Couples Counselling in Bath

I offer my clients a powerful and successful approach to fixing their relationship struggles. I am an experienced couple’s counsellor who has worked with many different couples over the past 8 years. I combine my counselling skills with coaching work in order to facilitate the best possible outcome.

What kind of issues can counselling help with?

I can support couples who have experienced affairs, both emotional and physical. I can help couples who feel the romance is dead, or who have different sexual needs within the relationship. Sometimes one person’s way of connecting sexually is different from the other individual’s needs, and I can help you to mutually connect on an intimate level.

Couples can be in conflict constantly without really knowing why the arguments escalate every time. My role is to enable them to understand why this is happening and where the dynamic may originate from in their childhood. I also look into the different ways people show love, and how important it is to have space from each other in a relationship.

Couples with children can experience problems when they have opposing views on child-rearing and parenting can trigger significant anger and frustration towards each other. 

Guiding You Through the Impact of an Affair

When a couple seeks counselling due to an affair, we approach it with a specific method. Initially, we address and support you through the pain, shock, and trauma of discovering the affair. Once we’ve processed these emotions, we can then explore the nature of the affair.

Affairs can be categorised in different ways. An emotional affair involves significant communication with someone, often without meeting them in person, where emotional needs are sought and fulfilled. A physical affair, on the other hand, involves physical intimacy with someone, often without a deeper emotional connection, and the person may not even know the other’s name. Some affairs combine both emotional and physical elements.

Discovering that your partner has been unfaithful is incredibly painful and traumatic. We will work through this pain together to help you move forward and eventually rebuild trust.

The partner affected by the affair often seeks to understand what happened. A response like, “I don’t know why I did it, I just know it won’t happen again,” is unhelpful and can lead to attempts to salvage the relationship through damage limitation.

I can help by gathering the right information about the affair, focusing on what was happening in your relationship before the affair and what communication issues existed. This process does not involve details about the third party but rather examines the relationship dynamics that contributed to the situation.

Once we’ve addressed the pain and gathered the necessary information, we can move forward to improve the relationship.

Confronting and Overcoming Resentments

When communication breaks down, we often become resentful. When we are stuck in resentment and unable to talk about it, we are left with assumptions about our partner’s intentions, which are rarely correct.

We first address all the resentments that have built up over time. Working through resentments involves communicating with each other in a therapeutic setting, listening to each other, and sometimes writing down our resentments and how they have affected us. We then read them out to each other during the session.

We also create space to work through the assumptions that fill our minds when communication breaks down.

Enhancing Communication for Stronger Relationships

When communication breaks down within a relationship, it can be frustrating and destructive. In our sessions, we will explore effective communication techniques, focusing on how we approach each other and how well we listen.

Once we have resolved enough issues, we will explore the Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. The Five Love Languages describe the different ways we give and receive love. If we are not receiving love, our emotional reserves can deplete, leaving us feeling unnoticed, unappreciated, and unloved by our partner. By increasing awareness of each other’s love languages, couples can quickly begin to feel loved and secure.

What outcomes can I expect from counselling?

After embarking on a couples counselling programme, you can expect to come away feeling heard, understood and validated. As a couple, you will learn how to communicate with each other in effective ways and how to express your needs with clarity.

You will also be able to gain insight into each other’s triggers and how to support each other as a team. There will be a healthy balance in the relationship, and a growing ability to show true vulnerability with each other.

Sometimes couples can get stuck communicating ineffectively, by using sarcasm, criticism, sulking, blaming, withdrawing or shaming, and through counselling, you will learn how to express feelings honestly and constructively.

Prior to counselling, you may have worried about bringing up a sensitive subject with your partner, or your conversations may have felt like they were going round and round in circles, with a building sense of frustration, but after attending counselling you will feel that disagreements can be talked through effectively with empathy and understanding.