Do You Feel Alone In Your Relationship or Marriage?

• Do you wish you could go back to a time in your relationship when you felt valued and loved?
• Have miscommunication and shifting priorities led to increased stress and conflict with your partner?
• Have changes in responsibilities like promotions or children led to disagreements and chronic fighting?

It can feel painful and isolating when you are in a disconnected relationship or marriage. The energy of new love can sustain a couple for a long time, but life and your relationship change over time. When the honeymoon period of your relationship ends, the dynamic and communication can change. The shift can lead to miscommunication, leaving you to wonder if something is wrong with your marriage, your partner or yourself. Constant arguments can make you feel like your needs and opinions are not being heard or understood. Conversely, regular conflict or miscommunication may lead you or your partner to shut down, refusing to talk about the issues weighing down your relationship. Over time you may begin to feel like an observer in your own family as you struggle to reestablish the emotional connection with your spouse.

 

Most Couples Face Bumps in the Road

Almost every couple is going to deal with challenges in their relationship – it’s unavoidable. No one goes through life without experiencing change, loss or times of unhappiness. These moments – like health problems, having children, the death of a parent, your children leaving home – can impact one individual’s emotions or behavior, triggering a change in the relationship. Stress, anxiety and depression can lead to lapses in communication or persistent arguing.

Many couples facing difficulty avoid discussing their concerns and desires with family, friends and even one another. Infidelity or a lack of sexual desire can create a rift in trust and communication, leaving you feeling like you are living with a friend or roommate instead of an intimate partner. Over time, one or both individuals may let other areas of their lives take over until they grow bigger than their commitment to keeping their marriage happy and healthy. In some cases, the distance created when one partner feels neglected can be enough to lead to divorce.

The good news, however, is that with the help of a compassionate, experienced couples therapist you can get back to feeling fulfilled and satisfied in your relationship.

 

Couples Therapy Can Help You Revive Your Relationship

All couples go through challenges, and the Marriage and Family Therapists at Alkira have dealt with the issues that you are facing. We are not general therapists who work with couples; we are trained, experienced couples therapists. We combine our extensive experience in couples therapy with a hopeful, optimistic approach. Whether the problem you are dealing with happened three weeks ago or 30 years ago, couples counseling can help you learn to change, grow and heal within your relationship.

In our sessions, we’ll address each individual’s needs, worries and wishes. When you work with a therapist who truly understands and balances your needs with that of your partner, it becomes easier to identify and work through the root causes behind your relationship struggles. We use a strength-based focus to identify those areas of your relationship that have helped you recover in the past. This allows us to develop strategies together that will help you get where you want to be now and in the future. It is important to remember the good, satisfying parts of your relationship – especially when you are struggling through difficult times.

You may feel like you and your partner have grown apart, like they are not the person you married. The truth is, neither you nor your spouse are the same person. As you each face challenges in your personal and career lives your thoughts and behaviors evolve. Couples therapy with Alkira can help you develop important insights into yourself and your partner that are impacting your relationship dynamic.

You have to believe that you can grow and change in your relationship if you are actually going to do so. When both members of a couple bring some level of commitment to finding a solution, the results can be staggering. That is why our hopeful, encouraging therapists incorporate behavioral techniques and “homework” assignments like date night and assigned talk time. When you learn to listen to your partner – to talk about your needs and desires instead of your day at the office – you can develop a deeper, more flexible love and connection.

Even if you feel disconnected from your partner right now, with the help of a supportive and experienced therapist, it is possible to feel heard, understood and cared about again. You and your partner can develop new perspectives about your relationship and learn new tools that can help you identify, address and heal from the problems in your relationship.

 

You May Benefit From Intensive Couples Therapy

You may have waited years to address your relationship challenges with a professionally trained couples therapist. Perhaps you or your partner travel for work or the military, or you are struggling to maintain a long-distance relationship. Over time, the problems you are facing may have begun to define your relationship instead of the unique and special connection you shared. And, while weekly couples counseling can be effective, your schedules and locations may not allow for regular sessions. Or, you may recognize that your relationship is at risk if you can’t find a more immediate way to change things.

