All relationship counseling is about getting the two people in the relationship to talk to each other and start to try to understand each others feeling more. The problem that any relationship counseling advisor will tell you is that getting those two people in the same room for more than a few minutes and remaining calm throughout is the difficult part.
If you’re experiencing relationship problems of your own, here’s a few tips you can try yourself at home, with your partner, before you consider looking for qualified (and potentially expensive) relationship counseling services.
Plan a time when you are not likely to be disturbed. You will need maybe ten minutes if this is your first talk session, but it would be better to leave a bit of leeway after the session.
Turn off any music, radio or television, and put the phone on ‘answer’.
Set a kitchen timer, alarm or stopwatch for ten minutes from the start (or two five-minute periods to give you a changeover time).
When starting your relationship counseling at home, you should both come with a written agenda for one or two things you would like to talk about.
Try to have an agreement that you will not say hurtful things during the ten minutes.
Divide the time equally between you.
Decide who will start with their agenda items.
Switch over to the other person after five minutes.
If arguments begin, you could try to end by ‘agreeing to differ’ at the ten minute deadline, or if they are getting out of hand, you could just stop the session and plan to meet at another time.
In later sessions you could use communication training or negotiation as the main agenda.
In your later “in home” relationship counseling sessions you could extend the time, if you both agree that it is safe to do so, up to 20 minutes at the most.
This approach should be very helpful, and as you can see doesn’t involve any relationship counseling services – you can easily work through this plan of attack in the comfort of your own home.
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