Planning to get married or maybe you are already married? Or are you in a committed long-term relationship and planning to live together?  Here are 5 critical topics that you could have conversations about with your partner that can directly impact your relationship. What are these critical topics for couple conversations?

So what do you generally talk about? Do you talk about what you both like, dislike, movies, other regular stuff? That is good too.  But it is important to have conversations on the following topics, if you haven’t done yet and be on the same page. There is no one right way of doing things in these areas. Both of you can find ways that work for the both of you.

As a relationship counsellor I usually facilitate discussions between the couple as part of pre-marital counselling / couple counselling on these topics that are important for a stable relationship, of course as per their needs. When both of you are not on the same page, or kind of agree on your differences, these can create significant challenges downstream in your relationship.

1. Talk Finances – Money:

Talking money or finances is something which many couples find sticky or tricky or difficult or talk about. This is a very significant topic where that could be many differences which can come about and rock your relationship.

How much do each of you earn? What if one partner not planning to earn? How would you spend on household expenses? What expenses are considered extravagant and what are considered necessary? Do either of you have any debt? What are your average monthly expenses till now? What is your attitude towards spending and saving? How will investments etc be done? 

2. Share and discuss your core values:

It is important for couples to have some shared core values between them. If your Values are completely different from each other and if you are unable to reconcile, it may feel like living with some one that you can’t relate to.

What do you consider as your core values? Which one of those are non-negotiable for you? This could be about honesty, transparency, respect, trust, equality, sex, family interactions/ responsibilities, parenting, ethics etc.  This could also be about religion, religious practices and other key beliefs regarding political views, race, discrimination etc that you hold.

How will significant decisions be made between the two of you and what kind of an agreement is necessary for these decisions?  Who else would be involved in these decisions? What happens if either of you disagrees?

3. Plans for children:

Do not shy away from talking about children. Typically this is one of the non-negotiables. A disagreement on this can damage or break your relationship.

Talk about your plans regarding children. If you plan to have, then talk about when, how many and if not, the reasons why. In most families there will be pressure to have children, perhaps at earliest. How would you communicate your plans to your families if you need to? If you don’t plan to have children for a while, then how would you plan for that? Who would take responsibility for contraception?

What kind of parenting approach have you experienced in your childhood and what kind of parents would you like to your child to have? What could be the level of influence/support of extended family on child rearing? What level of involvement would you want yourself and your partner to have in parenting?

4. House hold responsibilities:

The topic of household responsibilities become the day-to-day issue for many couples once they start living together. It is better to have clear communication regarding this upfront, rather than being dissatisfied or built resentments over time.

How would you share the house hold responsibilities and chores?  Are you both looking for an equitable distribution or not?  How were things done in your own family of origin in your childhood? Would sharing of house hold responsibilities change or vary based on changes in employment or child rearing etc?

5. Boundaries, space and what is not acceptable:

It is important to have boundaries for your relationship and to be on the same page regarding what can be shared with others and what can’t be. The term boundaries may seem restrictive in a true sense it is a permeable protection for your relationship. Like a house having walls but also those with locks on it, you can let people in when you want to and when you prefer to and not otherwise.

What do you see as private and what is not? When and where do you need space for yourself too? What do you see as fidelity, what is considered ok or not ok for each of you? Can you agree on these terms?

Of course, these are just top 5 in my opinion. There could be many more. And none of these are written in stone and could change over a period of time as you both grow as individuals and as a couple.  Then they would need to be talked about and renegotiated to arrive at a revised understanding and agreement.

If your conversations are not giving you clarity, you can seek professional support and seek pre-marital counselling / couple counselling, a safe space to express yourself and to understand your partner.

Currently with the COVID-19 situation, all counselling and therapy services are offered online over video calls. Reach us at +91 9632146316 or write to us at counselor@innerdawn.in

About the Author:

Kala Balasubramanian is a certified Counselling Psychologist and Psychotherapist with a Masters in Counselling and Psychotherapy, Diplomas in Counselling and has further certifications specializing in couple/marriage/relationship counselling and family counselling. She is trained in different modalities like CBT, Gestalt, NLP, Family Systems Therapy, Transactional Analysis etc. As a trained therapist, she provides professional and confidential counselling services including Individual counselling and Couples counselling / Marriage counselling

The post 5 Critical topics for Couple Conversations first appeared on Inner Dawn Counselling.

Do you want to build and nourish a fulfilling and lasting relationship? Do you want to address old relationship wounds? Or are you in a new relationship and want to give it your best chance? How can couple therapy help?

