Why is Couple’s Therapy not Working?

In this episode, Tyler and Brannon talks about common reasons couples struggle to find success in therapy. They highlight issues such as lack of commitment from one or both partners, ineffective communication, and the therapist’s approach not aligning with the couple’s needs. By addressing these challenges, the video aims to provide insights and strategies for couples to enhance their therapy experience and foster healthier relationships.

Transcript (Tap to Toggle)
Introduction
why is couples therapy not working brandon what’s going on man uh
not much how are you doing i’m doing good i’ve been uh I was standing on a
skid steer for like 12 hours yesterday
do you know what a skid steer is yeah yeah yeah it’s like one of those like little uh basically like a little
tractor that allows you to move dirt around and stuff yeah it’s like I was
you know after doing it and moving all this dirt around my yard and stuff I I was looking at my yard and I was like
why the fetch do I have think I got to like manage a park for my kids my kids
that like all they want to do is play the switch i just want to get them out there throw a frisbee it’s like why am I
managing a park for him anyways yeah so it was fun though i I
like getting out and working yeah well that’s the thing is just the reason why is because you like being able to have
to rent a skid steer so you can go out and like mess around with it it was kind of fun yeah i got I got to
admit that’s what you were doing yeah so you you feel kind of like powerful full
Common Misconceptions About Therapy
you know like and and I know I overworked that thing whereas like I was doing things with it that like it’s not
made to do those things are pretty tough though digging out stumps and like all kinds of
stuff so but yeah it was fun so yeah good for you man if you ever need help with a
skid steer I’m pretty good with one now takes a while to get used to it but yeah those things are fun yeah so anyways uh
Tyler this is kind of a I think a pretty important topic that we have today um
you know more than just our title says I think this really gets into some really important things and into a lot of the
things that we do over in the healing journey on reclaim your heart um so I
mean the question is is why is couples therapy not working um should we just start there yeah let’s just kind of we
get this question quite a bit actually Brandon is why are we why do we seem to be hitting a wall in our couples therapy
or it’s not working or it’s actually getting worse and I think today what we’ll do is just kind of go through a few reasons as to why you might be
hitting the wall or why it might getting wor might be getting worse and then we’ll also talk a little bit about the beautiful thing about this is
that you still have power to change it and how to make it effective if you’re going to be doing your coup’s therapy absolutely there is a way for things to
improve and get better and it’s within your hands and so we’ll we’ll get into that um but uh couples therapy Tyler at
times can just feel like you’re beating your head against a wall yeah there’s a few things that uh that we just want to
talk about that might be contributing to not having good couples therapy and some
people are going to be like hearing these things going like “Oh yeah that’s been exactly my experience.”
Right so so it’s kind of hard Tyler because sometimes with therapy it does
feel like things get worse before they get better and sometimes it needs to it needs to right yeah right um so we’re
not talking about that like sometimes it gets hard change is difficult change is painful and at times you can look at
that and say things are getting worse when in fact they’re starting to improve what we’re talking about is when things
Lack of Commitment from Partners
truly aren’t getting better where you’re beating your head against a wall you’re trying you’re trying you’re getting
these skills or these tools or whatever from this therapist and it’s just not changing you’re not getting different
outcomes maybe you’re getting worse outcomes over time and it’s just not changing yeah yeah so one of the first
things we’ll just hit like two or three of these things today uh one of the first things that makes couple therapies
not work is that most people go to couples therapy hoping that the
therapist will fix their partner so the focus is So the focus is on the partner doing the
changing and then it doesn’t seem to work very well tyler I would I would say even the people that are aware that that
doesn’t work have a tendency to fall into that trap i think I think we all do
it’s human it’s human when we experience pain and we see someone in front of us that’s seems to be causing the pain they
are the object of our pain then naturally they’re the problem that’s the place where it probably needs to change
right that’s what we think right but then but then what happens is you get a couple into your office and
now both of them are pointing the finger at each other hoping that you’ll point the finger at them and then they walk out and it becomes a contest as to who
got treated more unfairly or fairly by the therapist rather than what are the issues we’re actually really trying to
overcome here right the focus is on the other person and and or a lot of the
times the focus is on the relationship itself of like how it’s working and what
what happens in the relationship um and and I know like I as I’m hearing myself
talk I know we’re talking about couples therapy we’re talking about relationship work and so it’s a problem that the
focus is so much on the relationship that’s a lot of times where people get stuck and it it feels backwards because
you’re there to do relationship work you’re supposed to dive into that but if
