Pre-Marriage Counseling for Prevention and Protection

Couples who ride the wave of emotional and physical closeness do not tend to look at the idea of counseling as a preventive measure. Rather, they view therapy as something off in the distance needed only by those in crisis. However, marriages that long to thrive as opposed to merely survive are treated with maintenance and care throughout. According to Bryon Remo, M.Ed., LMFT, relationships go through many different transitions over the course of time. Couples that stay connected are aware that challenging times are a natural part of relationship development. Relationships that consider pre-marital counseling have an opportunity to engage in conversations that most couples avoid. Participating in pre-marriage counseling gives a relationship an opportunity to anticipate life circumstances that are likely to occur and create dialogue around effective ways to approach such events. Life transitions such as having children, experiencing illness, job loss, financial hardship and death are essential topics that couples typically put off until they are immersed in such. Remo notes that couples who have the courage to discuss these delicate topics are better positioned to manage them down the road. Couples have styles of communicating which over the course of time either brings them closer together or creates more distance in their relationship. During the course of pre-marriage counseling, couples will learn their patterns of communicating, how they can learn from each other and how they can get “unstuck” when conflict ensues. Bryon Remo emphasizes couples needing to learn how to hit a “reset” button with their partner. Much of the pain the couples experience has little to do with what they are arguing about and more to do with an unwillingness to forgive, reflect and reset. Pre-marital therapy allows couples an awareness of the healing power of “do-overs” and how maintaining a pulse on your relationship can allow for a tolerance and understanding of the benefit of conflict that most couples seek only to avoid. Bryon Remo is a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT)practicing in Southbury, CT. He specilizes in creating emotional closeness with couples and supporting challenging adolescent issues. Remo serves the communities of Southbury, Watertown, Oxford, Brookfield, Monroe, Naugatuck, Woodbury, Roxbury, Bridgewater, Danbury, Thomaston, Seymour, West Hartford and Farmington.

Bryon Remo Primer on Creating Relationship Change Today!

Couples that enter therapy often assume that either there is a quick fix solution to their marital woes or they are in for a long arduous road. The truth is that both ideas are accurate. There are quick fixes that can impact one's relationship today and there are things that will simply need time to be experienced and sustained (i.e. rebuilding trust, emotional closeness and safety).

Bryon Remo, M.Ed., LMFT notes that when couples stop analyzing their relationship and start "doing" things to improve it, they are speeding up the process of closeness. It is nice to have some insight into one's relationship but it is simply not enough to move it in a new direction- action must ensue. According to Remo, couples who simply take the risk of doing one small but conscious deed for their partner daily can have something to build upon that is not based on empty words. Couples often lack enough positive experiences to keep them grounded. When they begin to make little efforts to connect, it often leads to becoming comfortable taking greater risks.

It is often the case that couples will balk at such efforts because they feel that their problems are on a much deeper level. And although this is often true, there is a need to keep connecting while working through the layers that may need to be shed in order for even greater change to occur. Bryon Remo's work with couples encourages both individuals to work toward creating a shared vision of how they want their relationship to look. When couples begin with a fantasy, it slowly moves from unimaginable to possible sometimes much sooner than they realize.

Bryon Remo, M.Ed., LMFT practices in Southbury, CT
http://www.ctfamilycounseling.com/

Creating the Right Energy for a Healthy Divorce

Bryon Remo Primer on a Healthy Divorce

For long couples have stayed married for fear of harming their children, being alone, having their financial efforts crumble or avoiding ugly litigation that does further damage. Many parents do not realize that there are alternative ways to proceed during a divorce that has an outcome that is healing and helpful in moving forward.

Bryon Remo, a licensed marital and family therapist, notes that couples who long for a healthy divorce recognize that divorce should not be reduced to the pursuit of meeting one’s own needs and avoiding getting “screwed” as much as possible. Instead, it can be a collaborative and soul-searching process in which both parties realize that they needn’t be defined by their divorce. It can be shaped by the positive energy they put into creating a peaceful and empowering outcome. According to Remo, when couples recognize that their kindness and unselfishness empowers them, they often begin to feel a sense of confidence that divorce needn’t feel so ugly. Couples who use their divorce as an instrument for their own personal change often emerge on the other side a better person, parent and partner to their once spouse.To get to that end require a willingness to change old thought habits.

Bryon Remo suggests that couples who reinvent their relationship are able to do so because they use their painful past to assist their desired present. They come to understand hurtful words not merely as weapons but as information informing them of what’s still unfinished in their mindset. Creating a healthy divorce means caring about the process more that perhaps having ever cared about the marriage. Although this may sound odd, there is a need to use the process of divorce as a vehicle toward growth, not something that needs to be done as quickly as painlessly as possible. Remo further suggests that emotions serve as a source of illuminating what is needed in the process. Couples therapy can often help those pursuing divorce recognize that they can each truly find their best self through the process, not after its completion.

