This week I have Simone Sobel, an Atlanta-based couples counselor and trauma therapist on, to discuss some important and common questions about couples therapy:

How do you decide who to go to between a therapist, a coach, or a mentor or religious advisor? Simone says that marriage classes and coaching are a great foundation for any couple, teaching psycho-educational tools that are beneficial to everyone, even if they’ve been married a long time.

There are lots of common reasons that couples come to couples therapy.

Communication is very poor (ie, they can never get on the same page about a certain issue, or there is stonewalling, chronic defensiveness, hyper-criticism, etc.)

Breach of trust in the marriage (ex, one partner spending a lot of money in secret or looking at pornography)

Devestating or dificult life events (losing a job, health crisis, loss of a child or parent)

Lifecycle change (retirement, new baby, empty nest, a major move)

Negative cycles that aren’t going away and you need outside help.

Fine tuning a good relationship (no, there don’t have to be major issues to go to a therapist!)

Spiritual mentors can be very helpful for spiritual based issues, and often they give very good guidance and advice. If you find you are going again and again to your priest, rabbi, etc., and aren’t making progress, that would be a time to consider a therapist.

If a woman feels consistantly criticized and put down in a way that makes him/her feel insecure, demaned, or shamed.

Ongoing provocation, even with a calm or apologetic period between cycles, are considered a cycle of abuse.

If your husband is trying to isolate you from your friends, this is a red flag.

If your spouse can never take responsibility for an issue, this is also a red flag.

Kayla’s note: friends are not the best place to “diagnose” your husband. A therapist will be able to distinguish between normal human misbehavior and serious dysfunction or abuse.

Simone: Find one person to speak with, more of a mentor, who is supportive. A coach or therapist can be neutral and non-judgemental. Couples can get into negative cycles and say mean things to each other, but it’s not necessarily abusive.

Read more on the First Year Married website.