Should You Work With a Couple’s Coach? 5 Amazing Benefits
Do you feel like things between you and your partner are a little lacklustre? We all go through phases in our relationship where we feel a little distant from our partner. Whether you’ve been together for a year or a decade, feeling this way doesn’t have to be par for the course.
But how do you get your train back on track? You know there’s nothing really wrong - nothing that would call for couple’s counselling - but you don’t feel good about letting things stay how they are, either. You want a little bit of that magic back; that feeling that you’re with someone who understands and adores you, from your head to your toes.
You don’t need therapy or counselling, you need a couple’s coach.
What Does a Couple’s Coach Do?
A couple’s coach is someone who will help you and your partner find level footing again, helping you reconnect with each other and find the fun that attracted you to one another in the first place. (That’s exactly what I do for my clients - Hi! I’m Ellie. You can find out more about me here.)
You can think about it like this; when looking after your health, you’d go to the doctor if you felt ill, but you’d go to a personal trainer to get fit. For your relationship, you can go to therapy or you can go to a couple’s coach.
What Are the Benefits of Working With a Couple’s Coach?
1. Shifts the focus from the bad to the good
When something feels lacking in our lives, we tend to only see what’s going wrong and what we’re not happy with. The same happens in our relationships. If you start to feel distant from your partner, you’ll start seeing all the little things you don’t like about them or the things you’re not happy with. What starts as a minor issue, such as a few instances of miscommunication, can suddenly seem like the end of the world.
Avoiding this is not a case of learning to ignore problems - it’s not! - it’s what the Yale University Professor of Psychology, Woo-kyoung Ahn, author of Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better, calls a thinking problem.
In an interview for Yale, she said, “confirmation bias becomes a thinking problem when it makes us draw conclusions that are unfair to ourselves or others. … An experiment I conducted illustrates this. In the experiment participants carried out a saliva test. Half were told the results indicated they have elevated genetic risks for [depression], the other half told they [didn’t].
Then, all participants were asked about the symptoms of depression they experienced in the past two weeks. [The test results were randomly assigned.] Those who learned they have genetic risks reported they were significantly more depressed, and their average score [was] higher than what could be clinically considered mild depression.”
A couple’s coach can help you shift your focus to the good. Instead of using your brain’s bias to see all the bad things about your partner and your relationship, you can use it to see all the things you love and enjoy about each other. This will help you feel happier, want to do more together that brings you joy, and tear down the barriers we naturally build between ourselves and our partner when we fear we may get hurt.
My clients Simone and Steff found this out for themselves. “I think [the Coupld Membership] really prompted us to focus on all the good things and be more appreciative of each other.”
2. Opens up lines of communication
Communication is one of the most important aspects of a relationship, and it’s what facilitates the most important factor, which is trust. If both partners do not feel able to express themselves freely and broach difficult topics when necessary, there will always be some level of disconnect and mistrust.
Couple’s coaching helps you to discuss vulnerable topics in a safe environment, with a third party there to help ask the right questions to open up lines of communication between you and your partner. It will also help you create shared language and give you the opportunity to open a dialogue about topics you may have shied away from asking before.
Effie and Joe found that this was one of the biggest benefits they got from the Coupld Membership. “Ellie has a way of bringing out what really matters in a fair and open way, so you can discuss with one another in a safe and warm environment.”
3. Gain a greater understanding of your partner
If you’ve been with your partner for more than a decade, you may think there’s little you don’t know about them. But we need to remember that while what quintessentially makes us us stays the same, we are always evolving, changing, and developing. To grow together, rather than apart, we need to continue to stay curious about our partners so we can stay in tune with their feelings as much as we do our own.
A (2020) study by psychologists from the University of Rochester and the University of Toronto found that the more “empathetic accuracy” partners had, the better their relationships. This was more true when partners were in tune with non-dominant emotions, such as embarrassment, than dominant emotions, such as anger.
Becki and Joe, who have been together for more than 7 years and have two young children together found this to be true after joining the Coupld Membership. “We found between sessions we were miscommunicating less. Each [session] helped us to understand each other and the niggly bits of our relationship more. We have a young family and have struggled to spend time on us since our son was born. The Coupld Membership got us back in the flow again.”
4. Better self-awareness
If both partners aren’t aware of their own behaviour and how it positively and negatively impacts their relationship, there will always be friction. In my couple’s coaching sessions, I ask questions that prompt self-reflection for both partners. I can help you both explore those sore spots from a place of curiosity rather than defensiveness, helping both partners to understand each other.
Sean, who came to the Coupld Membership with his partner Kelsey, said, “I had a pretty major breakthrough with respect to how I was reacting poorly to Kelsey when I felt like she wasn’t caring about my feelings and how it made me feel like I wasn’t being heard. Hearing her response to this helped me a great deal, and whilst by no means perfect, I am able to recall this and react in a more measured way now when similar things arise.”
5. Makes your relationship a priority
Most of us struggle to make ourselves priorities in our lives, but our relationship often sinks right to the bottom of the list. In the same way that scheduling a date night once a month or week gives you “us” time, couple’s coaching brings all the attention to your relationship and helps you close the distance, spending dedicated time with your partner. While my sessions are always thought-provoking, they’re also a ton of fun! Couple’s coaching is like a good workout - you put in some effort but you’re buzzing afterward.
If you think couple’s coaching is just what you need to bring you and your partner closer and reap all the benefits I’ve talked about (and more!), you can join me in the Coupld Membership. The good news is you don’t have to make any major commitments up front - you can try a free taster first (like dating before marriage)!
And for more inspiration sign-up to my monthly newsletter, the Coupld Bulletin. You’ll get a ‘Do-It-Right-Now Exercise’ to help you keep your relationship in tip-top shape, as well as links to cool (relationship) things I’ve read, listened to or seen.
Alternatively, follow me on Instagram @coupldco for more.
