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Therapy
Aayushi Kapoor April 10th, 2024 · 7min read

8 Reasons Why Couples Therapy Is Beneficial While Separated

One of our readers wrote, “My Partner and I are dealing with compatibility issues after one year of marriage, we are separated, and willing to attend couples therapy together, will a marriage counselor suggest separation?” Similarly, a lot of people questioned, “Can separated couples fall back in love, does separation make love stronger, how do I know if I need therapy after a breakup, how do you fix a relationship that fell apart, or can couples therapy save a toxic relationship?”

Well, the answer is quite simple, yes; couples therapy is a type of therapy that helps in improving your relationship. If you’re going through relationship difficulties, couples therapy can be helpful in rebuilding your relationship. There are different types of couple’s therapy such as emotionally focused therapy (EFT), the Gottman method, and psychodynamic couple’s therapy, and more!

Couples therapy helps enhance emotional bonding, emotional intimacy, closeness, comfort, and reassurance. If you and your partner are separated and wondering what should be the next step, should split or reconcile a marriage, you can take the help of couple’s therapy.

A couples therapist will help you correct unhelpful or negative patterns in your relationship and will help you take the right next step. This blog explores 8 reasons why you should try couples therapy while separated.

So, let’s get started!

Benefits of Couples Therapy While Separated or Separation Counseling

According to the couple’s therapist, there are a lot of benefits of separation counseling or couples counseling whether a couple is still living together, separated, going through trials, and others. Couples therapy helps in understanding negative patterns leading to conflicts, removing negative patterns, setting realistic goals, welcoming positive and healthy changes, learning effective communication methods, and more.

In some cases, separation might be fruitful or de-escalate to bigger issues, herein, couples therapists help couples understand their relationship dynamics and take the right next step. Overall, couples counseling while separated helps in seeking clarity and learning effective decision-making skills about the marriage or relationship.

Below listed are the benefits of couples therapy while separated:

1. Gain understanding

One of the major benefits of couple therapy while separated is that once you both start attending sessions together, you start gaining a deeper understanding of each other. Additionally, you also start learning relationship dynamics. Throughout sessions, you start questioning yourself and start understanding unhelpful patterns.

Such an understanding is really important for healing your relationship, reconciling trust, and growing a stronger bond again. A couples therapist listens actively and provides impartial pieces of advice which helps in reconciling the relationship honestly and effectively. When you start attending sessions with your partner, make sure you develop empathy towards each other.

2. Set new goals and expectations

A couple’s therapist throughout the sessions works in setting new healthy goals and expectations through unbiased feedback while helping in gaining a new perspective towards the relationship. The couples therapist actively listens to both sides and provides constructive feedback while helping in gaining a deeper understanding.

Additionally, it also helps in navigating through possible long-term outcomes that may help in taking the right next step in your relationship. Moreover, you can also talk openly about goal setting with your therapist so that they can provide a briefing on how to set goals in a relationship for relationship preservation. Most importantly, focus on gaining a third-party perspective.

3. Communicate needs within a safe space

Therapy takes time but the results are organic and effective. You need to trust the process, it might feel like you’re hitting the same spot again and again during sessions, however, you never know, couples therapy twists the two sides and allows couples to communicate in an open and safe space.

In highly-conflicted cases, the couple therapist works on vulnerability, helps to open, and provides a safe space to the couples wherein it is necessary to respect the boundaries and communicate safely until and unless both partners start feeling safe with each other.

4. Get a deep look into each other’s viewpoints

Couples therapists provide a safe and open place to communicate each other’s needs. With the help of effective communication and deeper understanding couples start looking into each other’s perspective. They start understanding each other’s emotions and feelings.

Herein, the therapist helps in diffusing the conflicts and promotes self-acceptance and self-forgiveness to fix a broken relationship. During high-conflict cases, the therapist asks to avoid miscommunication for a time being and helps the couple take a deeper understanding to reach the root cause of the problem.

5. Learn conflict management skills

If you guys are struggling with a specific topic, a therapist might help you diffuse the conflict and teach conflict management skills which will be helpful for the future as well.

For example, if you are struggling with finances, a therapist might offer you some pieces of advice that help in building a future together. During sessions, the therapist tries to remove roadblocks and helps the couple discover root causes by addressing them and teaching effective conflict management skills.

6. Learn effective coping skills

Every relationship has its own ups and downs; however, the most important part is to navigate through such challenges together. With the help of the right and effective coping skills, couples can easily go through such challenges without hurting each other.

Throughout the sessions, the therapist teaches some effective and helpful coping techniques that not only help in diffusing relationship problems but also help in dealing with common mental health issues such as anger, stress, sadness, depression, and others. Effective coping techniques can also be used as a roadmap to reconcile your relationship or marriage.

7. Clarify and understand your feelings

Misunderstandings and miscommunication are one of the major root causes of relationship problems. Herein, the therapist tries to develop a basic understanding of each other and works on healing the relationship. The therapist tries to find out if the relationship or marriage is still salvageable. Throughout the sessions, the therapist works on gaining clarification over each other’s emotions and feelings.

8. Restore trust, intimacy, and connection

Throughout the sessions, the therapist figures out if the relationship is still salvageable or not. Additionally, they also work on building trust, intimacy, and connection in a relationship only when both partners are ready to reconcile their relationship.

The therapist works on financial struggles, lack of honesty, infidelity, intimacy issues, and others to find a balance in the relationship again. Herein, the therapist might include some activities, homework, or worksheets to build trust, intimacy, and connection through a solid foundation.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Can couples therapy help a breakup?

Couples therapy is a type of therapy developed to help couples deal with communication issues, relationship problems, conflicts, compatibility issues, and more. A couples therapist provides a safe space to the couple for providing unbiased pieces of advice, addressing specific issues, enhancing compatibility, and understanding related issues within a couple. Therefore, yes, if you guys have broken up and are willing to reconcile the relationship again, you can try couples therapy.

2. Can couples therapy fix a broken relationship?

If you and your partner are ready to reconcile a relationship after understanding each other’s mistakes and focusing on renewed relationship goals, yes, couples therapy can fix a broken relationship. In order to fix a broken relationship, a therapist might elaborate dynamics of your relationship and resolve conflicts.

3. Should I go to couples therapy with an ex?

With the right goals and intentions, yes, you can go to couples therapy with your ex. If you both are ready to reconcile a relationship, it’s always a better idea to seek therapy together.

4. Can separation save a relationship?

In some cases, separation might heal your relationship. When you and your couple do everything right to save a relationship, even separation can be fruitful.

I hope this blog helps you understand the benefits of couple’s therapy while separated. Comment down and share your queries through the same or you can also write to us at Calm Sage.

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Thanks for reading!

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