Looking for ‘couples counseling des moines and surrounding areas?’ Look no further. We’re here to help you improve your relationships, and gain the kind of bonded relationship that can last a lifetime. We’re about enhancing your relationship.
Couplehood
What makes your couplehood special? What makes your relationship tick? That’s different for everybody. We’ll discover yours together. Perhaps your relationship is a long-term connection already, and you are looking to take it to the next level of solidarity and trust. Do you want someone to guide or challenge you, together? Couples counseling works. The desire to make your life better is a great place to start, no matter how much you struggle. Couple’s counseling is an excellent, courageous, and encouraging choice.
Maybe you are just getting started and want THIS to be THE relationship and so you both want to begin with healthy habits right away. Through couple’s counseling you’ll learn some really cool ways to build intimacy together, including “Miss You Love You’s,” or, “MULU’s.” Here’s the good thing. You can start now! You don’t have to wait for counseling to work out some MULUS! We’ve prepared a MULU road map just for you and your partner, and entirely free! It’s right here, just around the digital corner! You can find other articles that will give your relationship a jumpstart your couplehood before you even get here! In fact, these articles are almost like we’ve already got your back. We do. Have your back, that is.
It’s Tough Out There
It IS tough out there! Sometimes couples struggle with the tough discussions around commitment, conflict, children, large decisions, and bad relationship patterns. Others struggle through loss, financial strain, or infidelity. Those are situations where a relationship therapist can help you! Try couple’s counseling. Your lives, and your stories, they matter!
“He doesn’t understand me!” “I feel like we are living completely different lives.”
Couples counseling will be the time in your life to positively deal with, and understand relationship conflicts, and practice the kind of relational living that can help you take your relationship to the next level.
“She doesn’t listen to me!”
Couples counseling can be the place where you learn how each of you communicates, learn and practice listening skills, understand non-verbal cues, how to hear bids for affection, and ending the use of biting, and insulting language.
“How do I know if he’s the one I will stay with?”
Couples counseling is the place to deal with relationship stress, setting limits/boundaries, creating intimacy and trust, clarifying commitments, power and control issues, and even dealing with a time when one might’ve cheated on the other, so that your relationship can last long term!
It’s a day-to-day decision to be together and to be ‘for’ the relationship.
Whatever your reasons for therapy, we are here to help you take steps together, to better your relationship. Takes practice. Read our story about Monique and my marriage, and what practicing the fundamentals of a relationship means. We’ve been married for more 27 years, and we still practice the fundamentals.
Couples In Counseling
We’ll use some assessments that we will work through with you to begin some of the conversations in a safe environment. Homework will be included, for you to practice together outside of the counseling sessions. This will add to your skills and learning as well as help you to establish new patterns of relating with your partner. When you hit a roadblock, we encourage you to bring that struggle to the therapy room and allow your therapist to walk alongside you to break down the issue, allowing both of you to learn, discuss the concern, and then truly hear each other.
Being a solid, healthy couple takes work. It’s a day-to-day decision to be together and to be ‘for’ the relationship. The therapists at Real Connections Counseling, LLC want to help you build a relationship that other couples will want to emulate. Don’t make this a time you regret. Make this a time in your relationship that you’ll be proud of. Make this a time when you’ll remember that you made your life better, together! Call now for a couple’s counseling appointment, and you’ll start this improvement path on the right foot…together.
– Does couples counseling work?
Couples Counseling works like most things: Consider the time and energy you put into it, and that will give a good indication of how successful you will be. Part of the work will definitely happen in the therapy room. Some of the work will happen when you leave the session. This is when you practice what you learned, or we give you homework to try something new or unique to challenge and improve your relationship.
– Do we need couples counseling?
We are firm believers that everyone can benefit from couples counseling! Even as therapists, we go to marriage conferences, counselors and retreats to better our own personal intimate relationships – our marriages! One of the best things about couples counseling is that you get another person, who is not immediately involved in your relationship, and who is trained to provide insight, challenges, and new ideas for handling relationship difficulties. Everyone can find benefits from couples counseling. But, definitely, if you and your significant other experience relationship struggles, let us help you get back on a healthy path together.
– How much does couples counseling cost?
Real Connections Counseling set their prices differently, since we are a “not your typical therapy office” – using longer sessions and a team of two therapists as our standard model. Normal session fees are $295 for an 80 Minute Session of Co-Therapy (two therapists in the therapy room – see ‘Our Services‘ for more information on the benefits of Co-Therapy). If you have cash or a check, you get a $5 discount, making the session fee $290. The 80 Minute Session option has been a game changer for most couples – as we are able to get through SO MUCH MORE in the session and resolve the conflicts, hurts, and hangups much faster than the 50 Minute standard counseling. Add in the Co-Therapy benefits and going this route will help you rebuild your relationship faster.
Investing in your relationship is a long-term investment, and the benefits are amazing! The costs are definitely outweighed by the long-term health of your relationship.
We also offer the options of a single therapist for the 80 minute sessions, as well as either co-therapy and single therapists for the standard 50-minute couples sessions, although these are not our preferred method. Contact us at or 515-635-1805 for more details.
– How Long Will Couple’s Counseling Last?
Therapists can’t offer a pat answer for how long couple’s counseling lasts. The length of therapy depends on your goals, your relationship’s current health, and how hard you work during – and in-between – the marriage counseling sessions. Some couples stay in therapy for years of their lives, while others receive counseling for only a few sessions.
The therapists at Real Connections Counseling consistently check in to make sure that they are reaching for the goals you need. Either way, your therapy is about you and so how much time is needed is also somewhat of a collaboration between them and you, and that’s exactly how we want it!
Truth is, no matter how long it takes, couple’s counseling requires dedication, interest, patience, and practice. Couple’s counseling pulls in all the gritty and amazing love stuff, the guts and the glory of living in relationship, and the intensity of love designed to graft one heart with another. The benefits are amazing! The emotional costs you’re suffering right now, what would be worth not having to pay those costs anymore?
Our promise is that the moment you get into the counseling room, we are strongly motivated toward the long-term health of your relationship.