you focus too much on the relationship what happens Tyler yeah what Well what it does is it kind of sometimes puts the
cart before the horse right so a lot of times the reason you end up going to
some kind of couple’s treatment is because there’s been some there’s something tumultuous that has gone on in
Communication Breakdown
the relationship oftentimes there’s a breach of trust or there’s a lack of safety or there’s a a lack of like
intimacy and knowing each other um either way that the at the foundation
the relationship is already on shaky ground and so then going to look at the
relationship itself like people come into our office all the time Brandon like big let’s say there’s been a big betrayal somebody’s gone out and spent a
ton of money uh didn’t tell their partner it kind of comes to fruition and then they come into the office and
they’re like we just need to work on our relationship and get some get some communication skills and then we’ll be
all better and it’s like well The communication skills might be valuable but there’s no way those communication
skills are going to be the thing that fixes this until you guys actually get to the root of the problem right which
is there was some reason why there was a dishonesty inside the relationship in the first place probably maybe on both
sides even where there’s deeper root issues in the way that you guys have been interacting already that still need
some some attention right it’s like you know a client who has massive amounts of
childhood trauma tons of attachment wounds um has no idea what secure
attachment even is um you know is is uh acting in drama and and acting out in
addiction and all this stuff and they come into a couple session and and they’re like “Well let’s work on your
intimacy.” Well that’s great like we we want to work on your intimacy but if we
take the the the coupleship or the relationship and we try to fix that
intimacy problem without addressing um the
trauma then we’re beating our head against a wall and and it’s going to trigger all of that stuff that’s already
there as you’re trying to address the intimacy issues
um if you don’t actually stop and take a look at the root cause in essence it’s
uh it’s about bringing bringing the the elephant into the room on both sides for
Unrealistic Expectations
most partners is the hardest thing to do but it’s one of the most valuable things to do if you’re looking at trying to
make progress in moving forward in your relationship yes um you know one of one of the other places and this is then we
can move on to some of the solutions but the places where it often breaks down similar to what you’re saying right now Brandon is that um I got news for you
the the thing you’re fighting about probably isn’t actually the issue
so you know we’re fighting about how much sex we have in our relationship or we’re fighting about how often we should
go see the in-laws or we’re fighting about like where we should spend certain kinds of money or like whatever else and
and people get wrapped up so much in the content in the storyline of the problem
that they don’t actually really ever get a chance to look at the dance that’s going on underneath between the two of
them emotionally and you could you could almost swap out the topic and you’re still going to have the same dance
underneath the surface a lot of the time right and and so they they’re focused on
this thing trying to fix this thing that is they’re shooting at the wrong target
um it’s like Tyler it’s like we focus on the thing right in front of us right um and and when we focus on the
thing right in front of us it’s it’s kind of like this like right now my my son has hand foot and mouth disease
right got to love that oh gosh so he’s got all these cankers all
over his tongue and it’s like if we didn’t if we just looked at that as a canker and we’re like putting some
baking soda on i don’t know how you treat a canker right but it’s like that’s okay we’re worried about this
this one you know these cankers on his tongue we miss the point that he has a
disease right we right and if we don’t address the actual disease these
symptoms you know we can try to soo them or take care of them but nothing’s getting
better right right it’s almost in some ways it’s I
think sometimes couples want to stay there because for two reasons one they think that if they solve that one thing
if they figure out how many times a week we’re going to have sex or how we’re going to spend this money then we won’t have the then we won’t have the conflict
and then we’ll be all better so they think it they they got this promise that it will actually solve the problem um
Therapist Compatibility Issues
but the other reason why couples stay there is that it’s less vulnerable to stay there than it is to go a little bit
deeper into the places of saying like actually man there’s a part of me that really feels pretty inadequate about
being able to budget and I’m afraid that if you see that then you’re going to judge me or disrespect me or want to
reject me and so I’d rather that really terrifies me yeah and that that deeper
fear of disconnection is going to be there whether it’s about the budget or about
whatever else the topic is and if that doesn’t get addressed then you’ll just kind of turn
into swapping topics and continuing the same fight right right me me and my wife
went through this phase and I don’t know how healthy it was but we’d you know we’d get in a discussion and if it got
kind of heated or whatever you know one or the other of us would say say and this is such like me me being a
therapist but it’s like am I talking to you or am I talking to your inner child
you know like I want I want to know you you know but I hear your child’s pain like I I see it if we need to talk about
that we man right but you got to be very careful about the way you go about that
