Are you having trouble moving forward after a breakup?
Are you feeling lonely and isolated even when you are surrounded by thousands of people?
Did your kids recently leave home and you feel lost and without a purpose?
Do you feel you lack meaningful relationships with your friends and/or family?
Are you having trouble getting along with your coworkers?
Everybody struggles with their meaningful relationships at one point in life or another
Think about it. Do you know anyone who has not struggled in their relationships with friends/loved ones? Probably not; even the most “successful” and skillful people in building and cultivating relationships have struggled or can be struggling in their most meaningful relationships.
Relationships can be challenging even for the best of us, mainly because as human beings, our need for love and affection must be met. Meeting these needs, feeling loved and cared for is something that is built through time and it usually requires effort, patience, consistency and hard work. Nevertheless, our society and the media expose us to ideas about love and companionship as something very different, something idealistic, that should come easy to us and that should be instantly pleasurable and long lasting.
Many of us were consciously (or unconsciously) exposed to different ideas about love and “ideal relationships” through the media, movies, books, culture, our families and loved ones, and nowadays through social media and the internet. Unfortunately, in our society we are constantly told “we are not good enough” until we find that special someone that can make it all better. Many of us were taught that someone out there would be able to meet ALL our needs and that in some way, we are missing out on something in life before we find our “better half”.
Does that sound familiar? I hear people talking about how “incomplete” they feel without that special someone and it can be lonely and hard out there to meet new people. Sometimes people can feel a very REAL sense of stagnation, sadness, hopelessness and disappointment about their difficulty to find a life partner. Nowadays, there seems to be a million dating apps and internet options available when we are searching for that special someone, but this “search” can in itself be very stressful, exhausting, discouraging and very often, an overwhelming task for many.
Think about friendships, too. Our success as friends is sometimes measured by our ability to have a lot of friends or even a few meaningful friendships, but this is not necessarily an easy task for many of us. Especially in a city like New York, where people are constantly busy and moving in and out of the city, distances can be long, time is limited and it can be challenging to maintain and cultivate friendships in the long term.
Our friendships can also at times (like any other relationship) go through periods of stagnation, a sense of lost connection and disappointment. I frequently hear people talking about dear friends that they seem to have lost touch with and sometimes for unclear reasons that can leave people feeling sad and inadequate as well. Friendships, like other meaningful relationships, go through changes. As individuals, we all go through different life transitions and sometimes those changes can have a profound impact on what once felt like a very special and unique bond with someone who is not blood related but felt as close as a family member or even more.
Other people struggle at work in their day-to-day interactions and although you may not necessarily consider your coworkers part of your meaningful relationships list, you have to interact with them everyday. Most of us spend about 8 hours per day at work so that is an average of 40 hours out of your week. If you are feeling and experiencing difficulties in your interactions with coworkers, you may find yourself having a hard time waking up every morning and finding the motivation to go to work feeling motivated and purposeful.
To some extent, in our practice we believe that positive and meaningful relationships in our lives can enrich it and give us some of the most positive feelings we can ever experience.
Our sense of feeling connected to others can make us feel amazing and important. Our sense of feeling like our contributions make a difference and what we have to offer matters to others.
When we feel in harmony in our relationships, we feel like we belong, and are loved and cared about.
But what happens when we do not find that pleasure or that sense of unconditional acceptance from our loved ones? Or even when we feel like we cannot find a way to be part of the team at work and we feel like outsiders? What happens when, in spite of our best efforts, things go south and the relationship ends? We feel frustrated, we start doubting ourselves. We can feel like failures just to say the least.
Relationships can be challenging, in part because we are not taught about how to be successful at them and also because there is no magic recipe to be successful at them either. We sort of go through trial and error, and if we are lucky we may have some space to reflect about our choices, our needs and wants, our expectations and also have a realistic outlook about how complex human relationships can be. Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it?
Did you ever take a class in school where they taught you how to be the best friend, best partner, husband/wife, boyfriend or girlfriend? Chances are that you didn’t.
We enter our meaningful relationships with specific expectations and ideas that are deeply formed by our family and life histories, our cultural backgrounds, our family’s beliefs, our early positive and/or negative experiences growing up, our values and what matters to us the most, the media and many other factors that play a role in our feeling successful or frustrated in our relationships with loved ones.
People who are having difficulties in their significant relationships frequently describe struggling with loneliness, feeling inadequate, having frequent arguments, or feeling disconnected from their partners, and not getting to a satisfying resolution about different topics that are usually important to one or both parties.
Common difficulties that we have seen in our practice are in important relationship areas such as communication, decision making, respect of personal space, intimacy, conflict resolution, family planning, relationships with extended family members, relationships with friends, time for self-care, financial management and social life, mistrust and differences in cultural backgrounds or family values among others.
Difficulties in our relationships are often tied to difficulties communicating with others, feeling heard and validated, patterns we have learned from previous relationships and/or we may have given into certain societal pressures about what our relationships “should look like” without giving much room to the endless possibilities that could lead a person to feel happy and fulfilled in their relationships.
