I have been offering couples counselling and marriage counselling in the Durbanville area for the last 20 years. In a few cases the relationship counselling also included the children for family counselling. In all these years a few clients invested in the couples or family counselling process as a way to grow in awareness and care for their relationships, willing to gain insight into and changing unhelpful relationship dynamics.
By the time most couples take the courage to seek marriage or couples counselling or relationship therapy, they are already at the point of separation or divorce, with little or no hope to work on the relationship. I would then guide the couple to enter the separation or divorce process in the most amicable way possible.
Every couple relationship, however you choose to define your relationship: heterosexual, LGBTQIA+, legally married or common-law married, closed, open, polygamous, polyamorous, etc. reaches crisis points that can either be an opportunity for growth as a couple, or can lead to separation or divorce.
These crisis points can be anything from destructive relationship dynamics created by partial listening and communication, avoiding conflict or being aggressive, relating to the partner based on your perception of the partner, breaking of trust through affairs or financial decisions that excludes the partner but impacts on the household, to name but a few.
Then there are other factors like parenting, managing elderly parents’ needs, sexual needs, work demands and stress, health issues and other external factors that impact on the relationship and create difficulties.
It is unfortunate that most couples wait until the issues mentioned above become an unbearable and unmanageable crisis before they seek relationship therapy or marraige counselling. The work to overcome the crisis in the relationship becomes so much harder and takes much more energy. I believe it is best to rather see relationship counselling as an investment in the relationship and an opportunity for growth, both personally and as a couple.
When changes or difficulties come along, reach out to a relationship therapist or marriage counsellor in your area for relationship therapy. As a couple you will then have sufficient energy to address the difficulties and work on the relationship in a constructive way. I always work with the binding factor, love, and both the internal and external resources that a couple have to give them agency and help them overcome a current crisis and move towards a deeper level of mutual understanding, love and intimacy.
I can be contacted for couples relationship counselling at 083 764 5978. My fees are R 800 p/h.