um Well that’s what makes it vulnerable and especially if you use it as a weapon
then you’re making it worse but yeah it never helps um All right Tyler so I want
to ask you um can your relationship change even if your partner does not
change can you invite things into your life inside the relationship even if your
partner doesn’t change yeah is so because if I’m Tyler if I’m a person
that’s sitting back and I’ve been in a marriage for 20 30 years and I’m just like I know them i know what I’m going
to get from them uh I know what my marriage is it is what it is you know
I’m I’m semi-miserable slashmiserable um but
I don’t have much hope that I’m going to get anything else than what I’m getting out of my relationship um what like can things
Timing and Readiness for Change
actually get better cuz that’s that sounds and feels pretty hopeless right
well and even just what you just said there though is I know my partner and how they’re going to respond if I do X Y
or Z and it’s just not going to change right already that statement is maybe
it’s already giving away the power that lies within you to actually consider some other
questions and those are the questions we want to go through with you today and and have you think about this in the
context of your own relationships every one of us has probably a relationship right now that we wish was a little bit
different um if you’re listening to this specific podcast there’s a probably a reason you tuned into it um and so we
wanted to just pose a couple of questions that you could ask yourself instead and then maybe
provide a couple of thoughts or principles that might help towards the answers of those questions tyler before
you ask one I just want to say um this is a lot of times not like what what we
want to hear um because we want to stay in a place of of not looking within
um of not taking accountability of not doing the hard work and we feel like it’s easier if we focus on circumstance
if we focus on the other person if we focus on the relationship and so these questions as much as they bring a ton of
hope within them they also carry with them accountability to do your work
The Role of Individual Issues
regardless of what your partner does regardless of what your partner does so just a fair warning um these questions
are amazing um but just a fair warning for you this might trigger two things oh
yeah i can have what I want yay hope and oh
uh I I’m accountable here for what I create in my life um right Tyler that’s
right that’s right so let’s get into these what if and I encourage you if
you’re listening to just kind of sit with this in the context of whatever relationship you choose to think about here and I’d encourage you to to receive
these questions from as mindful of a place as possible so instead of like already getting queued up actually ask
the question let it sit with you for a second and just see what starts to rise inside of you all right what if you
could feel total unconditional positive regard for your partner regardless of what they do
i’ve gotten in trouble for asking this question in the past um when you got a
partner who’s abusive and nasty and done horrible things and and all of that it’s
that’s not a fun question what you just asked um but if I Tyler if I’m full of
resentment and I’m full of judgment and I’m full of anger toward my partner is
that like how how does that affect me yeah i think that’s at the crux of this
it’s this if my partner does wrong things and hurts me that hurts it still does it doesn’t make it right right
right but it’s on me to process that hurt in such a way that I don’t add
suffering on top of the hurt and the way the way that I add suffering is by
getting into this place of disgust criticism judgment resentment
and and so it’s also then on me to reduce my suffering to figure out what
would it take for me to actually see this person
as with with complete positive regard re resentment is just a
Resistance to Vulnerability
consequence of a lack of healthy boundaries um a lack of bound healthy
boundaries is a consequence of not trusting yourself and following through
with your truth and your intuition and and protecting your values um not
following through with all of those things is usually a result of some
fracture or some wound some trauma that tells you that you’re not enough you’re not okay you’re not lovable which then
makes you sacrifice your boundaries which then makes you resent people in your relationship so if I’m in a
relationship where the other person is doing things that aren’t awesome it’s I’m going to naturally go
toward resentment if I lack healthy boundaries if I have those healthy boundaries and I’ve done that underneath
work and dealt with my wounds I can see their pain i can believe they’re doing the best that they can and I can still
protect myself and be boundaried within myself that’s within me regardless of
them but that takes work for me to be that strong to be able to to protect
those values that I have beautiful and that’s that’s where that boundaries actually allow me to keep people in the
spaces where they need to be where I can see them as people still rather than as the object of my pain right and so if
I’m willing to do the healthy the work of finding and establishing healthy boundaries in my relationship I
instantly can then feel positive regard for the person because they’re they’re operating at a place where it’s the
right space given our values together and and you know what Tyler it’s what is
in our control too it’s like if my partner keeps doing this thing they can
keep doing that thing like I can’t really stop them but what I can do is
make sure that I’m responding in my integrity for myself and if I do that
they might stop doing that thing as a result because they realize like oh I can’t just take advantage of them and
