Marriage Counseling Chicago

Located in Chicago’s north side, we are a group of marriage counseling and couples therapists committed to helping couples in distressed relationships to learn and use effective methods and emotional tools to overcome the hurt, to learn to communicate in a productive and loving way, and to rediscover the reason their precious unions exist.

It is our belief that couples who have decided to seek professional counseling have taken the first important step toward a mutual recovery. We are convinced that seeking help means there is more than enough love and respect remaining between partners to reform a lasting companionship that will be meaningful for not only the couple but for those who love them.

Couples Skills Building

It is not always necessary for couples to attend sessions together in order to benefit from counseling. Sometimes, attending sessions together is simply not practical. Often times couples can derive benefits from attending sessions singly and discover meaningful insight about him or herself, their partner, and the relationship. Single sessions are done, most often, with the hope that the partner will eventually be able to attend as these therapies work best when both are present and fully engaged.

Our approach involves a warm and gentle conversational way of addressing problems that can be difficult to talk about, as they are tied to emotional triggers. Our method is focused on the non-pressuring encouragement of emotional sharing so that healthy communication and healing, can begin.

Our professional and experienced counselors are trained to teach useful and effective communication skills with the aim of getting both partners re-engaged in an effort to achieve a deeper mutual understanding. Our intention is to restore a sense of joy to your relationship, to reinforce the healthy habits you already know, while addressing troubled aspects of the relationship.

Counseling for Married and Unmarried Couples

Here at the Center, we believe that there is a compelling reason you and your partner became a couple before your relationship became distressed. We are confident that it is that very reason you are now seeking help to repair your bond by seeking couples counseling, premarital counseling, or marriage counseling. At one time, your love was strong and there was no doubt between you about the meaning or value of your relationship.

Today, you know your partner so well, that it is difficult to imagine either them or you committing to changing behavior or perspectives. You don’t know where to begin. This is a common, and understandable dilemma that many people in relationships experience- sometimes more than once in a given relationship. The longer the relationship has existed, often the more difficult is the impasse where you now find yourself.

Couples Counseling Can and Will Help

The treatments for marriage and for couples that we do are carefully crafted to address any and all of the troublesome issues that couples of all kinds and all ages frequently, and naturally, find themselves facing. Consider the following list of common, (and very treatable), problem behaviors that many couples can learn to stop and change:

• Stone-walling: avoiding communication at all costs, also known as shutting down, or the silent treatment.
• Conflict escalation: the seemingly unavoidable ramping up of an argument until it becomes a full-fledged fight.
• Button-pushing: using emotionally sensitive topics to trigger an emotional response from a partner in order to ‘win’ an argument.
• Sexual embargoes: withholding sex or affection for however long one’s partner remains disagreeable.
• Emotional neediness: a cycle where one party is overly dependent on the affection and/or approval of the other- to the point where the needed party becomes emotionally exhausted.
• Just roommates: the terrible deadening of affection and closeness to the point where neither partner is getting their needs met and intimacy fades away.
• Poor financial Habits: poor spending habits by either or both partners can foster resentment and disdain which must be corrected.
• Avoiding problems: the dangerous and unhealthy habit of ignoring or hoping that important problems will just go away on their own.
• Failing to have fun: the dulling down of spontaneity and playfulness which is so important to close partnerships.- Marriage myths: common beliefs about marriage that can cause unhealthy attitudes and behaviors to develop.
• Fear of intimacy: a lack of trust, or the festering of past traumas making intimacy a fearful idea for one or the other partner.
• Previous infidelity: addressing the need to learn to forgive, to move on- and to learn to meet each other’s needs.

All of these problems can take the joy and energy right out of a person- and a relationship. But they need not be permanent barriers to your future happiness. Here at Couples Counseling Chicago (aka Couples Counseling Center) we are dedicated to helping you to overcome all these obstacles and restoring you and your heart’s companion to the state of joy and friendship you once knew. We encourage you to take a look at our marriage report card to assess the general health of your marriage today.