Marriage Counseling: Resilience

Marriage Counseling and Stress

If you are looking for marriage counseling, you are probably dealing with stress. Stress is a normal part of life. But challenges can put strain on your most important relationships. You might struggle to know how to navigate stressful experiences and maintain the quality of your marriage. It can be hard to know where to begin, so let’s talk about that (Related article: Couples Therapy).

Fortunately, our marriage counselors have the tools to help you overcome challenges in your marriage. Our marriage therapists can even help you thrive as a couple after the challenges are over. (Related article: Marriage Counseling Tip: Either Way Its Hard – Whether You Try Or Don’t Try)

In this article, we will cover successful strategies that our Utah marriage therapists will use to help you develop resilience in your marriage during hard times (Related article: Couples Counseling- Why Waiting Can Hurt).

Marriage Counseling Helps You Discover Your Core Beliefs

Whether you know it or not, you receive many messages throughout your life about how you are “supposed to” handle stress. These core beliefs about your relationships can be positive and help to create healthy coping skills during difficult times. However, some of these messages can prevent you from creating productive coping skills.

For example, let’s say you are dealing with grief over losing a loved one. The belief that “men don’t talk about their feelings” may prevent you from being vulnerable with your spouse. Your core beliefs can prevent coping and can make your already stressful situation that much harder. (Related Article: What Are Your Core Beliefs and Needs?)

So, what can you do about these beliefs that went unnoticed for so long? Creating new, positive thought processes in your marriage can be easier said than done. This is where marriage therapy comes in! Our marriage therapists have training and education to help you and your spouse or partner find and work through these beliefs together. Once you are on the same page about core beliefs, you can begin to tackle struggles from the same starting point.

Therapy Creates a Common Story

Even though you and your spouse may struggle through challenges together, you will both have your own personal perspective of events. You experience stress individually. You might struggle to see your individual points of view, especially when times are tough (Related article: How to Communicate Effectively: Avoid These Two Communication Problems in Marriage).

Our marriage counselors can help you and your spouse share your personal story and help encourage understanding and empathy for your individual points of view. (Related article: Marriage Counseling- How To Fix Communication in a Relationship).

Once you “lay it all out” and work to understand your personal perspectives in therapy, you can create a shared narrative as a couple. In marriage counseling you can create connection and meaning through your shared story of overcoming challenges together. Research has shown that working through your shared story of resilience can help promote healing and a sense of togetherness (from Strengthening Family Resilience by Froma Walsh, 2017). Creating your common story can make things fall together instead of falling apart.

Finding Purpose in Challenges through Marriage Counseling

You can overcome challenges and maintain closeness in your marriage. Our Utah marriage counselors will help you and your spouse find purpose and healing in your shared challenges.

Going through a difficult time? Start couples therapy today in Orem, South Jordan, or Spanish Fork.

Written by Lauren Adkins