Bryon Remo is licensed marital and family therapist specializes in couples and adolescent issues. He practices in the Southbury, Connecticut area.When Bryon is not supporting families he is typically enjoying his own family, hiking, playing tennis, and performing stand-up comedy.

To learn more about Bryon Remo’s work go to the following links:

http://www.ctfamilycounseling.com/bryon_remo_index.html
http://www.bryonremo.blogspot.com/
http://bryonremo.wordpress.com/
http://bryonremo.weebly.com/
http://workface.com/e/bryonremo
http://bigsight.org/bryon_remo

Couples Who Create Change in Therapy

Couples often come motivated to counseling desiring change. Only the change they desire is solely from their partner. They often fail to view their relationship as a shared responsibility and because of this it creates a competitive element. They lobby hard to sell their virtuosity to a therapist who is only going to level the playing field despite their efforts to polarize the process.

When couples enter therapy with a willingness to be influenced by their partner the possibilities for change become greater. There is a hopeful spirit that tends to surround couples who believe that each is going to do whatever is necessary to mobilize their relationship.

As couples begin sharing their story, it is easy to assess what their intentions are whether or not they are clear in their explanation. There is a way of communicating that is easy to predict whether or not change is possible. When couples are able to provide a space for their partner to voice his/her concerns and can validate such despite disagreeing with it, then optimism begins to permeate the room.

Couples who create change in therapy are those who become increasingly comfortable with tension and do not become paralyzed by it. They are able to see disagreements as opportunities for closeness and understanding as oppossed to threats to their closeness. They are able to view conflict in a way that motivates them to become curious of their partner's view of the world.

Maintaining Closeness With Little Free Time

If you live outside of Fairfield County, CT or Orange County, NY, and happen to commute to NYC each day, there is a great chance that you and the person you love do not spend the kind of time together you had imagined when daydreaming on the beach. Spending nearly 4 hours in some mode of transportation each day challenges couples to come up with creative ways to stay connected. And, to be sure, there are numerous ways to communicate (i.e. cellphones & social media); but none have the same feel as when you are in the presence and embrace of your lover.

Couples, therefore, have to invent ways to maintain closeness where little free time exists. It is not, however, as if time does not exist. It is how time is delegated despite its limited amount. Although there are some professions that are more demanding than others, those with limited time must maximize that which they have access to. For example, each morning there is an opportunity to set the alarm clock 15 minutes earlier for brief, but loving intimacy, chatter or coffee with your spouse. Not much, I know, but in creating sustaining relationships, it is often the small experiences that represents the glue which keeps love alive despite the race against the clock. When entering the door, there is often a need to decompress. This can be done through taking a hottub, watching t.v., checking emails, surfing the net, eating, etc. Or........connecting with your partner. And perhaps doing any of the above with them. Again, little time, but it is a choice how that time will look and feel.

It would seem essential for couples where one dwells in a vehicle for 1/10 of his or her existence  to take care of one's health, to allow for the energy needed to stay truly present when arriving home after dinner hours. If life is reduced to work, whereby post-work becomes the "tired hours," then little closeness is likely to take place. Research shows that adults who exercise on a regular basis and maintain quality nutrition typically require less sleep than their counterparts. This adds up to free time with one's partner where others may already be snoring.

I am always interested in hearing people's thoughts on how they find ways to stay close to one another. I would love to hear your feedback that I would be happy to spread.

Cheers to love! :)

Bryon
http://www.remocounseling.com/

How to Determine the Length of Therapy

Many times clients want a sense of how long they will need to be in therapy. Of course they have the freedom to leave at any moment or session that they choose to never return again- thus, it depends predominately on them. However, for those that entrust the wisdom of therapists there should be a distinction made between those clients that are highly motivated to change and those that are simply appeasing others. For the latter I would suggest less than one session and for the former, an agreed upon time frame can be useful when trying to target goals. This can hold people accountable for trying to genuinely create change outside the therapy walls. However, for those that appreciate the ebb and flow of therapy and the uncertainties in life that keep structured work from always making sense, a time frame may not be a useful concept. In the age of Quick Fixes, it is good practice for therapists to suggest the possibilities that can exist in short and long term treatment. This can then be paired with a client's desire for a timetable or not. I do think their is a place for establishing a time frame- however, this can put an unnecessary pressure on both client and therapist alike. What makes more sense is to have a timetable to take stock of the process of change as oppossed to the achievement of specific goals. The nature of goal setting can be quite productive, so long as it allows for the flexibility to shift gears if the therapy calls for such.

Cheers,

Bryon Remo
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist
Southbury, CT

Specializing in Couples and Adolescent Issues.