South Asian couples often hold onto the stigma that marital problems should not be discussed with anyone outside of the family. While honoring the cultural value of privacy, couples continue to live in difficult, unhappy marriages without realizing that their relationship can be improved. This is especially important as unhealthy marriages take a serious toll on physical health, significantly lowering the immune system, and have long-term negative consequences on childhood development if the couple has children.
Here are the top 10 signs that your marriage would benefit from couples counseling.
1. You avoid talking about stressful topics.
Avoiding these topics signals is often a sign of a loss of trust in the relationship, which is essentially a crack in the foundation of your marriage. Avoidance of serious, stressful issues is the same as sweeping dust under the bed. Just because you can’t see it does not mean it doesn’t exist. The stressful issues that you are avoiding will continue to negatively affect your relationship and your individual emotional and physical health even if you don’t address them.
2. One or both of you express attitudes of contempt and defensiveness.
Contempt is like poison to a relationship and the only natural reaction to feeling attacked is to become defensive. Both of these can create a destructive communication cycle that can be long-lasting. The presence of both contempt and defensiveness more often than not in conversation indicates that neither of you are truly listening to each other and are probably holding onto built up resentment, something that can tear a relationship apart.
3. You feel alone or lonely in your marriage.
Loneliness often occurs when you’ve lost the emotional connection between yourself and your partner. This can exhibit itself as losing shared interest and common activities or not talking to each other about the little details of your days. Sometimes this occurs when a couple is so busy in their professional careers that they develop 2 parallel lives without paying attention to nurture their joint life.
4. Either of you have become verbally abusive.
If either of you find yourselves calling each other names, especially when you are frustrated or upset, you are engaging in verbal abuse. While the presence of other forms of abuse is certainly reason to attend counseling, verbal abuse is the early warning signs that it can escalate to emotional, physical and/or sexual abuse.
5. Arguments are a rule of thumb instead of an exception.
While arguments are essential and exist in all relationships, if you find yourself arguing with your partner more often than not, it is a sign that your marriage could benefit from the help of a professional. A couples counselor can help identify the pattern that repeats in your marriage that perpetuates the arguments. You will learn how to improve your communication skills so that you can effectively talk to each other about your complaints or needs.
6. It’s hard to recall the positive emotions you shared with your partner at the beginning of your relationship.
One of the most telling signs of a failing relationship is when you look back at your history as a couple and recall mostly the negative experiences. The way you view your past is often how you will behave in your future. If you remember the positive memories, you are more likely to feel secure and comfortable in your relationship and are more likely to trust that future challenges will be addressed successfully.
7. You reach out to your friends for emotional support more than you reach out to your partner.
Our partners can’t fulfill 100% of our needs and we require different relationships in our lives to support us. However, when you reach out to friends more often than your partner or you expect less support from your spouse than your friends, it is a sign that you have lost trust in your marriage. It signals that you no longer feel comfortable being vulnerable with your partner in asking for help. This could be because you no longer trust that your partner can give you what you need. Lack of trust makes it almost impossible to maintain a healthy relationship.
8. Resentment is something you and/or your partner feel often.
Resentment is the source of contempt and does long-term damage to your relationship. Not being able to forgive your partner for whatever he/she did has detrimental effects on your marriage that can take a very long time to undo. Couples counseling can help identify why you hold onto your anger and have a hard time letting it go. Identifying that pattern will help strengthen your relationship and get it back on track.
9. Your or your partner engaged in an emotional or physical affair.
Another breach of trust can come from an emotional or physical affair. Crossing the boundaries of a relationship can make it very difficult for your partner to trust you. Couples counseling can help you work through the motivation for having an affair and can help rebuild the trust in your relationship over time.
10. If you start asking yourself “what are the signs that you need marriage counseling?”
Simply stated, if you have asked yourself “how do we know if we need couples counseling”, that is a sign that couples counseling is right for you. By asking that question, you know in your gut that something is not right in your relationship and you should trust yourself that what you’re feeling is real. Couples who go to counseling when they catch the early signs of an unhealthy relationship not only stay in couples counseling for a shorter time but experience many more long-term positive benefits from it in their marriage. The longer you wait to get help, the more damage there will to have to repair.
If your marriage is a priority to you then open your eyes to couples counseling if you feel your relationship is not where you want it to be. When you need extra help improving your physical health, you may consult your doctor, a nutritionist or a personal trainer. Similarly, when you find that your marital problems have become larger than you can manage, consult with a trained couples counselor who can guide you toward a healthy relationship.
Sometimes there is only so much we can do on our own before we need the guidance of a professional and there is no shame in that. At that point the question becomes, what is more important, living by the cultural stigma against counseling or doing everything you can to improve your marriage?