get stuck, simplify how you address each issue, and put you on the road to problem-solving.

Couples counseling will provide an environment that is safe for each of you to lower your defenses, learn how to listen to each other, understand each other’s point of view, and gain empathy for the other’s plight. It will identify your relationship/marriage role models, as well as look for relationship patterns that have been passed down from your family-of-origin. This first session is a powerful one and will help you understand what each brings to the relationship, as well as how these differences can lead to positive change.

Ready for relationship help but your partner is not? Couples counseling is still an option for you. The right guidance equips you with the support and strategies you need to better manage the relationship.

Couples / Marriage Counseling & Therapy Will Help You:

• Improve communication and reduce conflict and reactivity
• Understand patterns of relating that are habit and how to adopt more productive ones
• Practice skills that encourage empathy, understanding, safety and friendship
• Decide what family dynamics and behaviors each bring to the relationship and how they affect the other person
• Resolve long-standing differences to heal old, painful hurts
• Revise what you want the relationship to look like and learn specific skills to ensure that each person’s needs are met
• Learn how to meet your partner’s needs without resentment
• Rebalance roles and responsibilities to create more equality and fairness
• Learn how to have fun again
• Learn how to start anew after a crisis, such as infidelity or loss
• Feel safe and connected again – both emotionally and physically

Contemplating divorce, yet afraid of hurting the children? Couples counseling can play a vital role in how you relate to each other during a separation, as well as how your behavior affects your child(ren). Whether you divorce or not, your interaction will have a lasting impression on all involved. Couples counseling guides you through this process and reveals how to best address every step.

It is quite possible for couples to fall in love again with the right relationship help – or find a way to move forward in a safe and productive manner. Click here to set up a session or simply ask more questions.

Austin, Texas Couoples / Marriage Counselor & Therapist, Dr. Pam Monday