The relationship between a couple who is dating or planning to get married has unique needs and challenges. A professional therapist can be helpful as the couple navigates their relationship by offering tools and guided therapy for the pair. Whether you are facing small reoccurring challenges, large challenges, or simply want to lay the groundwork for a healthy, lasting relationship, a counselor can help.

Working with a therapist offers the couple a neutral party that can help the couple grow closer, improve communication, handle conflicts, and more. By working with a counselor together, couples can better understand one another and grow closer together. Doing this allows you to fortify your relationship now to give you a stronger relationship in the future.

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What is Couples Counseling?

Couples counseling is a type of psychotherapy that specializes in working with couples. Professionally trained and licensed therapists such as psychologists, social workers, or licensed family and marriage therapists provide help, support, and tools as a neutral party to help the couple with whatever they are struggling.

The most common type of couples counseling is known as talk therapy. In talk therapy, the couple and the counselor talk about issues and problems, working together to find solutions. The therapist is impartial, giving each person a chance to talk about the situation and learn how to better communicate with his or her partner.

While some couples come to couples counseling for a specific issue, others come to learn new skills for the future of their relationship. There are a variety of reasons couples seek counseling, and your therapist will work with you to help you work toward your specific, unique goals as a couple.

While it may seem obvious that couples counseling is for couples, this could represent a variety of scenarios. From dating to serious relationships to preparing for marriage, couples in all relationship stages can benefit from couples counseling.

Couples Counseling for Dating

As two people get to know one another, they each bring their unique needs to the relationship. Early dating does not often require counseling, but some people find it helpful after they begin to get to know one another. This can be to work through specific concerns or to lay a foundation for the future of their relationship.

Couples Counseling for Long Distance Relationships

Maintaining a relationship long-distance can be challenging. With increased time apart, leading independent lives, and handling trust issues, long-distance relationships can benefit from counseling. A therapist can help both partners find ways to communicate, connect, and trust, even with the challenge of distance. Online meeting options provide opportunities for the couple to meet with the counselor together despite the distance.

Couples Counseling for Engagement

Although engagement is an exciting time, engagement can present unique challenges. As two people begin to look at the possibility of getting married, it can be helpful to spend some time with a therapist to talk about how they will move forward together. It also provides the opportunity to address concerns and issues before making such a big commitment.

Pre-Marital Counseling or Preparing for Marriage

Preparing for marriage goes far beyond choosing a flavor for the cake. There are important topics to discuss early on to help a couple understand how they will merge their lives moving forward. Spending time with a counselor talking about issues such as intimacy, family, responsibilities, faith, work arrangements, and living arrangements is helpful. This can prepare a couple for how to start their marriage and help it thrive.

While there can be similarities, marriage counseling is specific to the needs of a married couple and the lifelong commitment to working these things out. Couples counseling can have the same goal; however, it can also be more focused on preparation or deciding whether to pursue marriage.

Couples counseling focuses on the things you consider before marriage. These can be general ideas about dating or the relationship or specific things to work through to determine compatibility.

The more involved and committed you are as a couple, the more similar couples counseling and marriage counseling is. Each one, however, seeks to meet the unique needs of your current relationship status.

Compatibility both now and moving forward is one of the key focal points of couples counseling. Seeing how you and your partner connect, how your goals work together, and how your values align are important things to discuss. Some of the specific topics can include:

  • Religious beliefs
  • Intimacy
  • Individual and joint expectations
  • Money
  • Living arrangements
  • Each person’s responsibilities
  • Work arrangements
  • How to handle disagreements
  • Plans for children
  • Relationships with extended family

Sometimes there are specific issues a couple is dealing with, even in the early stages of a relationship. Couples counseling can help work through these things as well. Examples include:

  • Each person’s past decisions
  • Sexual history
  • History of trauma
  • Merging families
  • Role of a dating partner with current children
  • History of infidelity
  • Religious differences
  • Handling relationships (especially with the opposite sex)

Dating couples who pursue counseling have the opportunity to work through things productively with a therapist to prevent future problems. They can also determine if they are a good fit as a couple now and long term. With a therapist, the couple can explore if they want the same things in life, if their personalities match, and if they can communicate about challenging topics.

Couples counseling offers you and your partner the chance to explore your relationship more fully to discover how you can grow as a couple.

As both partners work together with the trained therapist, they will talk about their goals and what works best for their needs. Often, this is carried out in weekly sessions, lasting fifty minutes to one hour. Couples counseling is usually short-term to address the specific goals of the couple in this stage of the relationship. This may take a few sessions or last for months depending on the needs.

The counseling office offers a comfortable space for the therapist, your partner and you to sit and talk. Virtual sessions can also be done to accommodate schedules or where people live. Regardless of where you meet, the goal is for everyone to be comfortable.

The goal is for the couple to talk with one another. The therapist will help guide the conversation, to promote effective communication for both partners. The therapist may ask questions, suggest different ways of communicating or offer tools that help you and your partner connect. There can also be activities to try in the office and at home to further learn and grow your relationship.

Getting Started with Couples Counseling

Learning more about couples counseling is a great start. Next, you can talk to your partner about pursuing couples counseling. Avoid bringing it up in the middle of conflict, as that often backfires. Instead, talk about it when you are both calm, focusing on the goal of working together to grow a healthy relationship.

If you are ready to learn more, you can reach out to set up an initial appointment. When you call or email, someone from our office will help set you up with an initial appointment, sometimes called an intake appointment. At this first meeting, we will spend time getting to know one another, and you and your partner will both have the opportunity to ask any questions. From there we will talk about moving forward with your counseling.

You don’t need to wait until you are married to pursue a strong, healthy relationship. Being proactive about your relationship will help you and your partner move forward. Reach out to one of the counselors in our office today. At Mansfield Christian Counseling we are excited to help you and your partner grow in your relationship.

Get connected with a Christian Counselor
Please contact our reception team at
(469) 333-6163

Schedule an appointment