Separating Myth From Reality In Couple’s Therapy

This misconception may have some truthful component to it. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of individual therapists, human nature often causes people - even therapists - to show their biases or opinions. Eric & Erica avoid this situation because they always work together, as a Husband and Wife Team, in Co-Therapy with couples. In this format, neither partner feels that they are being "ganged-up" upon or sided against. Eric & Erica intentionally focus on spreading the problem among the partners since no matter how strongly each may feel, problems didn't arise solely as the result of one partner's actions or inactions and will not be "fixed" by the actions or inactions of one partner.

Quick and clear answer: NO! As Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists, we work with our clients as trained experts in the field of relationships and marriages. Our agenda is based upon the goals of our clients. Almost all of our couples co-create goals at the beginning of the therapy process to grow, heal and strengthen their relationship and improve communication skills. Sometimes, it also includes affair/infidelity healing. However, we never TELL clients whether or not to stay in their relationship or marriage because while we are experts in our field - we are not experts in your lives.

According to research from by Dr. John Gottman, renowned couple's expert, "couples wait an average of six years of being unhappy before getting help. Think about this statistic for a few minutes. Couples have six years to build up resentment before they begin the important work of learning to resolve differences in effective ways." It makes sense that you may be thinking a similar thought: "we've been living with our problem(s) for so long, things can't change - we're just stuck with our reality."

Problems are an inevitable aspect of all human interactions and relationships. The mere fact that your relationship is experiencing challenges that have existed for a short or long time is not correlated to the ability of your relationship to overcome the problems with our help. Motivation and shared outcomes is the key factor to successful couples in therapy - not how long the issues have existed.

Men and women often have different perceptions about talk therapy. A large part of that is the stigma that society has long placed on men sharing their emotions and feelings with others. When we first meet with a heterosexual couple, we often hear from the male partner that they feel weird or uncomfortable talking with strangers - or even their partner or spouse - about their deepest feelings. This doesn't mean that women find its very easy to explore their emotions either. In individual therapy, it can be a challenge for clients to feel safe enough to share and be vulnerable. In couple's therapy and marriage counseling, that challenge is doubled. Our experience working with couples is always based on creating and then ensuring both partners feel and experience a safe and secure environment - both in and out of the therapy room - to allow vulnerability to exist within the relationship.