Save Your Marriage by Making Common Goals

How does couple therapy work? The purpose of couple therapy is first and foremost to raise awareness of what is going on between the two parties.

Next, you need to learn some new strategies and tools so that you can have a different outcome in your relationship.

In the end, the new habits must be firmly established, so that they are the ones you resort to when life occasionally peaks.

The couple therapist is not a judge, but an independent facilitator / mediator who asks questions and thereby sorts reality from the beliefs. It is not about the couple being right or wrong, but about listening and understanding each other’s differences. The differences will be revealed as the relationship progresses, but in the initial stage, they are the important thing.

What are these differences?

For some couples differences are a result of their past experiences and for others they are a result of their past behaviors. For example, a woman who was abused in the past may be incapable of being a nurturing mother. But it does not follow that she will not be able to nurture her own children. The important thing is that she understands her past as a learning process and that she must now learn new skills for her family.

The important thing is that the couple is a team working towards a common goal. Maybe with the help from a couple therapist (parterapeut).

It is crucial that the couple understands that there are different ways to provide for your family and the most successful way is the one you choose. If both couple adopt different ways, the result will be different outcomes.

What are the couple’s shared values?

Values have an important role in the couple’s life to have a good relationship, especially in a culture where people often have conflicting values. Values are the key to deciding which way to go in your relationship. In a democratic country like Denmark, values are usually decided democratically (at election time), but it does not mean that both decide together. There are many different ways to express and deliver your values. In your values, you must know your past and your kids are future witnesses.

What are the couple’s major life goals?

If you both have the same purpose in your relationship, you can be sure that neither of you are expecting the other to fail. Your shared purpose can be as different as yours and your partner’s religion and values. Your shared goal can be to have children or to have a retirement. If both of you have different life goals, there is a higher probability that you will have different goals in your career and future decisions. If you have a different life goal, the result may be different things you must do, or need to do, or expect to do in your life.

If you both share the same purpose in your relationship, and the need for a shared life goal, then you are a most unlikely to have different goals in your life.

But there are other ways to express and deliver your shared purpose in your relationship. For example, if you are working to have children, both of you can have a different life goal to have a child or to not have a child. But the important thing is that the two of you share the same future purpose. This shared future purpose makes your shared life goals most likely.

Before you can know the probability of your shared future purpose in your marriage, it is important that you have time to talk. This is what couple therapy is all about (hvordan virker parterapi). Talking and knowing about your future together helps increase the probability of the two of you having the same shared life goals for many years to come. When you and your partner discuss your future together, they should understand each other. If you can’t agree to what your future goal will be, do your best to reach a mutual understanding of it.

Now you need to make certain that your life goals coincide with each other’s in your parforhold. If you each have different goals for a retirement or having children, the result will be unexpected. This is because the possible courses of your life might be different. A common goal can be achieved if you both aim to become wealthy or famous. But you must know that this common goal will not be achieved by you both in the same way, and in the same order, or within the same amount of time. To be wealthy you need more time than to become famous. And if you will become wealthy by having children, then in a short amount of time you will have your own children.

You need to make decisions together and share ideas, to find out what the other is doing and how he is doing it. You need to agree with the goals that your future will have to include common goal-setting as well as life-improvement goals.

If the problem is financial, then don’t expect your spouse to solve it for you. There is no solution if you and your spouse are not on the same wavelength. To improve your financial situation you need to get financial advice from different sources. You need to discuss the problem with different people in the hope that they might have some solutions that will be good for your financial status. Financial problem cannot be solved by one person alone.