When you have tried to make your relationship better and if it is not happening then what to do? What if there is too much anger and resentment already? What if your past history is impacting your present relationship?

Couple therapy or relationship counselling is one of the avenues that you can pursue. Lot of people ask me about couple therapy and are very confused about what really happens in Couple counselling / Couple therapy.

In general, as we grow up the well-intended parental messages for couples are to, keep your problems within the four walls. Sort out your issues between the two of you as a couple. Make adjustments. Nobody else can solve your problems, but the two of you and so on.

In principle though I agree with these approaches, it is also important to acknowledge that you didn’t get any training for how to be in a relationship. You might have been in relationships and you may have broken up or had a heartbreak etc, but there is very little understanding about how to build and nourish fulfilling lasting relationship. You are left to learn on your own and on the job, isn’t it.

Also when you have tried to make your relationship better and if it is not happening then what to do? What if there is too much anger and resentment already?

One of the reasons why people hesitate to reach out for help is that they don’t understand the process. Talking to a therapist is very different from talking to your friend or family.  Most of the times your family or friends might already be aligned to you and so might be biased. Or they may offer their own personal experiences and solutions that worked for them, which may or may not work for you.

So, what really happens in couple therapy / couple counselling? How can relationship counselling help? If you are considering couple therapy but unsure about it, you are at the right place. And there are many other differences too.

1. It is a safe space

It is a safe space for you to express yourself in the presence of the therapist as well as your partner. I tell my couple clients upfront that it is important that, the therapist offers you a safe space but that they also need to offer a safe space for each other to open up and talk about the difficult things about themselves each other and the relationship.

2. Neutrality and unbiased position

As a couple therapist I would stay neutral between the two parties and will be unbiased between the two of you. At the same time as a therapist, I would also not take the position of a judge between the two of you. 

Many couples comment to therapy expecting the therapies to tell them who is right and who is wrong and expecting you help to play the judge between the two of them. Or tell them how a couple should be or should not be. I do not take a prescriptive view as to how a couple should be. Each couple have a way of understanding and dealing with what is ok or what is not ok in their relationship. I would work with that. And if the couple wants certain things to be renegotiated, then I facilitate that.

3. What will you talk about?

You can talk about anything that is important for you. You may end up talking about how you perceive each other, what happened in the past, how do you react to each other families, your expectations, challenges in day to day functioning, finances, work load sharing, intimacy, unresolved issues and so on. It is not easy to talk and open up to a third person even if they are a professional and wont judge you and stay unbiased between the two of you. So if your partner takes courage to share something or bring up something in therapy then it is important enough to listen to it discuss about it and address it.

4. You may work on your relationship wounds.

I encourage couples to talk about how did they begin this relationship, how did they choose each other, and what happened in between and how they arrived at where they are in the Here and Now.

When there are unhealed wounds underneath in your relationship with either partner, they are bound to surface again and again, in some visible as well as invisible ways, in how you deal with your disagreements, conflicts, your emotional reactions to each other etc. Unless you heal the wounds in your relationship, you will tend to inflict more wounds on each other, damaging the relationship further.

5. You would learn new skills and took to engage with each other in healthy ways

Most of the clients have excellent communication skills. The challenge is not in terms of the communication or language skills but how effective is their communication. To convey what you want and to be received by the other, the way you intended and to be able to check and clarify any misunderstanding would be effective communication in a couple.

Relationship skills that you could gain could be about learning to handle and address conflicts in a healthy manner, communicate effectively by learning to hear and listen to your partner, to see each other’s point of view and most importantly learning to address each other’s reasonable needs and to be able to empathize with each other and offer support, physically, mentally and emotionally.

I am still just scratching the surface of couple therapy.  But I hope this gives you a sense of what couple therapy would look like.

Currently with the COVID-19 situation, all counselling and therapy services are offered online over video calls. Reach us at +91 9632146316 or write to us at counselor@innerdawn.in

About the Author:

Kala Balasubramanian is a certified Counselling Psychologist and Psychotherapist with a Masters in Counselling and Psychotherapy, Diplomas in Counselling and has further certifications specializing in couple/marriage/relationship counselling and family counselling. She is trained in different modalities like CBT, Gestalt, NLP, Family Systems Therapy, Transactional Analysis etc. As a trained therapist, she provides professional and confidential counselling services including Individual counselling and Couples counselling / Marriage counselling

The post What happens in Couple Therapy or Relationship Counselling first appeared on Inner Dawn Counselling.