Couple Counselling

Relationships are about two people connecting with each other in an intimate and significant way.
All relationships go through difficult times - it's how you handle those times that makes the difference between staying together and splitting up. Far too many couples leave counselling until it's too late. By the time of their first appointment, years of bitterness and resentment have built up and the fear of being hurt blocks out any chance of change. If you haven't considered relationship counselling before, please don't leave it until it's too late.
During a lasting relationship people face many important decisions and turning points. Sometimes couples can’t talk to each other about these problems. If you and your partner can either learn or recapture more intimate and meaningful ways of relating to each other, then you will be better able to face whatever difficulties you have now and may have in the future.
Meeting with a counsellor can help Couples learn how to:

• Listen to and understand more about each other.
• Increase their understanding of underlying problems as well as more obvious difficulties between them.
• Communicate in an easier and more constructive way.
• Resolve conflicts without hurting each other.
• Reduce the power of disappointments and hurts, both past and present, thereby freeing them to discover new ways of relating.
• Negotiate difficult decisions.
• Open a way to greater fulfillment both as part of a couple and as individuals.
• Recover the love, respect and fun that have previously been enjoyed.

Couple Counselling can also help separating partners:
While counseling frequently helps couples to make their marriages more satisfying, there are also relationships in which unresolved conflicts have been left unaddressed for so long that the damage they have caused can no longer be repaired. In other cases there may be true incompatibility in some fundamental aspect of the marriage that precludes a functioning partnership.
If two people decide to separate or divorce, then emotional support can be given through what is inevitably a painful process.
When a relationship ends after sober reflection and careful consideration of the options, important decisions need to be made that have far-ranging ramifications, both emotionally and financially, for the partners and for their children.
Every member of the re-organizing family will be profoundly affected by how the separating spouses each handle the emotional journey of divorce, by the access the children will have to both of their parents in the new two-household family, and by the financial arrangement made by the adults for their own care and that of their children. This period is a very vulnerable one in the life of the family; the importance of making healthy decisions that are guided by the overall well-being of all of its members can not be overstated. . In this situation, Couple counselling gives a chance to get a better perspective on their relationship

• Clarify their feelings and the choices they could make,
• Explore the underlying reasons for their difficulties,
• how to negotiate an ending with shared insight and lessened bitterness,
• Mourn the loss of the relationship,
• how in these situations to be mindful of the effects of parents difficulties on the children involved,
• Make parting as constructive as possible for all concerned.

How do I work?

Every couple will have an initial consultation. This consists of one to three meetings, each lasting an hour. During these meetings you will explore your difficulties and discuss with me how to proceed. Some couples are helped sufficiently by a few sessions while others will need further help. Couple counseling usually involves weekly sessions which take place at the same time every week. To begin couple counselling both partners will need to attend.

Couples Workshop

• Are you making a commitment?
• Moving in together?
• Having a baby or getting married?
• You're already a great couple, but could you be even better together

Then this workshop is for you!

Come and join me on the Couples Workshop, invest some time in your relationship and learn techniques for communicating well. Find out how to make your couple relationship a success, discover the keys to managing conflict. Find out how to protect your relationship from risks and how to maintain a great sexual relationship on this small, religion-neutral one-day workshop.

Whoever you are, whatever your age, whatever the situation or the problem you are facing, it can be useful to talk things over with an understanding outsider.

To make appointment or for further information, I can be contacted by phone on 01753 535457 or 07960 322723 or by email: michele_relmy@yahoo.co.uk