they can’t do Do you see what I’m saying sure but if they don’t then I I’ll have
Misalignment of Goals
another boundary then you’re Yeah then then but then that’s And then people get scared of that but that means we might
not end up together yeah healthy boundaries destroy toxic relationships
healthy boundaries are an invitation into into improved relationships yes
right so so if you want unconditional positive regard in your heart which by
the way Tyler feels so good oh yeah just think about what it would be like to wake up today and have positive regard
for your partner oh you just look at them you’re like man like they are good they are a miracle they are awesome they
are a child of God and I love them even though even though they’re freaking
human and they they suck in in some of the things they do but like I I see the
goodness in them like I feel that not not just see it I feel that toward them
and you know what happens when if both partners are are practicing that unconditional positive regard what
happens in the relationship Tyler deeper levels of intimacy greater levels of peace safety
yeah connection yeah um all right i got one you ready
what if in my relationship I could get to a place where I never got offended
[Laughter] what would What would that take i didn’t take anything personal that that it was
impossible to take something personal right yeah what would it What What does it take to get there well my partner
Importance of Follow-Up Sessions
would have to you know be nice and perfect and and all those things and then I wouldn’t you know but because
they suck I take things personal you know I’m saying that tongue and cheek uh-huh yeah exactly so what’s the
opposite of that then or what’s what’s the antidote to that then like how do I Okay Brandon I can hear people listening
right now if they’re still listening if they haven’t already tuned you out after saying that um they’re saying “Okay I
get it like you’re saying that I shouldn’t take offense to what my partner does but my partner does do some offensive things
sometimes how do I not take that personally there’s a difference between
um there there’s a difference between these two things um I can feel emotion
and have some frustration or anger um because of something that a partner
does that’s that’s normal in fact that’s healthy that those emotions are alerting you that this isn’t working for me right
taking offense is making it personal taking offense is making it about you
it’s playing the victim um it’s making it about your self-worth that they’re
out to get you um that’s what I’m talking about when I’m talking about taking offense and so really the the
answer to this is to examine uh um how how how codependent am I how
is my healthy attachment like in what ways am I consuming them for my okayess and if if
I’m not consuming them if I have a relationship with other things that give me my worth then I don’t need to rely
upon them for that therefore whatever they do doesn’t define me
yeah I think another another way of saying that Brandon I’m probably going to be repeating what you just said a little bit is we we as human beings tend
to have our default setting be that we are the center of the universe and so anything that goes on especially what
our partner does has to do with us what a setup but what a set that is a setup
like that’s a setup for that’s a setup for misery and suffering but what if and this is this is a
stretch but what if my partner came to me and said “You’re an idiot.”
Strategies for Improvement
Okay and it wasn’t about me it it wouldn’t be about you but they said I
was it is about me right like one of my favorite uh parts of the four agreements
he’s talking about not taking anything personal and I can’t remember how he says it but he says “If someone punches
you in the face that’s that’s not about you that’s right your face hurts though
but what happened wasn’t fair right but it’s but it’s not about you no no
that it’s not about it’s it is not about your self-worth who you are any of that
that that is on them that their their feelings about you is this is going to
sound kind of weird and crazy but your partner’s feelings about you really is
none of your business and so what I mean by that is
like you don’t have to get them to think or feel or whatever
anything they can feel those things um but it doesn’t define you it doesn’t
um they don’t hold those cards do you see what I’m saying Tyler that’s right
exactly and and so so part of the antidote to this one because we all are kind of defaulted into this a lot of the
time is to practice mindfulness and become aware that what’s going on around
us is that we are part of a much bigger thing than just ourselves and we are not the center of the universe number two we
can learn to practice surrendering our partner’s feelings and their opinions and their criticisms back to
Conclusion
them so when my wife comes in and says “You’re an idiot.” Hopefully she’s not
saying that she doesn’t She doesn’t say that i’m just using that as an example right like because like that that pretty
much blatantly seems personal right but what if I but what if I was able to go
man something inside of her is really churning that led her to say those things like she’s she’s really whatever
frustrated anxious angry whatever like man like that’s what just came out of
her is more about her than it is about me right and you still might say “Hey hey you calling me an idiot doesn’t work
for me so there’s there’s the boundary right but I want to hear what’s going on
like how are you feeling that’s right tell tell me what what’s happening here so do you see how you’re you’re you’re
you’re disconnecting in a way and handing it back to them yeah um you’re