Therapy can help you to have healthier and more satisfying relationships
The good news, however is that we both have more than 15 years of experience working with individuals, couples and families eager to improve their relationships but not really knowing how to get there.
In our sessions together, we can find ways to move forward. We can assess how certain decisions and changes in our day-to-day interactions with significant people in our lives can help us build, explore, let go, heal certain wounds or develop healthier and more satisfying relationships with our loved ones, our significant other, our dearest friends, our children, or our coworkers.
In our sessions, we will address and look at your specific needs, your worries and expectations to build on your qualities and strengths as a person, and identify some of the behaviors/patterns that have not been helpful to you currently and/or in your past relationships.
We will look at any feelings of isolation, rejection or not feeling like you belong because things have not quite worked as you had expected.
In our work with people struggling in their relationships, we believe that there is not just “one way” to go about your particular struggle because we are complex beings, and everyone has a different story and different needs.
In therapy sessions, we can help you identify what matters the most to you, and what rings true to your specific needs so that you can discover a whole new way in which you can feel more connected to others, and ultimately evaluate the kind of relationships that will bring you most pleasure and satisfaction.
When you go to therapy, and you are willing to explore a little further and deeper, you can find ways to meet your needs to feel loved, desired and cared for without feeling frustrated about what you do not have or cannot get.
Our approach is strengths based, which means that we will not only focus on what is not working, but we will also look at what works, which qualities and strengths you bring into your relationships, what those moments when you have felt happier look like and how to get there again.
Most people desire to be happy in their relationships, feel connected to others, feel loved and cared about and we believe we can help you figure out how to get there.
Even if you currently feel a painful sense of disconnection or unhappiness about a relationship, with the help of a supportive and compassionate therapist, it is possible to find new alternatives that may work better for you. It is possible to be heard, understood and feel loved, and cared about again.
You may still have questions about how therapy can make a difference in your relationships
I know people who have gone to therapy and they still have problems in their relationships, so how do I know if therapy can actually make a difference in mine?
We also know people who have gone to therapy and that doesn’t necessarily mean that they will never experience difficulties in their relationships again.
All of us experience difficulties in our relationships at one time of another and therapy is not a magical cure. There is no such a thing as a specific solution to your problem.
Nevertheless, in our personal and professional experience, the first step for people who are struggling in their relationships is to be willing to work with someone in therapy to take a step back and look closely at the different factors that are having an impact on the specific relationships they are concerned about. Then they can reach a sense of clarity and awareness that can allow them to make decisions that are better aligned with their needs and values.
People may also become aware of specific patterns they may be prone to in relationships like assuming certain roles (e.g. the caretaker, the victim, the savior, among others), looking for a specific type of partner over and over without finding success in their choices or maybe just feeling very unsure about the kind of partner they see themselves with in the long run.
Therapy can help you figure out what you really need and explore different ways in which those needs can be met in the context of a significant relationship.
With all the expenses I have, is it really worth it to pay for therapy?
This is a valid and common concern for anyone who is thinking about starting therapy and frankly, adding an additional expense considering the high cost of living for New Yorkers. If you decide to do it, it will cost you not only financially but it also requires a commitment of your time, your effort, and your attention to issues that can be difficult and challenging to face.
Nevertheless, your mental health is as important as your physical health, and therapy can honestly be the best investment in your sense of well-being.
People tend to invest in their physical well-being without thinking too much about it, because it’s a “necessary” expense. Think about it, if you were in physical pain most of the time, most likely you would end up going to the doctor to figure out what’s causing it and seek relief or a solution through treatment.
Taking care of your mental and emotional well-being is extremely important too. The truth is, feeling like you are stuck in life has a HUGE cost in your life and it is not only a financial one. There are other undesirable consequences when you are feeling stuck about a particular challenge in your life.
It affects your relationships, the way you feel every day when you wake up (emotionally and physically), the way you can perform at work, school or your daily life tasks, your sense of personal development and on a spiritual level you may feel disconnected or lost. You can feel like you lack a sense of community, and like your values and your lifestyle are mismatched. You have been doing things that do not seem aligned with what you deeply care about and what you feel speaks to your heart and values.
When considering if therapy is a good investment or not, you can ask yourself a few questions.
Can I afford not to do anything about this?
What will my life look like 3 months from now if I don’t do anything about it?
What will I be missing if I decide to postpone it once again?
What could I gain if I decide to invest in addressing my concerns within the context of support and confidentiality?
Ultimately, the investment in therapy might be very little compared to the long-term costs of not doing anything about what you are struggling with.
But so many people have worse problems than I do, shouldn’t I be able to figure this out for my relationship on my own?
Everyone struggles at different points in life. During transitions in life, we tend to be more vulnerable and therefore we can easily get stuck in the process.
We can also have clear memories about past challenges that we were successfully able to deal with, but this one is taking the best out of us, and that can happen too. There is nothing wrong with you for that.
Sometimes we manage to figure things out on our own but sometimes we don’t. It happens. We cannot possibly have all the solutions for all the challenges we encounter, and therapy is one way to figure things out in the context of a supportive environment where you can further explore different options that you may have not considered.
