Our counselors provide marriage counseling in Cleveland, OH

According to most romantic comedies, it’s the happily-ever-after end of the movie. The hard work of dating and finding love is done. Now, the couple gets to enjoy the peace and joy of marriage. Right? 

Only in the movies. Just as there will likely be times of goodness, abundance, and health, there will also be times of hardship, lack, and sickness. During those difficulties, more and more couples are reaching out for help and going to marriage therapy. There are never any guarantees in any relationship, but often, a relational expert can guide spouses back toward a happier, healthier relationship.

The couples therapists and marriage counselors at Thriveworks Counseling in Cleveland, OH have worked with many couples who want to make their relationship better but may not know how. Our professionals can help them find that next step and the way forward for their marriage. 

Learn more about whether couples therapy or marriage counseling could help resolve the roadblocks you’re both facing. 

Couples Therapy & Marriage Counseling in Cleveland, OH

Marriage counseling and couples therapy refers to a set of therapeutic methods designed to help partners and spouses learn to share a relationship more effectively. Any couple can benefit from talking with a therapist in marriage counseling or couples therapy—because any couple can always improve their existing relationship. 

Some of the most common and successful marriage counseling and couples therapy approaches include: 

• The Gottman Method: This style focuses on addressing the four horsemen of a failing relationship, which includes behaviors related to criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
• Emotionally-focused therapy: This approach aims to repair emotional wounds and damages caused by negative actions and words. It also can help both partners learn to prioritize emotional intimacy, learning to express their feelings and desires effectively and respectfully. 
• Narrative therapy: This type of treatment involves separating both partners from their behaviors and failures, and insteads takes a more birdseye, objective view of “where” the relationship has gone wrong—and why. Narrative therapy can help encourage empathy, renewed commitment, and forgiveness. 
• Solutions-focused therapy: This technique can help couples to identify the goals they’ll need to accomplish personally and as a team in order to grow closer together. This style is often employed to assist both partners in understanding and resolving the deeper dynamics and mechanisms causing their arguments, disdain, and emotional distancing. 

Should We Start Marriage Counseling or Couples Therapy?

Many couples wonder when or even if they should go to couples counseling or marriage therapy. Is now the right time? The only people who can answer that question are the couples themselves.

There are many ways that marriages can struggle, just as there are many ways that marriage counseling may be able to help. Just a few of those struggles that have led partners to couples and marriage therapy include: 

• Constant arguments: All couples have debates, differences, and disagreements. It is normal to argue within a relationship. Arguing constantly, however, is a different story. If every interaction is escalating into bickering, something is off. Both spouses may benefit from working with a couples or marriage therapist. Partners can learn how to disagree respectfully and express their viewpoints without escalating the conversation. They can address underlying and unresolved tension that may be putting undue stress upon the relationship. They can learn when to pursue issues and when to let them go. Often, a couples or marriage counselor can guide that process.
• Avoidant communication styles: Healthy relationships are unions between two healthy individuals—and knowing how to talk through issues as a team can help resolve conflicts quickly and effectively.  
• Avoidant behavior can occur when one partner is dominating the other. One partner may have had their thoughts or feelings brushed aside so often that they have given up their fighting for their individuality. This dynamic may also occur when the fighting has escalated so much and so often that partners have retreated into their own world.It’s important for both the avoidant partner and the dominant partner to find a better balance for the long-term health of their relationship—something a marriage counselor or couples therapist can help them find. 
• One or both partners have cheated: Affairs are betrayals of trust. They are signs that the relationship is in trouble, as well. If the relationship is to continue, then both partners have a lot of healing to do. The spouse (or spouses) who has cheated must also be willing to put the time and the effort into rebuilding trust. This is not an easy process, but it is possible. Some marriages make a comeback. At times, spouses decide that the breach is too big to be restored. In either case, a marriage counselor can guide that process of healing. 
• Each partner is trying to change the other: One of the hardest but most important rules of life is that people cannot change others. They can, of course, change themselves, but trying to change or control another person is unhealthy and harmful. This does not stop people from trying to change each other, but it should. When one spouse is trying to change the other (even for a good cause), the marriage will suffer. 

Trying to change each other means that spouses are seeing each other for who they are not instead of who they are. If changes need to be made, the motivation needs to come from the individual, not the spouse. If spouses are trying to change each other, it may be time to go to marriage therapy.

Is There Relationship Counseling Near Me? Schedule in Cleveland, OH

If you and your partner are struggling. You are not alone. Many marriages go through hard times, and while there are no guarantees in life, many marriages come through those hard times even stronger. 

Marriage counseling is not a magic formula, but it is help and guidance for the journey. When you contact Thriveworks in Cleveland, know that you’re receiving industry-leading care from experienced, empathetic relationship therapy and marriage counseling experts. 

Choosing Thriveworks Cleveland, OH also offers you additional benefits that other companies might struggle to match, including: 

• Personalized mental health care for your unique needs
• The ability to meet with your therapist quickly and easily via video — or, meet with them in person
• Affordable mental health care covered under many different insurance plans
• Therapy that delivers results—receive evidence-based treatment options from expert relationship counselors

Many of our providers also offer evening and weekend sessions and are ready to work with your and your partner. Reach out to book online, or give us a call at Thriveworks Cleveland, OH. When your relationship is in need of repair, Thriveworks has the tools you need to start rebuilding.