just you’re disconnecting the personal nature of it and giving it back to them and in order to do that the last part of
this that’s really really important is I’m not going to be capable of doing this unless I’m I’m cultivating my own
shame resiliency yes um my own my own deeper work really really matters here
because if I don’t do my deeper work everything will feel personal right because I’ll be so afraid of being found
out that I’m not good enough and that I’ve got my own wounds and my own traumas and things so I have to be working on myself to grow into this
complete full acceptance of myself as I am so that my full acceptance of self
will meet whatever that criticism is and not take it personally you know I was uh I I was talking to
somebody and we were hanging out with Rex and Rex is our little brother and uh
they were saying something like I don’t get it like he can walk in a room and he
can like say whatever and people are just like laughing and like thinking
he’s great and whatever this person’s like I can walk in the room and say the exact same thing
the exact same thing and it gets awkward and uncomfortable and like nobody wants
to hear that from me so why can he do it and I can’t right and do you know the
reason why i’m guessing it’s be the energy with which they approach it yeah rex doesn’t
take that like Rex is disconnected from their judgment as his okayess
and because of that there’s this like comfortability in the connection and you know Rex he can connect to people yeah
right like really well um and and so like there’s this
comfortability in that because there’s not this this energetic connection of
I’m okay you know I if as long as you connect to me and be okay right so it’s
it’s it’s paradoxical Tyler in in that like the things that we’re talking about
we’re talking about disconnecting so that you can create healthy relationship that’s right um and
and and and when we say disconnect there’s another step to it you disconnect you focus within on yourself
um you focus on that relationship with God you focus on having the strength
having the confidence trusting yourself shame resiliency trauma work you do
those things and then you become a human being that can create love because
you’re creating love within yourself which leads to connection which that
leads to healthy relationship and if you don’t do that work if you just focus on
all these other things we’ve been talking about you’re not going to you’re not going to get the results that you’re
looking for um and there’s good news and bad news to this the good news is that
it’s all within you that you have the control to actually do this that’s
that’s really really good news isn’t it Tyler yeah even though
sometimes it doesn’t sound like it because it feels like maybe we’re going to be moving to places that we didn’t want to be going in the first place in
our relationships but but we have the power then to move
towards a place of clarity in relationships and that’s the last question i know we’re out of time today but what if what if you could have peace
and clarity about the nature of your relationship and its ability to grow no
matter what no matter what what if what if your relationship was always
something that was offering growth no that relationship might be leading
toward a different type of relationship you might end up going from married to
divorced and what I mean by that is like if you’re boundaried and honest and
authentic and you can still have this positive regard and all these things toward them and realize that this
relationship is not what’s best for you right and when we talk about peace and
clarity it doesn’t mean that it fits within one certain
box right but Tyler how many people get divorced and they’re still letting the
relationship and their their partner run their life yeah and the way the Exactly
right and the pathway into that is a continual upgrading of your own life and
your own self-acceptance yes and and then the relationship actually becomes an opportunity for both
partners to continually be growing and if you want to grow into the same values then you’ll end up growing into deeper
connection deeper intimacy a healed relationship something that redefes itself a thousand times over and if you
end up realizing that you’re moving in different directions and pursuing different values you will get clarity and in that process you will learn a lot
about yourself yes so yes and it’s it’s awesome
so Tyler the there’s a reason why we’ve shifted into really focusing on things
like getting conscious of who you are like consciousness
um shame resiliency deep trauma work healthy attachment um we’ve created a full
program that walks people through doing their own individual work so that they
can create love in their life that’s right with other people um and and it’s
amazing it’s focusing on the right thing and it’s not easy work i mean it’s it
can be really hard it’s the work of a lifetime it’s beautiful work but it’s
awesome and um it it helps an individual go from being full
of fear to stepping into their power um as a as a human and as a partner and
it’s it’s amazing it’s uh it’s geared towards living a life of love joy peace
power and freedom rather than the things that most of us fuel ourselves off of like fear and shame resentment doubt
yep yep tyler this is good discussion if you want to be this type
of partner go over to reclaimyouheart.org um check out our program there the healing journey the
healing journey and we’d love to have you in there and we got a ton of support tons of work to do tons of tools and an
awesome community over there yeah we love having you guys be a part of our show and we hope that what we offer here
is valuable to you i’m glad to have you with us and until next time keep on keeping on

Why is Couple’s Therapy not Working?

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