Advice From a Marriage Counselor: Signs Your Relationship is Failing
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby is the founder and clinical director of Growing Self Counseling and Coaching. She's the author of “Exaholics: Breaking Your Addiction to Your Ex Love,” and the host of The Love, Happiness & Success Podcast.
Is Your Marriage On The Rocks?
“Is this just a fight? Or are we really in trouble?” Those are questions that we've all wondered after a yucky feeling argument with our partners. The truth is that all relationships have conflict, and “rough patches.” Relationships grow and evolve, and when couples work through their differences constructively it brings them closer together. That's our marriage counseling philosophy, here at Growing Self. I genuinely believe that weathering tough times IS the path of greater intimacy and emotional depth in a relationship, and every conflict is an opportunity for connection. Really. (I'm saying that as both a marriage counselor and as a person who's been married for practically 20 years).
However.
There are some kinds of interactions and patterns that, when present in a marriage, must absolutely be snuffed out… and fast. If you don't attend to negative relationship patterns early on, they can take over a relationship and turn it into a seething toxic nest of anxiety, resentment, hurt feelings, anger and disconnection. If not remedied, the last stop on this sad train is divorce (or bitter, lonely cohabitation).
You don't want that. On this episode of the Love, Happiness and Success Podcast I'm talking about telltale signs that your marriage is getting into trouble and things that you can do to pull it back from the brink.
I sincerely hope that this advice helps you.
All the best,
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby
Comments? Questions? Success Stories? Please share in the comments section below…
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Music Credits: Harry Nilsson, “Jump Into The Fire”
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Meet a Few Of Our Relationship Experts
The marriage counselors, couples therapists and premarital counselors of Growing Self have specialized training and years of experience in helping couples reconnect. We use only evidence based strategies that have been proven by research to help you restore your strong bond, and love your relationship again.
Natalie Krenz
M.A., LMFT
Natalie is an experienced marriage counselor and couples therapist with a master's degree in marriage and family therapy, and years of experience in helping couples communicate more effectively, find new solutions to old problems, repair their strong bond, rebuild trust after affairs, successfully blend families, improve their sexual intimacy, and parent joyfully together. She is a couples therapist and parenting coach with a positive, solution focused style who specializes in helping you both make positive changes to your life, as well as to your relationship. Natalie licensed as a marriage counselor in Maryland, and works with couples around the world as a relationship coach online.
Meagan Terry
M.A., LMFT
Meagan Terry is a relationship specialist. She is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with over nine years of experience in helping couples reconnect, and enjoy each other again. She specializes in Denver marriage counseling, Denver premarital counseling, and online relationship coaching.
Meagan uses effective, evidence based forms of marriage counseling including Emotionally-Focused Couples Therapy and The Gottman Method. In addition to working one-on-one with couples, she teaches our Lifetime of Love premarital and relationship class. Meagan is available to meet with you for marriage counseling or couples therapy in Denver, and for relationship coaching and premarital counseling online.
Anastacia Sams
M.A., N.C.C., LMFT-C
I’m Anastacia Sams: a licensed therapist, life coach, and marriage counselor who is all about helping you create the very best life for yourself and for your relationships. I specialize in a type of evidence-based marriage counseling called Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, that helps you rebuild your secure, strong bond.
I’ve been told that my warm, gentle style immediately sets people at ease. Working with me, you’ll feel safe, cared for, and understood. And through that non-judgmental understanding, you will heal, grow, and — most importantly — understand yourself.”
Georgiana Spradling
PhD, MFT
Dr. Georgiana is a couples counselor and relationship coach with a "tough love" style. Her no-nonsense approach and direct feedback can help you get clarity about what's creating issues in your relationship, develop emotional intelligence skills, change the way you interact with each other, and negotiate your differences in order to build bridges to the center.
Dr. Georgiana is a certified coach as well as a licensed as a marriage and family therapist in California but she specializes in online relationship coaching. She divides her time between San Francisco and Buenos Aires. She is fluent in English, Spanish and French.
Parsa Shariati
M. A., MMFT
Parsa is an experienced couples therapist and relationship coach with a positive but direct style. Working with him will help you quickly get down to business, highlighting the strengths of your relationship as well as the specific things you can both do to help each other feel genuinely loved and respected, each and every day.
Parsa is a fun, easy-to-talk to marriage counselor and relationship coach who's focused on pragmatic results. He can help you create new healthy patterns, express greater empathy, communicate effectively, and nourish the love between you and your partner.
Hunter Tolman
M.S., MFTC
Hunter is a warm, compassionate marriage counselor, couples therapist, and parenting coach who believes in love, and that strong marriages create strong families. He practices Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, which is an evidence-based form of marriage counseling that focuses on helping you create a strong, secure attachment built on trust and empathy.
His gentle, but effective approach can help you open up with each other, and have healing conversations that repair your bond and allow you both to consistently show each other the love and respect you both deserve. Hunter's roots are in Utah, but he is currently based in Colorado. He can serve you as a couples therapist or marriage counselor in Fort Collins, CO and Broomfield, CO, and he provides online marriage counseling & relationship coaching to couples across the US and around the world.
I need to figure out how to stop shutting down, because it’s leaking into my relationship in a negative way. Could you help?
Hi Me’Leeza. Great question you bring up, and I think it’s one that a lot of people struggle with. Often when people find themselves “shutting down” it’s because they have had intense feelings triggered by things. They shut down or withdraw as a way of coping with the big emotions. The good news is that it is absolutely possible to overcome these patterns through a combination of cognitive techniques and emotion regulation skills. These are included in the skills I teach in my online “Happiness Class.” I hope you check it out. All the best, LMB
I need to find a way to help my husband be more open & communicate with me instead of him instantly getting angry, defensive and ultimately shutting down. When I try to talk to him about something that is bothering me, he gets mad at me, he gets extremely defensive and finds things irrelevant to the topic to throw in my fave to try and turn it on me, and then he shuts down, no more communication. Its frustrating, exhausting and has left me feeling that my feelings don’t matter to him and I no longer want to open up to him because I know how its going to end. I love my husband more than anything in this world, 7 years we’ve been together and this is honestly our #1 biggest issue. Please, please help us.
