Couples Counseling Great Falls VA
If you and your partner are having problems, you may want to consider couples counseling in Great Falls, VA at Lindsey Hoskins & Associates. We are dedicated to helping you improve your relationship. We offer evening and weekend appointments to accommodate your schedule.
Good Reasons to Seek Couples Counseling
All relationships have their ups and downs. It is important to know when you and your partner may need counseling. Here are some good reasons to seek couples counseling:
Infidelity: When one partner has been unfaithful, it can lead to distrust and resentment. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean the relationship has to be over. In couples counseling, couples can learn how to move past an affair and make the relationship stronger.
Communication Issues: In order for couples to have strong relationships, they must be able to communicate with each other about anything. If a couple avoids having certain conversations, there may be a cause for concern. Couples counseling can help a couple learn how to communicate more effectively with one another.
Lack of Physical Intimacy: Whether it is due to loss of attraction or hormonal issues, lack of physical intimacy can negatively impact a romantic relationship. Couples can find out why they aren’t being intimate and figure out how to rectify the issue.
Premarital Counseling: If the couple plans to get married in the near future, couples counseling may be beneficial. During these counseling sessions, couples about to tie the knot can discuss potential issues they may face when married in a non-judgmental setting. For example, they may talk about how they will share finances or when/if they want to have kids.
Physical or Mental Illnesses: If one partner suffers from a chronic physical or mental illness, it can put a lot of stress on the relationship. Great Falls, VA couples counseling may help manage the negative feelings that come from the illness. The person suffering from the illness may discuss how he or she feels and the other partner may find out how he or she can make things better.
Blended Families: If one or both partners have children from another relationship, it can sometimes complicate things. During couples therapy, partners can explore the difficulties they face with the kids and figure out the best possible solutions.
Couples Counseling: Does it Work?
If you’re unhappy in your relationship, it doesn’t mean that you have to give up on it. A lot of couples go through phases of unhappiness and this is completely normal! The difference in whether your relationship succeeds normally relies on how you deal with it. If you choose to use couples counseling in Great Falls, Virginia, you may be wondering if it is worth it. Does it really work? The answer, in a lot of cases, is that it does. It all depends on what you put into it.
What Couples Therapy Involves
Couples therapy is a place where you and your partner can work out problems. A trained and experienced professional will be able to identify your issues and may have advice for how you can work through it. To have an unbiased opinion about your relationship can help you to pinpoint what you and your partner need to work on. He or she can also talk you through the steps you need to take to better your relationship.
Work You Need to Do
The work doesn’t end at Great Falls couples counseling. You can’t expect to go to therapy and reap the benefits without putting in effort on your own. For instance, say that you are having communication issues with your partner. If the therapist gives you advice on how to solve it, you have to take the appropriate steps to solve it. You have to have an open mind to the therapy in order to make it work.
If you have a closed mind, if you refuse to acknowledge your role, then the therapy may not work. It’s all about keeping an open mind and putting in the work that your therapist requires. If you aren’t willing to make changes, it will be hard to make anything change.
No Last Resorts
This shouldn’t be your final resort. If you’re going to counselling, you may still be able to salvage your relationship, but normally you want to attend therapy before it gets to this point. The sooner you attend therapy, the more likely you are to see results. This is because you are able to work on problems before they progress or before bitter feelings begin to build up.
Couples Therapy After Betrayal
Every relationship has its problems, whether it is differences in opinion regarding finances, religion, how to raise children, or even in-law issues. However, one topic our couples counselors help many couples work through is betrayal in the relationship. Infidelity is not an easy thing to overcome in the relationship, and how you choose to cope with this will depend on many things including your cultural background, religious background, your willingness to stay in the relationship, and your family dynamic.
During Couples Counseling in Great Falls at Lindsey Hoskins & Associates, we understand that it can seem impossible to get to a good place after something like betrayal. But, we want to encourage you by saying that couples can not only get past this but even thrive and have healthy relationships. Below, we will give you a glimpse of what it is like to sit in one of our counseling sessions:
How to Recover
We don’t want to mislead you. This is not an easy process and it is a lengthy recovery process. When a couple is threatened by infidelity, it is hard to gain that trust back. We also do not want to mislead you by saying that you will recover. Recovery is up to both people in the relationship. However, the sooner you come into therapy to speak with us, the better chance you will have with regaining your relationship after infidelity. In your sessions, some topics we will go over are:
-How willing each of you is to accept responsibility
-How you each deal with conflict
-Whether, given a choice, you choose to be honest in a certain situation
-What kind of communicator you are
The Process
Getting your relationship back after infidelity comes in phases. For example, the first phase is discovering that the affair occurred. In this phase, you likely feel emotions related to betrayal, disloyalty, and you may even feel anger. You are entitled to have your feelings during this time because you likely feel like you lost something significant.
Next, you and your partner will likely guess and discuss what actually led to the affair. Was there a lack of communication? Could you have been more intimate? Were you not spending enough time together? It is important to the partner who was not aware of the affair to understand why it happened.
At this point, it can be particularly helpful during Great Falls, VA Couples Counseling for a therapist to help clarify why things may have happened. Finally, you and your partner will want to address the problem. At this point, you and your partner will determine whether the relationship is worth salvaging or whether you should both go your separate ways, though each partner may have a different opinion. This can be extremely stressful as you work to fix the heart of your relationship.
What to Expect During Counseling Sessions
During counseling, you and your partner may have joint therapy sessions with a qualified counselor. He or she may teach you skills to improve your relationship, such as how to handle disagreements or communicate about difficult subjects. At first, it may be difficult to discuss your relationship issues with a counselor. However, if you are patient and stick with it, we may be able to help you find the solutions you are looking for.
It is important to have a trained couples counselor guiding your discussions so that you and your partner can get the most out of fixing your relationship, if that is what you want. If you are looking for Virginia couples counseling in Great Falls, you may want to contact Lindsey Hoskins & Associates at 703-951-6409.
Client Review
“Dr. Hoskins and her team have been nothing short of a Godsend for my family and I. Always patient, always ready to help however she can. Her assistance has been a cornerstone in our surviving one of the worst tragedies imagineable for a family to bear.”
Rod S.