Does Couples Therapy in Riverside, CA and Temecula, CA work?
Some people rave about their marriage counseling experiences, while others seem to shudder at the memory of it. What makes the difference? Well, the secret sauce lies in you, your spouse, and your therapist collectively shaping the journey. Here's a closer look at the keys to successful couples therapy and some additional insights into the process.
6 Active Roles You Can Take in Couples Therapy Temecula, Ca
#1 You’re the Game Changer
The short answer is, you make the difference! You spend an hour or maybe an hour an a half per week with your therapist. There is a whole lot of life that happens outside of that one hour per week. As a marriage counselor, we are less like a fairy godmother who will magically make everything better and more like a coach who will teach you some skills that you have to practice and implement at home.
#2 Your willingness to change
If you are unwilling to change, marriage counseling isn’t likely to work well for you. (Yes, I’m talking to you. You, right there. It doesn’t work for you to come to marriage counseling only wanting your partner to change. You have to be willing to work too. You both do.) Stubbornly insisting on being right or expecting your partner to change without putting in effort yourself is a surefire way to marital misery.
The pivotal question here is, "Do you want to be right or do you want to be married?"
Embracing change, even if you're uncertain where to start, sets the stage for effective therapy.
#3 Taking responsibility
Taking responsibility for your actions doesn't mean accepting blame wholesale. It's about owning up to your mistakes, offering apologies when needed, and committing to do better. It's a mature acknowledgment of, "Yes, I did that. It was wrong. I want to do better."
#4 How much you like your therapist
Part of what makes marriage counseling work is whether you like your therapist, feel like they understand you, and believe they can help you. When you like your therapist and believe they can help you, you are more likely to relax and allow yourself to be seen. The more the therapist sees and understands you as you are, the better we are able to help you. I wrote more about this topic here.
#5 The therapist’s skills
The therapist's skill and approach are paramount. The more experience and training a therapist has in working with a specific problem, the more effective they are likely to be. A therapist who has spent their entire career helping people with eating disorders might be really good at eating disorders but completely inexperienced with marriage problems. Choosing a marriage counselor with training and experience is part of what makes marriage counseling work.
If you want to dig deeper than that, even among marriage counselors there are different approaches and methods. In the past, counselors and therapists worked off of ideas that made sense to them. Entire treatment approaches were developed on an idea that seemed to make sense. Later research has shown that some of these ideas were just plain wrong and some were even harmful. A marriage counselor who uses methods that are based on research and accepted among other counselors is better that someone who is just going on what seems to make sense to them.
Read more about our therapists here.
#6 Getting help early
Sometimes people just wait too long to ask for help. While you are waiting, not sure if you should ask for help, not willing to go because it was your partner’s suggestion, or not wanting to share your problems with a stranger, resentment and distance are building up. If you wait until one of you says “That’s it! I’m out. I want a divorce” it may already be too late. (Whether it’s too late or not will depend on you, see numbers 1, 2, and 3 of this list.) I’ve talked to too many people who have said “My spouse asked me years ago to go to counseling with them. I didn’t want to go then. I should have gone. Now they’re asking for a divorce! Can you help us?”
If you get help early, before you have years of problems built up, you are likely to get the happy result that you want faster. A few months worth of problems is much easier to work through than years or decades of them. And when you have years or decades of problems to work through, the work is slow. Even when people are making progress, they sometimes get frustrated with the slow pace and give up.
So what makes marriage counseling work? You do, you, your spouse, and your therapist together.
Quality marriage counseling in Riverside CA, Temecula CA, and online couples counseling in California
At Inland Empire Couples Counseling we offer the best marriage counseling we can! Our couples therapists are trained in helping couples heal from infidelity, substance use in relationships, childhood trauma, communication skills, as well as providing the LGBTQIA+ community with pride counseling. We have online couples counseling in California. We have couples therapy in Riverside, CA. We also have marriage counseling in Murrieta CA or the Temecula Valley. Please reach out for help by clicking the button below to schedule a free 15 minute consultation with our Intake Coordinator.
Have questions about couples counseling? Visit our FAQs page to find out more.
