“Do you think this will work for us?” People ask me this question all of the time before they begin couples therapy.
I’ve spent years helping couples build genuinely good marriages, and I’ve learned some things about what makes that work possible. The answer isn’t simply determined by how serious their problems are, how long they’ve been together, or how different they are from one another.
Some couples come to therapy with complex, heartbreaking problems and make remarkable changes. Other couples have relatively ordinary problems such as miscommunication, difficulty solving problems, or desire discrepancies. Some couples I’ve worked with stayed together and others parted ways.
Here are five insights I’ve noticed that make it much easier for couples to build genuinely good relationships.
1. What if we don’t have anything in common anymore?
It’s more about a commitment to one another than the things you have in common.
It’s a myth that couples who have more in common stay together more often.
In fact, I’ve noticed that the longer a couple has been together, the less likely they are to enjoy the same things. And that’s a good thing. Here’s why.
People are supposed to grow and change during the years they are together. That personal growth brings vitality, energy, and excitement to the relationship. It’s natural that they would develop different interests.
The challenge isn’t to stay the same as when you met. It’s to choose one another again and again. That’s commitment in action.
There are two ways to put that commitment into action and intentionally grow together over the years.
First, cultivate activities to do together. Try new hobbies. Participate in each other’s interests. Support and encourage your partner’s interests. This stretches each partner to expand their comfort zone and introduces new experiences for each of you.
Second, be interested in your partner’s stories about activities they do without you. Be actively engaged in learning more about what they care about, even if you don’t participate or share the same interests. You don’t have to enjoy everything your partner enjoys. You don’t even have to understand why they enjoy it. You can be interested in them as a person.
Both of these approaches use the energy generated by personal growth to keep the relationship alive and relevant without needing to have a lot in common. And when you’re facing tough and boring times, it is the commitment to one another that plays the bigger role in having a good relationship.
A good marriage isn’t two people becoming more alike. It’s two people who choose to know and enjoy each other again and again.
Try this at home: Ask your partner about their interests. Get them to tell you one story about something they’re passionate about. Instead of trying to understand why they like it, be curious about what they experience when they’re doing it. Notice what happens inside of you when you see their energy and enthusiasm.
2. Why can’t my partner be more like me?
Differences are a hidden strength in your relationship.
Have you ever imagined what it would be like to live with yourself? You would have to do all of the chores you hate to do because there wouldn’t be anyone else who might experience them differently.
You and your partner are supposed to be different. I’ve never met a couple where the partners were much alike. Where they are the same in values or preferences, they are different in their thinking and experiences. There may be substantial similarities and still deep differences.
Your partner’s differences are a strength that makes your life together more successful and richer. They can see options that you can’t. Their perspective gives you insights that would be hard to see on your own.
The challenge isn’t getting you to be more alike. It’s learning how two different people can build a good relationship together.
The couples I’ve worked with who survive crises and thrive aren’t those who eliminate differences. They’re the ones who understand that their differences make them stronger, wiser, and more resilient.
Many times, couples come to therapy with a laundry list of ways their partner is making their life harder. When we flip that script to understand how the differences broaden their lives, it doesn’t erase the differences. Instead, it gives us a starting place to work from. We look to bridge their individual differences so they work well together as a couple.
I’ll give you an example that I commonly see.
Usually one partner handles the finances. Often, it’s the partner who values saving money. This is an important role for the relationship. That partner may feel frustrated by their partner’s lack of interest or by actions that seem to undermine their efforts.
But there may be something else happening beneath the surface here.
One partner feels more secure in the world with a larger safety net to handle unforeseen problems and to prepare for the future. The other believes their resources afford them a better life today.
Looked at as strengths, these two perspectives fit together nicely. One saves, and the other makes sure they enjoy life as they are living it.
The problem isn’t the different perspectives. The challenge is learning how to use two different perspectives to build a life that works for each of you.
Try this at home: Make a list of ways your partner’s different perspectives and preferences make your life better. If you are up for the challenge, think of a trait that you argue about. Then ask yourself, “How does their way of looking at it improve our life?”
3. How can we improve our relationship with the least amount of excruciating work?
Two very powerful, but often overlooked, tools for building connection are curiosity and appreciation.
Here’s one of the secrets of a good relationship. No matter how hard things are, you can often make huge improvements by practicing curiosity and appreciation.
Not your partners —-> yours. (If I were adding two other strong contenders they would be forgiveness and boundaries, but those get back to putting in harder work.)
Curiosity is openhearted wondering about your partner’s unspoken experience. It’s not an angry demand of “Why?!?” Instead, it’s putting a pause before your reaction and wondering “What else is here?” or “How did this come to be?”
