All couples experience conflict. And the coronavirus pandemic has added yet another potential stressor: more time at home together, which can exacerbate tensions or expose hidden cracks in a relationship. Therapy can help. Eye rollers, take note: According to the American Psychological Association, about 75 percent of couples who opt for therapy say it improves their relationship.
Many partners struggle together for years before trying therapy, says Gail Saltz, M. A major roadblock to getting help? When only one person in a relationship is eager for change. After years of marriage, some couples no longer engage with each other and merely coexist as roommates. Divorce incidence peaks at different times, says David Woodsfellow, a clinical psychologist, couples therapist and founder and director of the Woodsfellow Institute for Couples, in Atlanta.
That second divorce is usually a growing-apart divorce. Privacy Policy. Then something happens β they retire or become empty nesters β and they look at each other and think, Who are we as a couple now?
Couples often forget what brought them together in the first place, why they fell in love, Saltz observes. Couples therapy can help reignite that.
In a Harris Interactive poll, 36 percent of married to year-olds said money matters cause arguments with spouses. Clashes may stem from differing spending styles or disagreements on how to save for, and spend, retirement. There may be stress about not having enough money , or inequalities in the way your nest egg is being managed. Therapy helps people understand their relationship with money and the way that it shapes their thoughts about themselves and about other people, Coambs explains.
