Conflict in Relationships and How Counseling Can Help
When our relationships are in a healthy place, we lean towards our partner during difficulties or when we’re feeling vulnerable. Our partners are our haven from an all-too-often harsh world.
However, since this is real life, baggage accumulates. Our communication breaks down in the face of both traumas and daily minutia. We begin to guard ourselves because we’re human and even small differences can escalate into major conflict.
The conflict can be about one thing and stem from something else. We disagree about how to apologize, parent, or split chores, how we spend our free time, spend our money, or work on our goals. Maybe we approach our values from different angles or we come from clashing backgrounds.
Whatever is causing conflict to be present, please know that it’s common for anger to simmer below the surface of our marriages and relationships. We often hear couples say something like, “one little thing happens and we blow up!”
Resolving and Managing Relationship Conflict
Unfortunately, most couples get stuck here and their default setting becomes anger and the gap between their hearts expands. Whether you are married or dating, the path of anger leads to decreased physical intimacy, loneliness, decreased communication, increasingly harsher conflicts, withdrawal, and resentment. Anger slowly kills your relationship.
In couples therapy you learn to make it emotionally safe to show the feelings beneath the anger (hurt, fear, anxiety, shame, etc.,) and begin creating a space where your hearts can reach toward each other for understanding, love, and support. We often need our partners but don’t feel safe enough to reach for them during conflict.
Conflict resolution addresses the nuances of our anger, our disagreements, and how we each approach our goals. Our counselors work with you to find ways for both you and your partner to process the conflict and work together towards solutions and managing emotions.
Wherever you find yourself in your relationship, we’re here to help support and hold hope for you and your partner. Please feel free to reach out by clicking Get Started – you can also read more on our blog or find a therapist near you.
Why Choose the Experts at Well Marriage?
Our skilled marriage counselors get in there with you and help you both understand what’s happening underneath the anger. Anger protects you from hurt, but it pushes your partner away and causes more hurt to accumulate long-term.
When you work with a specialized therapist who has dedicated their career to understanding and resolving relational issues like trauma, attachments, communication, conflict, separation adjustments, infidelity, and more, you have a greater chance of getting to the root of concerns that spring up between you and your partner. As experts in our field, we don’t run out of ideas, insight, and tools that you can use to improve your relationship dynamics.
Our Specialties
Our therapists specialize in everything about how people relate to and connect with one another.
This, unfortunately, often includes topics like trauma, sexual issues, intimacy concerns, communication issues, withdrawal, and high conflict situations. We’re also specialized to assist with other aspects of life, like loss of job, infertility, death in the family, life changes, faith and secular issues and how they affect relationships, and couples from different backgrounds.
Reach out to our intake coordinator today to see if we’d be a good fit for your unique situation. You can also read more on our blog or check out our FAQs.
Get Started Today!
Our affordable fees and insurance policies can be found here. We work hard to keep the cost for couples therapy in line with other local providers, and many couples are able to get reimbursed through their insurance company.
If you have more questions that our website doesn’t answer, just click the Get Started button and schedule a free time with our Intake Coordinator; she’ll answer any lingering questions you have.