Karah, what a tough situation! Thank you for your question. I’m preparing a follow up episode to my “How to Communicate” podcast series, and I’ll address your question. Stay tuned! LMB
I told my husband that he doesn’t spend end enough time with his family nor does he spend time with his son (from a previous relationship). Told him he needs to stop hanging out a be a father and he has not talk to me in a week. I also meationed to him that he puts his friends before our relationship. Since that day he has slept in the spare room and has not said a word to me I reached out but he won’t respond at all. How do I turn this around or is he just over he relationship? He will not communicate with me at all he gets defensive and iterated when ever I ask him questions… I don’t know how to proceed… she we just let it go?
I appreciate all these wonderful questions, and look forward to addressing them on my upcoming “relationship questions” podcast. Stay tuned!
We have not had sex in one year he has no interest in sex but I have found him having webcam sex what is our problem I’m not feeling like I can trust him anymore
Tammie, thanks for getting in touch with this concern. I can understand how this would feel terrible for you, and how your partner’s behavior would damage your trust in him and negatively impact many aspects of your relationship. I did a podcast a while back entitled, “What To Do When Your Partner Has a Problem” that may resonate with you, and provide some direction. My ultimate hope for you is that your partner might be open to attending couples counseling with you in order to address this issue directly. If he’s not open to it, you might consider meeting with someone individually, ideally a counselor with a background in sex therapy who is “AASECT Certified.” (That means they have had years of specialized training, supervision and experience specifically in sex therapy.) Good luck with things… LMB
you choose some awesome music for your podcasts- you should make a soundtrack…I’d buy it!
Ha! I have fun with it. Thanks for listening!! 🙂 LMB
It is both a relief and a very sad realization to hear that : it really feels like you’ve described my relationship and that has made me feel less lonely and less like a failure. Thank you for your insight, your knowledge and your voice are very soothing ! =)
Thank you Emma. I’m glad that this was helpful to you. You are NOT a failure. xo, LMB
My fiancee and I have known each other for 21 years. Before we actually started dating we would talk about anything and everything. Then I found out 6 months into our relationship that in the very beginning him and a female had exchanged nude photos back and forth. They had never met in person. Ever since then he has shutdown. He won’t talk about anything but family and work. I need some major advice.
Hi April, thank you for reaching out. My advice to you is to get some professional relationship help, in the form of premarital counseling or relationship coaching in order to figure out 1) what the heck is going on and 2) if it can be resolved and 3) whether or not you should continue planning a life with this person or not. I know that it can be so hard to consider ending a relationship that is moving towards marriage, but it would be much, much better for you to figure this out now rather than later. If you’re finance is refusing to communicate with you, and who has a history of cheating on you it’s bad… but having your husband, the father of your children, and the person you co-own real-estate and retirement accounts refusing to communicate with you and possibly cheating on you is worse.
Not trying to scare you here, I do not know what is going on underneath the hood of this particular relationship. But it sounds like, neither do you. And you must, before you get married. If you are interested in continuing a relationship with this person, please start premarital counseling. Here is the link if you’d like to have a free consultation with one of the premarital counselors on our team here at Growing Self. But whether or not you do this work here, I really hope you do. All the best, Lisa Marie Bobby
Hi Dr. Bobby
This has been an absolute saver for me! I have never heard my experience explained so succinctly. I am definitely a pursuer and have really tried my best to communicate in a loving way to my husband. I have been so vulnerable about my loneliness and pain, but it seems to fall on deaf ears – or the penny doesn’t seem to drop. My question is where to from here? I feel myself slipping into the stage of ‘vilifying’ /perceive myself partner as being incapable of loving. Although we seem to resolve it with each incident it adds up. As you say, it becomes the norm.
We’ve been together for 11 years, married for 2, and have a 1,5 year old son. I have hope we can resolve this but just don’t know how. Is marriage counseling the only way to go? How do I convince my partner that this is necessary? He seems to not think it necessary when things go ‘back to normal.’
Thank you for reaching out with your question. What I’m hearing is that you have good awareness about the patterns in your relationship, which is great… but that those patterns seem entrenched, are damaging your relationship, and that nothing seems to help. I know from my experience as a marriage counselor and couples therapist that these patterns do not get better without effort, but they often get worse.
For the sake of not just your marriage but your family and your son, I would strongly encourage you to make the first appointment for couples therapy and start the work. (Whether or not your husband is 100% in love with the idea.) If you connect with a good, professional, qualified couples therapist who uses an evidence-based approach to marriage counseling, he or she can help him see the value in this. It’s not going to be you two just rehashing the same old things: There will be a coherent plan, and activities that lead to progress and improvement. Also, meeting with a professional couples counselor can also help him feel heard, understood, and respected, and clear that the path of change involves both of you – not just him.
Here are some more resources for you:
“What to Do When Your Partner Refuses Marriage Counseling”
and
“How To Find a Marriage Counselor.”
I hope these help you. If you decide that you’d like to pursue online couples therapy or online marriage counseling with one of the experts on our team here at Growing Self, the first step would be to schedule your free consultation meeting to discuss your goals and make sure it’s a good fit. (That in itself might be an easier thing for your husband to agree to. Then if he feels comfortable with it, you can move forward).
Wishing you all the best,
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby