Do I Need Relationship Therapy?
Mar 26, 2024
10 Questions To Ask Yourself To Help You Work Out If You Need Sex & Relationship Therapy
This is the second article and contains 5 questions focus on whether you need relationship therapy. The previous article offers 5 questions focused on whether you need sex therapy.
As with sex therapy, whether you need relationship therapy is a personal decision. We can all agree, intimate relationships are hard work. Unfortunately, given that the average couple waits 6 years before going to relationship therapy, the chances are, if you’re considering it, you’re already overdue. Here are 5 more questions to help you decide.
1. Are you frequently arguing about or avoiding talking about sex?
If you are struggling to talk openly and calmly about sex this can lead to frustration, hurt, rejection. Usually, this leads to a drop in affection, connection, fun, and intimacy.
Relationship therapy allows each of you to calmly talk about what is happening from your side. It also encourages you to listen attentively to your partner’s feelings and experiences.
Using guided exercises and structured conversations, such as a mindful apology, you can learn better ways to share your fears, hurt, and frustrations. Over time, you also practice sharing your needs, desires, and vulnerabilities. With time, sex is no longer a topic to avoid or argue about, but to enjoy and laugh about together.
2. Have you experienced infidelity or betrayal that has impacted your intimate relationship?
In the aftermath of betrayal, rebuilding trust is a really challenging. It can feel confusing and exhausting trying to establish acceptable short-term and long-term boundaries and expectations.
Relationship therapy can offer well-tested pathways through the pain and heartache of infidelity. It can offer a safe and sober space to reflect on the origins of the issue within the relationship. It also helps you to explore what needs to be done to heal and avoid repeating the situation in the future.
While this is not an easy process, the chances of success and rebuilding a healthy, loving relationship are much higher with professional support.
3. Do you feel sexually incompatible with your partner?
Sometimes we don’t argue or avoid talking about sex, but we do notice different levels of interest or expectations for physical intimacy compared to our partner(s). This is to be expected as each of you has different sexual preferences, just as you do with food, music, and clothing.
Talking honestly about our different sexual preferences or expectations with our partner can be really tricky. Sadly, it often lead to feeling stuck, dissatisfied, or rejected. It can also be really scary to ask our partner for something we’ve never asked for before, or that we feel we need but we know they don’t like or approve of.
You don’t have to agree with Esther Perel’s idea that if you fix the sex, you fix the relationship. But, if you can amicably resolve sexual issues, you are probably well-equipped as a couple to address any other issues that arise in your relationship.
4. Have you recently gone through a life change (e.g., parenthood, illness, aging) that has impacted your intimacy or relationship?
Significant transitions like getting pregnant, having a miscarriage, aging, or illness can impact intimacy. For the relationship not to suffer, it’s really important you can talk about your feelings, the good and the bad. These feelings also need to be heard, acknowledged, and, ideally, understood by our partner(s).
Most of us are never taught how to do this. We don’t know how to really listen and empathise in an intimate relationship. Working with a relationship therapist can help you be more attentive and less defensive during difficult relationship conversations.
There are relationship therapists who specialise in all sorts of different life changes, including fertility, aging, and post-surgery intimacy.
5. Are you interested in exploring kink or new aspects of your sexuality together?
People seeking answers to this question make up around third of my clients, with the majority of those looking to open up monogamous relationships. They are looking to explore new erotic avenues and need a safe and supportive environment.
As far as I’m concerned, as long as the activities involved include personal responsibility, and are informed and consensual between adults (PRICK), I support you. (I don’t work with people who are sexually or romantically interested in animals, children, or dead things.)
Many people want a safe space to explore new desires and boundaries in a supportive, judgement-free environment. People exploring fantasies need this just as much as those wanting to try new things in real life. This can include being curious about activities that are socially taboo or outside of your culture or religion of origin.
What if I can't even put into words the problems we're facing?
I really feel for you. Every single person is different, and every intimate relationship is different. Sometimes, it feels like nobody on the planet could ever understand what we’re going through. If you feel something is off but struggle to put it into words, that’s totally ok. You are not alone in that.
Often, the hardest part is wading through the swamp of our unconscious. We squelch around trying to separate out what is our mud from what is our partner’s mud, or even previous partner’s mud. A good relationship therapist will wade in, wellies on, right by your side. They will be there for you and help you clarify and put into words what you’re really feeling.
Overall, relationship therapy can help to reduce the unhealthy conflict, stress, anxiety in your relationship(s), and increase the trust, pleasure, fun, and connection.
Ultimately, I want you to have the best possible relationship(s) you can, on your terms, whatever that looks and feels like for you.