My Marriage Is in Trouble: Can You Help?

Couple meets with therapist to get help for troubled marriage

Around half of all marriages end in divorce, and it’s no surprise, with all the challenges that a marriage has to survive. Changes in your life, your partner’s life, or even pre-existing incompatibilities may cause you and your partner to struggle to stay together, and to honor the love that originally brought you together.

Dr. Geoff Nugent and the team of licensed therapists and counseling experts at Nugent Family Counseling Center of San Jose, California, Los Gatos, California, and Reno, Nevada, offer unbiased, non-judgmental marriage counseling to help with relationships in crisis.

Whether the right answer for you and your spouse is reconciliation or healthy separation, working with an expert counselor protects both of your emotional well-being and personal needs.

When your partnership isn’t working

Marriage involves give and take, from both partners, every day. Many factors, from underlying mental health issues to recent life, health, or career changes can throw your marriage under more strain than you and your partner can manage.

You know your marriage isn’t working right when you or your partner are always apologizing, often feel resentful, or you find yourself starting to feel emotions of contempt toward your partner. It can be difficult to handle negative conflict cycles on your own.

While your frustrations are certainly normal, and may well be justified, you may need the support of a professional to successfully communicate with your partner about your needs, boundaries, and emotions. If you have children or other dependents, emotions around marital issues can run especially high, creating a need for careful and effective communication.

How counseling can help your marriage

When you think of counseling in the context of relationship problems, you probably think of one type of treatment, couples’ counseling. But, that’s not the only form of support that can be beneficial for individuals dealing with marital or relationship problems.

Couples’ counseling gives you and your partner a mediated space to work through issues in your relationship, determining if common ground remains and, if so, finding a path back to reconnection. In couples’ counseling sessions, you and your partner learn more about effective communication strategies, and practice healthy communication to start new patterns together.

The stress of marriage or relationship problems, and the questions of personal identity and values that are often a part of marriage troubles, mean that individual counseling or therapy is also a good fit for this type of situation. You or your partner may opt to use individual therapy in combination with couples’ counseling, as well.

Understanding couples’ counseling

Couples’ counseling at Nugent Family Counseling Center uses multiple types of therapeutic tools and approaches to give you the maximum benefit. Your provider assesses your situation, and guides your sessions toward the right type of treatment for your unique marital issues.

Your marriage might need emotionally-focused couples therapy, or maybe cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques will work better to change underlying mindsets that lead to conflict. Narrative therapy and spiritual counseling offer other avenues to explore the causes of your relationship problems. And, your provider can suggest neurofeedback treatment if that modality might be helpful.

With the right support, your marriage troubles don’t have to ruin your life, or that of your partner. Working with a member of the team at Nugent Family Counseling Center means that you can find the right path forward for you and your loved ones.

You can schedule an appointment with one of our knowledgeable, compassionate providers online now, or call today to book your session.