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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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