Pausing to be curious is not a diversion or putting aside of your true feelings. If you should be outraged or hurt, you’ll still feel that way after you’ve heard more.
But, curiosity may reveal something that helps you understand better. And knowing more may trigger compassion, empathy, connection, and a shared sense of partnership.
Appreciation works in a similar way.
Appreciation can make your partner feel seen, heard, and valued. Even more, you start to look for and acknowledge the good when you practice it.
It’s even more powerful when you both practice it, but it can still be very impactful for both of you when only one partner does. Acknowledging the good in the relationship doesn’t sweep aside the problems. Instead, it helps keep the problems in perspective.
Try this at home: For seven days, share with your partner a different thing that you appreciate about them. Choose your own timing so you can wholeheartedly share the appreciation. Think of things they’ve done that make your life better and qualities you appreciate in their character. At the end of the week, notice whether anything has softened in you or your partner. You are as likely to see changes in yourself as in your partner from this exercise.
4. Why does my partner always let me down?
Taking accountability for your part in relationship problems solves problems faster.
It’s so easy to become hyperfixated on our partner’s faults. I’ll admit that even for me, who understands how relationships work, it’s much easier for me to be frustrated with my partner than to take a good, hard look at my contributions to problems. After all, I can easily see how they could fix things.
Unfortunately, almost everything that happens in a relationship is an interaction. One partner does this. The other responds in a certain way. That response triggers the first partner to react. The cycle continues. It’s very difficult to trace problems back to the beginning.
The good news is that this gives you more options for fixing a problem. You can solve it. Your partner can solve it. Or you can find a joint solution.
But being able to access those options relies on each of you being willing to acknowledge your own part, even when your partner was wrong (or even more wrong), too.
Once you acknowledge your part, you may see things that can change rapidly. Taking accountability doesn’t mean taking responsibility for everything that happened. And it doesn’t mean you have to do a lot more and more work to compensate for what your partner isn’t doing. In fact, sometimes taking accountability means recognizing that you need to do less. Sometimes it means holding a firmer line on a boundary. But those options only become clear when each person is willing to acknowledge their own contribution to the problem.
Try this at home: Think about your latest argument. Which complaints that your partner made have a grain of truth to them? That’s the part that you are accountable for. You are not responsible for the whole problem. But your part is something you can potentially change.
5. Why does my partner ALWAYS have to push my buttons?
Disappointment is part of being in a close relationship.
You and your partner are uniquely qualified to both love and hurt one another. Even when you’re each at your best, because you are so close and know each other so well, you know just what buttons to push when you are trying to protect yourselves. And there are so many opportunities to disappoint one another. Not because either of you are being mean, but because your lives depend on one another. So, the stakes feel really high when you disagree.
Here are some everyday ways that couples hurt one another:
- When you disagree, it feels like your partner is trying to hurt you when they are trying to protect themselves.
- When they forget a detail that is important to you, it feels like evidence of how much they care about and consider you.
- When they are distracted and want to spend their time doing something else, you feel unimportant and unprioritized.
A typical pattern is to criticize your partner when these things happen for being inconsiderate and uncaring when you are feeling frustrated and irritated.
None of these experiences are imaginary. They really do hurt. But the meaning we attach to them can make the hurt much bigger.
Couples who have good relationships see these as everyday issues to address. They are points of friction, not a report card on the relationship.
They bring up the issue as a discussion, quickly take accountability for their part, and focus on finding solutions that work for both of them.
Try this at home: Think of something your partner has done recently that disappointed you. Instead of asking, “What does this say about my partner or our relationship?” ask, “What is the problem we need to solve?”
Couples who get the most out of couples therapy aren’t fundamentally different from others.
They argue. They disappoint one another. They misunderstand one another. They have different priorities and ways of seeing the world. They mess up. They feel angry and hurt.
What I’ve noticed is that they learn to approach their relationship differently. They learn to be curious about one another. They learn to appreciate what their partner brings to the relationship. They learn to recognize that being different doesn’t mean being incompatible. They learn to take responsibility for their part without taking responsibility for everything. And they learn to treat problems as opportunities to improve their lives.
These aren’t qualities that you either have or don’t have. They’re things you can learn.
You don’t have to become different people. You can learn to relate differently. There are skills and tools and strategies you can learn to change the trajectory of your relationship while still being who you are.
So who does couples therapy work for? It works for couples who are willing to consider new ways of approaching their relationship.
You don’t have to already know how to do these things before you start couples therapy. That’s part of what you’re there to learn.
For me, I’m curious about what the next few years of working with couples will teach me. As soon as I know, I’ll be sure to pass the insights on, both in my writing, and in therapy.
If you want help in implementing any of these qualities into your relationship, schedule a free consultation to learn how Couples Therapy can help.
