Do you dread why you are married? Are you and your spouse avoiding each other? Often, you imagine marriage as a fairytale where you meet your Prince charming or your beautiful Princess, have a whirlwind courtship and live happily ever after but do not bring the tools to face challenges with us at that juncture; marriage counselling comes into the picture. Below listed some red flags that your relationship needs marriage counselling.

1. Arguments

From arguing about which side of the bed you want to sleep on to not spending enough time with each other, the most common arguments among married couples come down to jealousy, infidelity, insecurity, personality differences, dominance and control, child-raising etc. The research shows that 69% of the time, the couple keeps arguing about unresolvable perpetual problems. The time to visit a marriage counsellor is to notice such a pattern of frequent arguments.

2. Emotional Disconnect

Loneliness is the key index that something is wrong; discarding well in time may land a couple in serious trouble. At times one person in a relationship may feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for, or misunderstood then the relationship suffers from a lack of affection, shared humour, active interest, excitement, joy, support and empathy. The couple may miss out on these emotional engagements during everyday interactions.

3. Lack or Absence of Physical Intimacy

A couple needs physical intimacy to live happily in marriage. The absence of physical intimacy may lead to resentment and infidelity. Your connection with each other fizzles out. Lack of emotional connection increases the probability of lack of physical intimacy; then, there is a need to visit a marriage counsellor. Another foremost is to consult a physician to rule out the possibility of an organic problem in the body.

4. Suspicion

Keeping an eye on text messages, phone calls, meeting schedules, bank accounts, and doubts about having an affair indicates that a couple needs a professional marriage counsellor’s help. Suspicion not only erodes the relationship but ruins you as a person and is like cancer that can grow on you and destroy the healthiest relationship. Do hold on to suspicious feelings and find a way to talk to your partner about them. 

5. Breakdown of Communication

How many of you have a favourite colour, taste in music, or a relative dreads the most or best holiday of your partner? Often, we do not know or never bother to know this much about our partners and forget about their feelings. An essential ingredient of communication is empathy – put yourself in others’ shoes and feel how and what others go through. The I, Me, Mine talks often create a rift among partners. While they are essential but WE are what needs to be the focus. 

6. Bias towards Parents

As an expert Marriage and Family Counsellor in the last 20 years, I have clients who complain that their husbands give more time to their parents, take a stand for their parents and neglect the wife. The wife spends more time with their parents and frequently goes to Maika (the wife’s parental home). The reason is of wife’s likes, dislikes, kindness, understanding, affection, boundaries, respect and expectations towards her family. Not to deny that a reasonable bias is justified when this goes beyond a marriage counsellor being consul. 

7. High Expectations

Couples often fail to distinguish between realistic and unrealistic expectations in marriage, which lead to sadness, despair, resentment and anxiety. The research on couple relationships has identified happy couples as those who have maintained a friendly relationship, have a satisfying sex life and maintain a positive effect in communication. Marriage grows on fondness, love, affection, respect, trust, commitment and forgiveness. 

8. Financial Disharmony

Couples often quarrel over Money- expenditure and saving styles, investments and other areas of financial management. Whether the person would like to maintain a joint or an independent account, would they prefer to join funds, split bills, and so on are subject to what feels fair to both the partners in marriage. When such matters come to gridlock, and then the intervention of a professional marriage counsellor is required.

Dr Nisha Khanna is a trained Marriage Counsellor and Certified Couple Facilitator with 20+ years of experience and offers Online, Telephonicallyand Face-to-Face Counselling Services. If you are in Delhi, India or any other part of the World, you can approach us through any of these mediums. For details, visit Dr Nisha Khanna, or call us at +91-9818211474