Did you know that there were more than 787,000 divorces in the United States in 2017 alone? That number doesn’t even tell the entire story – there are millions more unmarried couples splitting up each year. While there are any number of reasons a relationship might end (unhappiness, cheating, financial difficulties), emotional distance is usually at the top of the list. Find out how talking with a counselor can help if your relationship or marriage is drifting apart due to poor communication below!
No More Lack of Communication
Emotional distance and a lack of communication are often thought of as one and the same. They can be, but they don’t have to be. You can talk to your partner all day but avoid talking about anything meaningful. Daily life updates, the latest gossip from your job, cheap phentermine online and more can crowd out conversations with depth and weight to them. These small interactions pile up, become patterns, and before you know it can lead to emotional distance.
Working with a counselor helps to break these entrenched poor communication patterns. An experienced and compassionate therapist will be able to uncover areas where you can improve communication. Just as important, they’ll work with you to actually improve them! Sometimes this is through talk therapy and sometimes it’s through more innovative practices like creative role playing.
Therapy for a successful relationship starts with you, but should, of course, involve your partner. Maybe you start with individual sessions, but after making personal progress on poor communication, begin to involve a distant spouse. Whatever your unique emotional journey is, a counselor can help.
Improved Intimacy
Another way that therapy helps bridge emotional distance is by creating a safe space to practice intimacy. We’re not talking about physical intimacy – though make no mistake, physical intimacy is important, but rather, emotional intimacy.
Couples counseling is all about sharing. You share your needs and desires. Your partner, in turn, shares theirs. This type of honest, fearless communication works to build empathy in the relationship. You’re no longer emotionally isolated and alienated in layers of resentment. You and your partner are working together, maybe for the first time, to help and heal each other. Emotional distance simply can’t exist in this type of mutually supportive environment.
One way that many therapists work to create intimacy is through practicing fights. It might sound crazy, but knowing the difference between a good fight and a bad fight is incredibly powerful. You might feel your marriage drifting apart but using fights constructively to learn and improve understanding between yourself and a distant spouse can help end that feeling.
Is Your Marriage Drifting Apart?
Now that you know a bit more about how talking with a counselor can help end a lack of communication in your relationship and improve emotional intimacy, it’s time you met Andre Moore. A licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), Andre has been helping couples in New York for decades. Call him today at (212) 673-4618 to schedule a consultation and put a stop to emotional distance once and for all!
