Is Couples Therapy A Failure If The Couple Breaks Up?
As Couples Therapists, we help couples work through problems. We love to help couples stay together. Sometimes we also help couples break up.
Is every break up a failure?
Some couples therapists believe that unless there is abuse happening, any couple can stay together. Here at Rising Relationship Center, we feel differently. A wonderful colleague of mine, Sara Lesser, put it this way: “With skilled couples therapy, people have the chance to make a wider variety of relationships work. Some that couldn’t work without help. But not every relationship is meant to work.”
As couples therapists, we want to give you a chance to see how good your relationship can get. In that process, if you become clear that you’re incompatible, or that you’d be happier and healthier if you were not in that relationship, you haven’t failed.
A relationship doesn’t have to last until one or both people are in the ground in order to be a success. A relationship can be a success even if it ends while both people are still alive.
When the dust settles and the most acute feelings have calmed down, some people who break up after skilled couples therapy feel that the couples therapy and the relationship itself was a success. They gave the relationship their best shot, and both people learned a lot about themselves.
I know that I’ve learned a lot about myself from past relationships. During one long-term relationship, my partner and I saw a good couples therapist, learned better communication skills, and figured out what we both were contributing to our negative patterns. The process didn’t pay off by allowing us to stay together forever. Instead it was a success because I learned how to soothe myself when my partner wasn’t giving me what I wanted. My ex partner learned how to put difficult feelings into words. It’s been almost 20 years since the break up, and we still have a friendship.
Another colleague recently told me she’d been through EFT therapy with a partner. We practice EFT here at Rising Relationship Center, so I was very interested to hear what it was like for her. Her relationship ended, but because they had each learned about their communication patterns, she left feeling clear about her own role in their relationship problems. She knows that what came up in that relationship is likely to come up again in a new relationship as well as in her friendships. She’s got a new level of self-knowledge and tools to bring right into the other relationships in her life.
As couples therapists, we want our clients to find happiness in their relationships. If those relationships break up, we feel sadness and even a little bit of heartbreak ourselves. We care about our clients. On the other hand, we don’t think that you’ve failed or that we’ve failed when you choose to end the relationship. Sometimes a breakup is just a different kind of success.
If you want to give your relationship every chance to succeed, find out how couples therapy can help.
Text us at (510) 826-3359 or schedule a free and confidential consultation now. Our passionate couples therapists are here to help.
