Couples/marriage therapy

We provide marriage counseling in Chicago and other areas in Chicagoland. Marriage counseling, or marital counseling as it is sometimes known, covers a range of counseling for different stages of a relationship. For example, you may come to us for couple counseling, pre-marital counseling, marriage counseling, counseling prior to divorce, divorce mediation or helping with raising children following the divorce. Of course, the earlier you come to us in your relationship, the less likely it will be that it ends in divorce. Our aims is to help you work towards new levels of love and fulfilment in your relationship.

How do you develop harmony and long-term balance in a relationship? Relationships are often challenged by things such as communication, money and allocation of chores (ie balancing who does what).

It doesn't matter if you are replicating patterns of your past, or reacting to something in your partner because you are dealing with something within yourself. It still comes back to living together and growing in the relationship.

How does a relationship develop? How do you find happiness in yourself rather than trying to find it in someone else – so that you can live with someone and love someone but not depend or get lost in them. Often the main problem in relationships is the expectations you put on someone, that you can't fulfill yourself. Happiness doesn't come from your partner – happiness comes from yourself. And when you find some peace within yourself – you can then learn to live with someone. If you don't feel good yourself, you are always going to find something annoying in your partner or you will blame them. They are never going to live up to your expectations.

Phil in Chicago: "Scott helped my wife and I through the journey to partnership. Without him we would have ended up somewhere short of there."

Jerry in Chicago: "Scott helps me to see the big picture and provides simple tools to identify and change old habits and responses. I am a better person, and a better husband, for having met Scott! And, my marriage is full of a new and deeper love."

Amy in Chicago: "Scott provides a "safe, non-judgemental zone" for my husband and I to explore ourselves and our relationship. He talks with us in our individual "personal language", understanding what helps us to "get it"! Scott helps teache us new tools and different ways of looking at the "issues" in order to reach our personal goals. In learning what makes me "me", I have fallen in love with my husband again!"

It's not to say that people haven't learned how to live with someone else, sometimes it's hard to be tolerant of someone's religion, success or lack of success, fading physical appearance, personal problems, health issues, loss or change, whatever. But in a relationship there are three things – you, your partner and what you have created between you. So the question is – is it your issue, your partner's issue or what affects both of you?

Some things are just your partner's issues and you need to learn tolerance of another person's issues. Some things like 'sexuality' is something that affects both of you and that doesn't mean either person is wrong or right – it is just something that needs to be worked on. However, sometimes a personal issue like a health problem or a mental health concern can affect the relationship not just the individuals.

Some of the problems that can occur in the relationship (ie in the entity created between "us"):

• over-attachment to one's partner or to their problems
• indifference to your partner or to their problems (so there is no real connection or entity created between us)
• expecting your partner to reflect your emotions or issues (eg if I am depressed, you should be depressed, I'm happy so you should feel happy) – so not realizing that your partner is their own self and has their own identity and that they have the right to be who they are and that you accept them as they are
• just reacting to your partner's emotions or issues and becoming caught up in them yourself (eg if they are angry – you are angry) – there is no adult left in the room so you both go down together rather than having one partner try to help the other to overcome their emotion or issue
• being dependent on your partner being dependent on you
• needing to control others because you feel out of control yourself.

What is the "us" in the relationship? The "us" is not a fantasy of one or other of us or even a shared fantasy. If it were just a fantasy then there would be no way to make it real, no way to make it fulfilled or to actively live it out. The "us" is "our reality", or actual way to being together, so we can live a real life together rather than just being in a fantasy.

We sometimes get lost in how we want the other person to be to the point of losing a grasp of who they really are. And thus how they can really contribute to our lives as we transform their lives. We all seek connection. Even the most extreme isolationist seeks "connection" to themselves, to nature, to some environment, to plants, animals, God, to their vision, their purpose or simply to their search – to the "quest itself". Wanting connection is a natural drive in life. So even if we say we don't want or need somebody, we all are seeking some form of connection.

Love and relationships are not the same. You can love someone but not be meant to be with them. Or you can have a great relationship but not love one another. But if you could learn how to have both love and a relationship then you could learn how to be together and create what it is you wan to create.

How do you incorporate someone in your life?

What is the purpose of your relationship?

These are the sort of questions we help you work through as couple.

What should we do next?

Contact us to arrange for marriage counseling or couple therapy in the Chicago, Evanston or Schaumburg Illinois areas by phoning 1-888-870-1775 or by emailing info@ardentcenter.com.