If you are feeling frustrated because your relationships are not bringing you joy and satisfaction, you are not alone. Whether you are unhappy in your love life, with friends, or family, co-workers or bosses, relationships can be complicated and difficult to understand.

There can be many reasons why you feel unhappy in your relationships. Therapy focused on relationship issues can help you understand your behaviors and patterns that are standing in the way of you feeling satisfied by the relationships in your life.

How can individual therapy for relationship issues help me?

Through exploration of your history and life growing up, as well as current relationship dynamics, you will begin to understand how you behave in relationships and why. Whether you tend to be the rescuer, the giver, or the one who is taken advantage of, understanding your behavior in relationships and the dynamics that you find yourself in repeatedly, can give you the insight to create a different future.

Once you have an understanding of who you are in your relationships, you can begin to choose to act differently, whether that means giving less, communicating in effective ways, learning to regulate your emotions, or having strong, healthy boundaries in problematic relationships.

With a trusted relationship therapist, you can unpack your past and understand what is familiar and what is comfortable, even if it may not be the healthiest thing for you. Our caregivers model what relationships are, and we learn a lot about relationships through depending on them, relying on them, and understanding our roles in their lives. Attachment styles are formed in the early years of infancy, but they develop and change throughout our lives.

Ultimately, putting yourself in situations that create positive, corrective experiences is what changes your experience in relationships, and helps you see that it is possible to relate to people in a healthy way, whether they are your life partner, your best friend, a sibling, a parent, or a boss.

Individual therapy for relationship issues will guide you through this transformation by using insight, exploration, as well as behavior changes that will help you make good, healthy choices in your relationships. We can’t do this deep work alone at times, and a professional who is giving you guidance on how to heal your abandonment wounds and how to have a healthy secure attachment, is the way to change.

A woman standing outside with her arms wide open and her head tilted to the sky.

What will I discuss in relationship therapy?

Here are some things that you will most likely go over in your sessions:

Childhood and life growing up - you will touch upon how present and attuned your caregivers were, what life was like for you growing up, who did you trust with your well being, safety, and feelings. We will discuss what your relationship was with each of your caregivers and how it evolved throughout the years. We will explore your feelings about how you were raised, what was missed by your caregivers and how that affected you then and now.

Adolescence and young adulthood - you will continue exploring the relationship with caregivers and how it has changed, your relationship with your siblings and friendships and first loves. We will dissect relationship dynamics with each important person in your life. You will have a better understanding of what you need in order to trust and rely on someone, and how you show up in relationships, what parts you choose to expose and what parts you hide.

Attachment styles - we will definitely discuss attachment styles, the first attachments that were towards your caregivers, as well as attachments to friends and romantic partners in the past and present. You will have an understanding of your attachment style, how it has evolved and changed and what events in your life had an influence in terms of your attachment style.

Breakups and relationships ending - we will discuss the impact of relationships ending on your life, breakups (whether romantic or friendships) and how you navigated those difficult times. We are very much shaped by the nature of how a relationship ends and the meaning we give to it. This can influence us in our future relationships and if breakups are not processed in a healthy way, they can very heavily influence how we show up in our future relationships. Oftentimes, insecure attachment styles are formed because of a bad breakup or a series of bad breakups that we internalized and did not fully process.

Patterns in choosing romantic partners (or friends) - we will explore whether there is a pattern that is showing up in your romantic partners or in your friendships, whether that is choosing unavailable partners or friends, or partners/friends that need to be rescued in some way, or any other way that you might consciously or unconsciously choose people in our lives that do not fully meet our needs. We will see how this connects to childhood attachment and relationships, how it can be a familiar dynamic that although is not serving you, you know how to navigate it and you are familiar with it. We tend to go towards what is familiar, even if it is not serving us.

Patterns in the way a relationship develops - if your relationships move too quickly, if you feel like there is a pattern that always happens when you enter a relationship, it is important to explore and understand how attraction and bonding develops and what feels familiar to you. The familiar is not always the best, but with a deeper understanding you can change your behaviors and slow down the process of getting attached to someone, so that you are able to choose relationships wisely.

If you are specifically wanting to work on romantic relationships, we can delve into:

How you approach dating - we can delve into how dating life is for you, whether you use online dating or dating in person, how to choose and what to do and expect on dates. When it comes to dating, attachment styles and usual patterns can show up early on in dating. With your trusted therapist, you can analyze your patterns and decide what you want to change in terms of how you show up for potential partners.

How it feels being single - your relationship to yourself is one of the most important relationships you will have in your life, and the ability to feel okay being single is a predictor of relationship success. In sessions we will explore how you feel about being single, whether you see being single as a way of avoiding intimacy or you see being single as a time to focus on self while preparing for a more aligned and mature relationship.

A man and woman embracing. The woman is kissing the man on the forehead.

Commonly asked questions about relationship therapy:

What types of relationships do you work on?

We can work on any relationship that you want to improve. It can be friendships, relationships with siblings, parents, bosses, co-workers, and of course, romantic partners, as well as children and distant relatives.

Although the nature of the relationship might be different, there are many things we can work on in terms of how you show up in your relationships and how authentic and grounded in yourself you are. Ultimately, happy relationships are the relationships where you can fully be yourself. This is what interpersonal relationship therapy can help you with.

How long does it take to fix all my past wounds and childhood issues?

A timeline can’t be put on healing and rewiring, however your commitment and dedication to showing up in therapy in an honest way, exploring your past and trusting the process can give you wonderful results in all of your relationships. With the right commitment and work that you put into it and working with a relationship therapist that you trust to guide you in the right way, you can see changes in your life through your changed behaviors, thought patterns and beliefs. Change is scary and there will be resistance at various times, because holding on to the familiar is what we are wired to do. Acknowledging your own resistance is what can help you overcome it. You are not alone in the process and you are being guided by professionals who have experience working with clients in this area of life.

Will relationship therapy help me find long lasting love?

Nobody can predict when or how you will find love that lasts. However, learning what a healthy romantic relationship is and how you can do the work to create one, will give you a much higher chance at having a good, long term, committed and loving partnership, if that is what you are looking for. Although there are many things we can’t control in life, there are also a lot of things that we can, such as staying away from toxic relationship patterns or unavailable partners, having self-respect and healthy boundaries, and communicating effectively without being reactive or defensive. In individual therapy for relationship issues, you can learn all these important life skills.