What to Expect During the 3rd Stage of Marriage Counseling?

Marriage counseling Raleigh NC is an excellent place for couples who have become estranged from one another to reconnect and restore their relationship. Couples who feel like they’re just roommates who have lost passion in their marriage seek marriage counseling to reconnect and restore their relationship.

If you don’t know how to communicate productively anymore, feel emotionally and physically distanced but still love each other, and want to stay together, marriage counseling Raleigh NC can be a great place to start rekindling your relationship.

At the first stage of emotionally focused therapy, you learn how to deescalate and feel more connected with each other. You learn to distinguish between your primary and secondary emotions and understand your cycle. You also become more aware of what is going on within yourself and in your relationship and what you need to work on in order to enhance it.

The most significant transformations will occur during the second stage of marriage counseling Raleigh NC. This stage typically lasts six to twelve months, so you can expect to make the most progress in this stage of EFT marriage counseling.

You will learn to recognize the repeating cycle in your relationship. Still, you will also learn to slow down and understand each other’s primary emotions like insecurity, fear, and sadness, which are often masked by secondary emotions such as anger or frustration. This understanding will allow you to see each other’s pain and approach each other differently.

The Third Stage of EFT-Based Marriage Counseling Raleigh NC: Consolidation

At the beginning of the third stage of emotionally focused marriage counseling Raleigh NC, you are able to understand your cycle, primary and secondary emotions, and to have a different kind of conversation with your partner – to share painful experiences without shutting down, taking it personally, or feeling offended.

So, you should feel connected at the beginning of the final stage of your marriage counseling Raleigh NC.

Connect First, Then Correct

When you feel connected, only then you can have a corrective emotional experience. However, before we can correct, we must first connect.

The third stage is the shortest stage of EFT marriage counseling. We consolidate all the work from the first two stages during this final stage.

This is the stage where you should feel genuinely connected and confident in your ability to reach out to your spouse in a reciprocal manner.

During the third stage, you will be able to process different situations, such as some potentially triggering situations in the future, and try to analyze them together through this perspective of being with each other in a completely different way.

So, during the third EFT stage, you will understand that pain is normal, that conflict is normal, and that it is natural to have different opinions from your partner. Then, you will learn how to navigate all that within your unique relationship dynamic.

We will do a lot of practice during our marriage counseling Raleigh NC sessions, so you will be able to recenter yourself and reconnect quickly when you fall off this path.

However, research shows that you don’t have to be connected 100 percent of the time. You must actually be connected only 60% of the time for your relationship to thrive.

You will learn to become vulnerable and healthily dependent on each other.

Healthy dependency in a relationship means the ability to rely on one another while preserving a strong sense of individuality and independence. It involves feeling comfortable being vulnerable and understanding each other’s primary emotions.

By the end of the third or consolidation stage of your EFT marriage counseling Raleigh, NC, you should experience better mental health, increased satisfaction with yourself and your relationship, better communication, and a deeper connection with your partner.

Summary

EFT marriage counseling can assist you in developing a secure emotional bond with your partner and learning to be vulnerable with one another. You will learn how to express and understand each other’s underlying emotions and freely ask your partner to meet your needs.

This stage of emotionally focused therapy will help you understand how you form negative patterns in your relationship and get stuck in them and how to break those patterns. It will also help you learn how to change those patterns.

I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions or would like to schedule an appointment in my Wake Forest or virtual office, do not hesitate to book your free 15 min phone consultation online by clicking here.