People who search for therapy have usually attempted different ways to face their dilemmas but for different reasons, they cannot always succeed.
There are many things you can do to face the challenges of a particular transition in your life, and you probably have already tried a few options but have not found relief yet and do not feel better either.
In therapy, you can further explore other possibilities and still figure things out as you go, on your own but in the context of a supportive relationship with your therapist.
I tried therapy in the past but it didn’t seem to work, what if the same thing happens again?
If you tried therapy before and it didn’t work, chances are you did not get the kind of treatment you needed. There are different therapeutic approaches and not all of them work for everyone. For example, for someone who tends to be goal oriented, self-driven and very practical, engaging in traditional psychoanalytic therapy may not be the best fit because the treatment can be long in length, and talking about “what comes to mind” might feel too unstructured and abstract for some people. For others, it may be the best fit.
Another factor that can influence our sense of success in therapy is that there are parts of us that change over time. This means that what did not work for us during our teens, can be helpful in our adulthood years just because we are in a different mindset, and our priorities probably have changed since then too.
It is hard to generalize from a single experience to your whole life, and no two experiences are exactly the same. If you are reading this and you are looking for support so you can put the pieces together and move on with your life, feel happier, accomplished and able to experience joy again, chances are that therapy has a good chance of working to your advantage this time around.
We also hear from time to time, that people might not feel a “connection” with their therapist and this is something that had an impact on their sense of how helpful their therapeutic process was. This is so true and so important too. This is perfectly normal and it can happen in therapy as it happens when you meet someone new (e.g. a friend, a coworker, a potential partner or significant other) and it feels like a mismatch.
If this is something that concerns you, we offer a free 20 minute consultation call for people who are interested in working with us. That can give you a better sense of what we can offer. It also gives us the opportunity to hear about what you are looking for, and what you are hoping to get out of therapy. We would be able to tell you if we think we can be helpful in your journey, or if we can suggest any other alternatives.
Just be mindful that quite often, the relationship between you and your therapist evolves and grows over time as any other meaningful relationships in your life do. That requires an initial sense of comfort and a willingness to develop the relationship further as it grows and evolves.
What if my partner/significant other is not open to attend therapy sessions to address our current concerns? Will it make a difference if I decide to do it alone?
This is not uncommon. Sometimes one partner is not ready or does not see the point in attending couples’ therapy for different reasons and that is okay. Although it could be a powerful experience for couples to address their struggles in sessions together, it happens occasionally that this is not possible.
If this is the case for you, think about how by you attending therapy, you are being proactive at searching for solutions to your current struggles or dilemma in your relationship. This can be a positive experience for you as an individual, and therefore this can only have the potential to be positive for your relationship.
In individual therapy sessions, you can devote all your time and energy to focus on clarifying your needs and expectations, and we can explore together some ideas about what could potentially bring you more happiness and satisfaction in your relationship with your significant other or in your relationships with friends or coworkers.
If you can imagine feeling better and having more clarity about what is going on for you, and identify some possibilities to address your current dilemma, imagine how this in itself can have a positive impact in your relationship with your loved one. You may also inspire them with your determination and your decision to try out therapy as a way to address your current struggles in your relationship and it may be that they decide to join you when they are ready.
Can therapy make things worse?
Deciding to not get help for your current struggles in your relationships can mean that the problem will become a bigger issue in a few months or years.
Your relationships inevitably change over time, and in therapy, you will be facing difficult issues that are resulting in a sense of frustration, isolation, disconnection or simply boredom.
Facing your current relationship struggles is the only way that things can eventually get better. This is usually a non- linear process, which means that there will be ups and downs that can be expected, because you will be looking closely at some of the things that have not worked so well, and this is challenging itself. But remember, we will also talk about what has worked, what is currently working, what are the positive qualities that you can build on.
When people are feeling frustrated, stuck, bored or unhappy, it is usually difficult to think about how things could actually be any different because what we have tried has not quite worked. Attending therapy as an individual puts you in a position where you can have a better understanding about what has happened, what can improve and you can regain a sense of control over how your relationship can change for the better.
You can have more satisfying relationships in your life
If there is a part of you that feels that this might be a good fit for you and what you are struggling with in your current relationships with loved ones or you are experiencing difficulties engaging in new relationships, this might be the right time to do something about it.
If now is not the right time to get support and make positive changes in your life and your relationships, when will it be?
Perhaps you do not need to put off getting the support you need any longer.
Your relationships can be joyful. You can feel more satisfied in your relationships. And you can also feel more open to new and more satisfying experiences as you are searching for and building a meaningful supportive circle of people.
There have been moments when you have experienced a sense of joy and satisfaction in your relationships with others, and that is how you know something is not working right now. Things cannot possibly have felt as negative as they might feel now. Change is possible at any moment, at any age and under many different circumstances.
If you’re interested in working with us to work on your relationships through online therapy, please schedule a free 20-minute consultation call or fill out our contact form to discuss beginning therapy with us.
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