Individual Therapy for Relationship Issues

If you find yourself struggling to navigate a difficult time in your relationship with your partner, you may want to think about individual therapy for relationship issues. Sure, couple’s therapy is a great option, but if your partner isn’t open to the idea of couple’s therapy, individual therapy can still be a helpful option for you and your relationship.

How does individual therapy help your relationship? When one person in a relationship makes a change in the way they interact with their partner, it causes a ripple effect that changes the dynamics in the relationship. Making a positive change in the way you interact with your partner, benefits both you and your relationship. Individual therapy helps by showing you how to make some of these positive changes.

Learn to Approach Conflict and Stress Differently

During individual therapy, you can learn how to approach conflict and stress in your relationship differently. You can begin to identify triggers that are upsetting to you, and you can learn more effective ways to respond to these triggers as they arise. For example, if you notice that you shut down when you feel disappointed with your partner and don’t communicate how you are truly feeling, you can explore why you shut down in these situations and ways to communicate your needs even when you’re feeling overwhelmed. Learning healthier ways to approach conflict in your relationship helps you feel better and helps make sure things that are important to you don’t get brushed under the rug.

Form Healthier Boundaries

During individual therapy, you can look at where your current boundaries are when it comes to your personal, professional, and social life. Healthy boundaries support the things we value most, and when they are misaligned, it often has a negative effect on our relationship.

For example, if you value spending time with your partner in the evenings, but often find yourself responding to emails and working late into the night, you will likely find yourself feeling frustrated and stressed. Not only are you unable to spend quality time with your partner, but you are having to deal with the stress of working more than you’d like. Examining where your boundaries currently are and how to adjust the ones that would benefit from adjusting is something that can improve your mood, lower your stress levels, and improve the quality of your relationship.

Develop More Effective Ways to Communicate

You may be an excellent communicator in most areas of your life, but if you don’t feel like your partner is hearing what you’re saying, then it may be time to look at how you are communicating within your relationship. In relationships, most often times, it’s not about either person being “wrong.” It’s about communicating what you're feeling and what you need in a way that your partner can hear it, process it, and have an opportunity to respond in a supportive way. This takes the ability to: recognize when you have the physical and emotional capacity to have important conversations, approach conversations in a way that doesn’t put your partner immediately on the defensive, and remain focused on your goal while not getting distracted by other issues. These are all skills which can be effectively learned during individual therapy.

Process How You Really Feel

Individual therapy can also help your relationship by providing you with a nonjudgmental and supportive space to process how you are feeling. It is helpful at times to have a neutral person to talk with to vent your frustrations and process through your concerns about your relationship or partner. Your individual therapist is someone who can see things more objectively while keeping your best interest in mind. In individual therapy, you’re allowed to say exactly what’s on your mind without worrying about hurting your partner’s feelings, or needing to filter your thoughts. This process in of itself can be helpful and therapeutic. Sometimes, it truly is as simple as needing to get something off of our chest.

There are so many ways in which individual therapy can help your relationship. From learning to approach conflict and stress differently, to forming healthier boundaries, to developing more effective ways to communicate, to processing how you feel, individual therapy is a great option if you’re experiencing a stressful time in your relationship.