3 Reasons Online Marriage Counseling Is A Good Idea Now
Don’t let the COVID-19 pandemic put off your marriage counseling.
getty Whether your usual counseling sessions were interrupted by offices closing, or being stuck at home with your partner has led to the discovery of relationship issues, online marriage counseling may be the best way to go.
While absence is known to make the heart grow fonder, all the togetherness created by the pandemic may become known as making the heart grow harder.
While some experts are predicting a baby boom following the pandemic, others are expecting a divorce explosion.
With so much change going on in the world right now, the last thing you need is a divorce.
Instead, it may be time to create greater solidarity with your spouse. If your relationship was struggling before, you likely need help during the pandemic, now more than ever.
Here are 3 reasons online marriage counseling is a good idea now, during the pandemic.
1. Online marriage counseling allows you to face it — unmasked — in the surroundings of the conflict.
Counseling or coaching from home, the source of your conflict, keeps you in the environment of the struggle.
It unmasks any illusions and any hidden or conveniently "forgotten" memories of how things actually are by the time you arrive and share at the professional’s office.
By staying home and going online, you are true to the current state of the pandemic, unable to enjoy the previous freedoms of your independent schedules and activities.
You can’t come and go from the appointment in separate cars. You can’t privately call a friend and vent on the way home.
You can’t go lose yourself in work at the office and ignore what was just revealed, discussed, and agreed upon. The work starts now, in the moment, and in the room, and continues when you click "leave the meeting."
2. Embrace it — are you stuck or in luck?
You’ve probably heard it said that your attitude determines your altitude. Well, choose your attitude.
Are you stuck at home needing online marriage counseling because you feel pushed to your limit in some way?
Or are you in luck that you have the time together at home to really turn your focus toward one another in this time of uncertainty and come out stronger together?
If you embrace the attitude of luck, you're on your way. You can go online at home with the perspective that you can create the change you need and want to have the marriage and relationship you both deserve.
You can learn not to simply coexist in the pandemic, but also to cooperate, co-parent, collaborate, and ultimately co-create your life together. You'll find your peace and balance, despite what's happening in the world beyond your control.
The online experience of being in your own home can represent your choice to create this new attitude and change in your marriage.
How you behave with one another in private will translate in public. You’ll be glad you did the work here and now.
3. If not now, when?
When have you truly given 100 percent to something? When it comes to your marriage, if you choose to face it and embrace it, then you have to get in there and dedicate yourself to doing it.
You have to choose one another every day. The best way to do that is to take on counseling like it is a retreat for your love life.
What are exercises you can do to strengthen your marriage? You're living together as if in isolation. How can this be a positive wake up call? A journey together?
How can the time between sessions with your professional be used to truly choose one another over the world? How can you use time as a motivation?
By choosing online marriage counseling or coaching, you can treat it as if you're at a camp or retreat, and keep the mood and motivation uplifting and positive.
Many find themselves acutely aware in the pandemic that life is short, facing their own morbidity, and that they do not want to continue another day being unhappy.
There's a spiritual awakening happening, a shift in priorities, and an awareness of the rare opportunity to bond and reconnect that is being afforded to so very many.
Others are missing it, being swept up in the negativity of the extreme situations surrounding them.
The one thing you can control is your mindset, which will control your feelings about yourself, others, and how you will behave and the actions you will take — or not take.
It is certainly easier to say than to do, and we all need help with our mindsets from time to time.
The demands and sacrifices created by the pandemic are trying and telling times for anyone’s marriage.
People are struggling with various things. Their jobs, uncertain financial security, health and wellness concerns, maintaining basic balance with eating and sleeping.
Not to mention the uncertainties of political leadership, taking on expanded roles as parents or with aging parents, and general feelings of overwhelm and stress with their new normal.
With all this, many also suddenly find themselves in greater marital conflict and, unsurprisingly, it's taking a toll on their relationship.
For some, they are in a "make it or break it" situation. You have a choice to make right now.
Will you choose to work on your relationship and believe in one another, or will you choose to quit and give up on yourself and your spouse?
If you choose the former — to do the work and believe — the first step is the hardest and also the most powerful. You not only want to save your marriage, you believe that you can.
So, book that online marriage counseling appointment. You're ready — and someone is ready to help you. It may not be just a good idea — it could be a divine one.
Note: If domestic violence is occurring in the marriage, this is a different conversation. Please reach out for support and guidance.
Ann Papayoti, CPC, is a life and relationship coach helping people heal their hearts by untangling their past. For more information on how she can help you, visit her website or connect with her on Facebook at SkyView Coaching.