Acute couples counselling can bring immediate relief, and help move the rupture from emergency through crisis management to healing.
Sometimes a sudden crisis emerges within a relationship, and this crisis requires immediate attention to plug the leakage. For that reason, I offer comprehensive and acute marriage counselling, couples counselling and couples psychotherapy to those in need. Acute couples therapy offers you the opportunity to share your thoughts, feelings and experiences and to establish a safe common ground. Regardless of how your relationship develops, I offer assistance in facilitating a respecting communication between you.
In order to bring a sense of containment to painful situations, I aim at offering sessions within one business day of your first contact to me. Contact me immediately here
Knowing what constitutes a ‘crisis’ is the first step in finding a healthier, happier relationship.
A 2013 study demonstrated that 72.2% of couples cited conflict and communication problems as a major contributor to divorce. Other reasons included infidelity (59.6%), marrying at a young age (45.1%) and substance misuse (34.6%).
All of us at some point experience a relationship problem. The problem might be easily managed or it might feel like a dragging, nagging issue. In some cases, these problems and issues can turn into an immediate relationship crisis. If unmanaged in these dark and choppy waters, the relationship may not survive.
What is a crisis?
What constitutes a crisis is personal and individual. There is no set definition. You might, however, notice some of the following problems that indicate you are in a relationship crisis:
- You are discussing / arguing again and again, with no end in sight
- You are stonewalling each other / don’t speak to each other
- You are sleeping or living apart (when this is not the norm for you)
- You are depressed or anxious about your relationship more often than you are content
- You have contempt for your partner (or they have contempt for you)
- You, or your partner, has an affair / is unfaithful
- There’s violence
- You are considering separation / divorce
- Criminal activity is being considered
Whatever your crisis is, it’s important to meet it with immediate care and attention. This can be challenging because oftentimes we don’t notice this crisis creeping up on us.
What are the warning signs of a crisis?
If you have noticed any of the following, you might already be in a crisis. It’s important to take action now and not wait for further pain to occur.
- You’re starting to hide things from your partner or don’t feel you can tell them how you feel
- You are feeling suspicious of your partner
- You feel arguments aren’t being properly resolved
- You’re arguing more often than you used to
- Sex is less frequent or less fulfilling
- You are having romantic or intimate feelings for another person
- You dread going home / take sanctuary elsewhere
- The relationship is feeling like a chore
- A life change (such as having a baby) has adversely impacted the relationship
- There are wider challenges (such as conflict with in-laws) that aren’t being resolved
When your relationship needs help right now
If you and your partner are noticing any of the crisis fault lines mentioned, don’t hesitate to get the help your relationship deserves. Much like an ambulance is needed at a crash site, acute couples counseling can assist you and your partner in identifying immediate dangers, setting up a safe space from which to listen to, and speak to each other. Finally, acute couples counseling can bring down inflammatory and hurt rhetoric, so healing has a potential to begin. These first steps are often the hardest for a couple to undertake, and there is no reason you should go the distance alone.
As your couples therapist, I will assist you in these first steps towards healing the rift, and my goal is to bring you lovingly together again in a new way, or help you both separate with dignity.
These processes are especially important if there are children involved.
Will acute couples counseling save my relationship?
It can and I am here to do just that. I have helped many couples come together again after serious betrayals.
Going a bit deeper to answering this very common question though, is that you get back what you give out. Whatever is happening within your relationship, I can help you to unpack the problems and find a more thoughtful way forward. But, I can only take you as far as you want to go. There needs to be an opening from you to let me in and then, working together, we can go far.
“If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together”
What can be guaranteed, with just a few couples therapy sessions, is that you will both have a more intimate understanding of one another, and a much clearer view on where the relationship is going.