For over a decade, I've been conducting Marriage Preparation Programs in Singapore, which I often ask couples about their reasons for getting marriage. A common response is, "because we love each other." This love inspires them to embrace the highest commitment, rooted in deep connections based on attentive listening and mutual care.
However, reality often diverges from these expectations. Unfortunately, many couples find themselves caught in repetitive arguments that seem to loop endlessly. These negative patterns erode their sense of closeness, leading to feelings of distance, detachment, and even emotions of being shut out, and discontented within their relationships or marriages.
What could have gone wrong? Where did our love go? What's really happening beneath the surface? What are couples aiming to achieve through these arguments? Is it solely about proving one's correctness while deeming the other as wrong? Or, have these couples become so emotionally distant that they no longer feel secure and safe in each other's presence?
These fights might be reflections of a deeper emotional disconnection. Often, the anger, criticism, and demands serve as expressions of a longing for a stable and nurturing connection.
Marriage, in its essence, is a journey of continual emotional connection and re-connection. It is about learning to navigate the complexities of two individuals merging their lives, which includes facing challenges and resolving conflicts together. The health of a marriage is often reflected in how partners communicate and connect during difficult times.
Couple or Marriage Counselling can play a significant role in helping you reestablish a strong and secure emotional bond with your partner, ultimately fostering a new positive emotional connection that empowers your relationship.
EFCT is a short term (8 to 20 sessions) structured approach, originally developed for couple therapy and based on attachment science, formulated in the 1980’s. Interventions in EFCT integrate a humanistic, experiential approach to restructuring emotional experience and a systemic structural approach to restructuring interactions. A substantial body of research now exists on the effectiveness of EFCT. This research shows large treatment effect sizes and stable results over time. EFCT is used successfully with many different kinds of couples in private practice, university training centers and hospital clinics. Research exists for couples dealing with depression, with anxiety resulting from trauma, with medical illness and with forgiveness dilemmas. EFCT is used with varied cultural groups and educational levels across North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Africa and Asia. It is used with traditional and non-traditional couples, including same-sex couples.
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