One of the things I've noticed most over the past few years in my practice isn't that relationships have become more unhappy or complicated but that couples are seeking help sooner. Not after 20 years of resentment, deceit, conflict, ambivalence or infidelity when all hope feels lost and separation feels like the only option but frequently before children, marriage or even engagement. Today’s brave and enlightened couples in therapy are realising that your relationship doesn’t have to be falling apart to benefit from understanding one another better. I find that so encouraging.
Increasingly I find myself sitting with couples in their late 20s and early 30s either pre-marriage, newly-married or planning a family who say things to me like, "We love each other but we can’t communicate," or "We need to know whether we're really compatible before life gets more complicated." Perhaps they are having the same argument over and over and don’t understand why. Perhaps they feel they are lurching from harmony to disharmony to repair on repeat and it is taking an emotional toll on both of them.
No one teaches us how to love forever
Long-term relationships are hard work. When the ‘temporary psychosis’ of new love starts to move into the differentiation stage and life starts to happen things can get a little bumpy. There is no fault or blame in this. We none of us receive an instruction manual on how to be in a committed relationship. We spend years focusing on qualifications and careers but only a precious few of us are taught how to safely disagree without attack, how to repair after conflict, how to express difficult emotions or to understand how our childhood experiences have shaped the way we love.
Instead we inherit what we witnessed growing up. Some of us learned that conflict should be avoided at all costs. Others learned that shouting was how families communicate. Some learned that emotions were welcomed and feelings were talked about while others learned to keep them to themselves. Then we meet someone we love, bring all of those invisible lessons and patterns into the relationship and wonder why communication feels so difficult.
What do we need to change?
What encourages me so much about many younger couples is their curiosity and their willingness to change for the sake of their relationship They're not usually asking me who is right but simply why this keeps happening. Why does one of us pursue while the other shuts down? Why do tiny disagreements escalate so quickly? Why do we leave conversations feeling so lonely when we both desperately want to feel understood and connected? These are wonderfully thoughtful questions.
And because they're asking them earlier there is far less resentment to work through. Sometimes in the therapy room I find myself thinking, "If only more couples had come now." Before years of criticism and contempt had crept in. Before every conversation felt loaded with the weight of previous disappointments. Thankfully that picture is changing.
Are our goals the same?
There is something incredibly hopeful about two people saying, "We care enough about each other to understand our relationship." Another conversation I find myself having with them is about compatibility. Not whether they both enjoy reading or Italian food. But whether they share similar expectations about the life they're trying to build together. How do they each experience conflict? Can they apologise? Can they forgive? How important is independence? How do they each understand commitment? What makes each of them feel emotionally safe? These conversations can feel surprisingly difficult to have at home particularly when there's a fear that honest answers might hurt the other person. This material is no different obviously than with an older couple but they are investing now in heading off difficulties later.
Therapy creates enough safety to explore these questions without immediately becoming defensive. As a three we have resources that as a two they may struggle to find and the space is safe. Sometimes couples do discover genuine differences but that isn't necessarily bad news. Discovering differences before marriage rather than ten years on can be of huge benefit for both partners and an opportunity for informed growth.
Understanding the cycle that keeps us stuck
Far more often though I witness something other than difference. Two loving people who have become trapped in a cycle neither of them understands. One partner criticises because underneath is anxiety, loneliness or a longing to feel close. The other withdraws because criticism feels painful or overwhelming. The more one pursues, the more the other retreats. The more one retreats, the louder the other becomes. Neither of them set out to create that dance and we can change the rhythm. One of my favourite moments in couples work is when both partners stop looking at each other as the problem and begin recognising the cycle instead. It's a subtle shift. But it's where change begins.
When it's the pattern not the partner
I sometimes wonder how different previous generations might have been if therapy had been more accessible and less stigmatised. Perhaps many relationships would still have ended. Some still would and should have. There is equal courage in recognising that a relationship has simply expired. But I wonder how many people just assumed that communication could never improve, that conflict was an inevitable part of marriage or that if a relationship wasn’t working, the answer was simply to begin another. Of course a new relationship can be a healing step into a happier future. But our attachment patterns, fears and protective strategies have a remarkable habit of coming with us. A new partner doesn't automatically create a new dance but an understanding of the dance often does.
Loving bravely
I genuinely believe we're seeing a significant cultural shift. The younger couples who come through my door aren't weak. They aren't overthinking or "doing therapy" because it's fashionable. From where I see it they are making a courageous investment in something that matters enormously to them. They're recognising that loving relationships deserve the same care, attention and maintenance as every other precious part of life. And when they finish therapy together they know they are not living in a ‘happy ever after’ world where disagreement has miraculously disappeared but they now hopefully understand enough to find their way back to each other after conflict.
Couples work has always been about helping partners build a relationship that is resilient enough to survive conflict. Seeing younger couples choose that journey before the cracks become fractures makes me feel quietly optimistic about where relationships - and therapy - are heading.