Gayle Joubert

It goes without saying that, when seeking any form of therapy, you should feel comfortable with your therapist and feel that they understand you and want to help you to the best of their ability.

Clients ask for relationship counselling for a variety of reasons. It may be to work through a current relationship situation, to recover from a past relationship, or it may be direction (is this person right for me? Should I stay in this relationship?).

Clients wanting relationship counselling for direction are often tricky because as counsellors we cannot tell you what to do, we can only help you to see the road ahead more clearly and make an informed choice.

When booking for couples counselling, I usually prefer to see the two people together, and then separately. There are almost always things that a person would rather not say openly in front of their partner – usually out of fear of hurting them. I use this opportunity to ask each partner individually how they see the relationship progressing; what the other partner could do to make them feel loved and wanted; and how they feel they could improve the relationship. This interview will usually indicate to me whether a person actually wants the relationship to work or not.

In the end, this, and this will determine the course and the outcome of couples counselling. If one partner (perhaps even subconsciously) does not want the relationship to continue long term, no amount of counselling will change that. However, all is not lost in this situation. What can be done, is that the person could find that their expectations of relationship are unrealistic and they could change their mind. There may be hidden agendas which could be brought to light. All of this work would be done on a one-to-one counselling basis.

In other cases, partners bring childhood issues into their relationships. Fear of rejection, confidence issues, jealousy, possessiveness, insecurity – all of these are generated by past experiences. These, too, would be dealt with on a one-to-one basis.

Of course we all know the person who feels that they are perfect and only their partner is to blame. I have to be honest, this is the most difficult person to work with – the blame party has to be prepared to look at themselves in a relationship before counselling can be effective. Some people say “I know I have faults, BUT ….” with the but implying that it is their partner who has the most issues.

In relationship counselling, both partners have a responsibility to the relationship and should both be prepared to compromise or change.

In relationship we have to be prepared to accept each other, to change ourselves, and not expect our partner to change their personality to suit us. While behaviours can change, personality does not. A gentle person who prefers to be in the background is unlikely to become the strong confident leader type. Their strength lies in their gentleness – and it is a strength!

I often, therefore, focus on personality differences as this helps tremendously in enabling couples to relate to each other differently and with more understanding.

For a personal confidential relationship or couples counselling session in Surrey, contact me now.