How To Ask Your Partner to Go to Couples Counseling?

Every relationship will have rough patches and conflicts. This is totally normal and doesn’t mean that you and your partner aren’t in love or shouldn’t be together. In some cases, couples may need the help of a professional couple’s counselor/ therapist to address their issues in an effective and healthy way. However, the decision to finally start couples therapy can be a dauting task. Sometimes one partner may want to go but has trouble bringing up the conversation to their loved one. If you are uncomfortable or don’t know how to bring up the topic of couples therapy to your partner, here are a few tips for navigating the conversation.

Avoid using offensive or threatening language

I totally get it! When one is frustrated and feeling hurt in the relationship, emotions take over. One mistake that people often make when presenting the idea of couples therapy to their partner is that they use it as a threat or ultimatum to break up or divorce their partner. Using offensive language may increase defensiveness and distance from your partner. This is not an effective or healthy way to approach the topic of couples therapy. Moreover, do not criticize your partner’s behavior, nor give ultimatum, or else you will elicit defensiveness and counterattack. This is a “we need help” conversation, not a “you’re not doing right by me” conversation.

Find the Right Time

Another common mistake when it comes to the topic of attending therapy is bringing it up during a fight or disagreement. Doing this can cause a distasteful or defensive response from your partner. Rather than bring up the idea of couples therapy during a fight, you should pick a good time to calmly present the idea. While presenting the idea to your partner, open up a discussion about it where you can express your feelings and more importantly, listen to what they are thinking. Reflect on this question: “When is my partner most likely to pay attention, be conciliatory, or be patient with my requests? Write your answers down and find that time.

Use “We” language

Once you find a good time to bring up the conversation of couples counseling, bear in mind the notion: “the word we choose matters!” Be mindful to not start every sentence with “I” or “you”. Rather, use “we”. For example, instead of saying, “I want to go to couples therapy because you keep disagreeing with me” say, “We could benefit from counseling and address any problems we have”. The language of we help to soften the blaming tone and to lower the defense of fixing an individual’s problems.   

Give Them Space to Think without pressing or repeating yourself

You cannot control how your partner reacts to the idea of relationship counseling, no matter what way you present it. Your partner is the one who will be making the decision to invest in the relationship. If your partner doesn’t respond to your invitation, Instead, give s/he some space to think about the idea. I understand that it is quite difficult for you not to do or say anything. And yet, it is wise to stop doing anything that your partner might look at overly pursuing behavior, including constantly telling him/her out on going to counseling. In the meantime, your persistence of chasing your partner is robbing your partner of the opportunity to reflect on what is really happening in your lives right now.  

You can always grow and start to work on Yourself

Even if your partner isn’t ready to start couples counseling with you, instead of holding on your negative views or feelings about your partner’s not cooperating with you on going to couples counseling, focus on what kind of marriage YOU want to create and why It is important for YOU? And what is required of YOU—not your partner—to bring about your ideal relationship? Couples therapy works best if you have more goals for yourself than for your partner.