An Intensive approach is when couples meet with their therapist for a longer block of time during assessment and early treatment. These sessions will start with a 2 – 3 hour assessment, giving you and your partner a faster start towards working through problems and seeing results. In the first intensive session, we complete the assessment of your relationship and situation, your individual perspectives, and begin the process of working on your goals. Together with your partner, you will both feel understood and confident that you can implement and maintain immediate changes in your relationship.

Imagine your relationship is a house. Right now, your house has structural damage, and there are threats of demolition. With weekly therapy, we begin the process of rebuilding. But, you may not have enough time in an hourly session to address certain issues, and the healthy relationship structure you are building can get torn down in between sessions. With intensive therapy, however, we can begin rebuilding a more solid, resilient structure in as little as one session. And, because you both had the time you needed to feel comfortable and confident in the plan you have developed, you will be better able to maintain the integrity of that foundation in between sessions.

If you are unsure about whether intensive therapy can help with your relationship needs, we can begin with an initial 2 hour evaluation session, where the two of you have the opportunity to see if you are comfortable with your therapist and the approach. At the conclusion of this evaluation, you can decide to proceed with additional intensive sessions or switch to traditional 1 hour sessions. Every couple has special needs that impact how they can successfully do couples work- we are flexible and ready to meet yours.

We offer intensives at our Syracuse, Rochester and Rome offices. The costs of intensives range from 250-400.00 per two hour block, depending on the therapist. If you are experiencing financial hardship, please let our intake coordinator know of your interest and financial situation. We will do our best to meet your financial needs.  Insurance does not cover intensive couples therapy. Couples can pay through credit card, check, PayPal or cash. Consider that, rather than paying this same cost over a period of months as you slowly work through relationship issues, intensives offer you a more immediate option. By investing in your relationship now, you increase the likelihood that you can recover from the crises you and your partner are facing. You might complete therapy faster with intensive couples therapy to start. This will save you money as well as save your relationship!

Whatever issues you are facing in your relationship, Intensive couples therapy can help you begin making changes immediately and maintain those changes in between sessions, leading to faster healing and growth in your relationship.

 

But You May Still Have Questions About Couples Therapy…

 

I Think That We Need Help, But I’ve Heard That Couples Therapy Can Be Expensive?

Couples therapy is an investment in yourself and your relationship. By developing a healthy, lasting connection with your partner you can significantly reduce symptoms of stress and anxiety that can arise in times of conflict. Additionally, taking time to grow your relationship now can help you avoid expensive and damaging divorce proceedings.

We are committed to making therapy affordable for everyone. We offer a sliding scale according to each couple’s income. Please inquire.

 

What If Our Problems Become Too Big to Address, or Other Issues Come Up?

It is true that couples counseling may help you identify issues that are lurking beneath the surface. But you are considering couples counseling because you need help addressing the challenges in your relationship. We provide a caring, compassionate and confidential environment where you can feel safe working through any issue that arises. Additionally, our availability means you always have a support system.

 

What If Therapy Makes Things Worse?

Deciding not to get help for a problem right now very likely means the problem will become larger in a few months or years. Your relationship – and each person in it – is going to change because change is inevitable. Couples counseling puts you in a position where you can understand and affect how your relationship changes.

 

We’re Interested In Intensive Therapy, But I Don’t Think We Can Put In That Much Time

Think about how much time you and your partner are spending struggling with the issues in your relationship. How many hours each week do you spend feeling frustrated, sad, alone and misunderstood? What if you could start feeling better with just one 4 hour session? That’s an investment worth making.

 

You Can Grow In Your Relationship

If you’d like to become a client, please click the “Request an Appointment” button at the top of this page.