Marriage or any committed intimate relationship can be a source of tremendous joy. But one of the cruel ironies of life is that it can also be the source of pain. The breakdown of the connection with a partner can happen slowly over the course of years or suddenly in the wake of significant events such as life transitions, grief, or personality differences.
On a recent episode of Influencers Radio with Jack Mize, licensed professional clinical counselor and Relationship Coach Sharon Hicks discussed how committed couples who are experiencing significant distress in their relationship can heal that connection and open a new chapter of their lives together.
During the interview, Sharon revealed some of the misconceptions many people have about couples counseling, one being that the goal is to ‘fix’ the relationship or go back to the way things used to be, saying, “There is that sense of dread and doom that often people bring into the room when they seek help. That sense that something must be wrong with us, that we need to ask for help, maybe that we should be able to figure this out on our own. They can almost start to imagine life in a different way with a different partner. When, really, there’s this underlying longing for connection that is missing. I think one of the misconceptions is that somehow, we need to get this fixed. And the reality is that we take ourselves with us into every relationship, and it’s less about fixing things and more about gaining an understanding of what’s really going on between two people, making some sense of it, to help really move on to something new, that actually is more healing and connecting.”
