Physical & Verbal Violence

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Violence and abuse can be physical, verbal, emotional or psychological . If you are afraid for your wellbeing and/or the wellbeing of your children your priority should be to seek help and support for the safety of you and your children. The following NHS website provides guidance on agencies that offer advice and support for heterosexual and LGBT men and women experiencing abuse in their couple relationship :

If you are the person behaving in a way that is harming your partner your priority is to get support to enable you to stop behaving in a harmful way. Here is a link to the UK national helpline offering advice and support for this :

How counselling can help with abusive behaviour

If abuse is happening in your relationship both you and partner need support. Couple counselling may be appropriate only once the person behaving abusively is able and willing to take responsibility for their behaviour, and the person experiencing abusive behaviour feels safe enough to talk about it openly without fear of repercussions from their partner.

If couple counselling is not appropriate individual counselling can provide support and guidance for someone who has or is experiencing abuse in their couple relationship. It can also help someone who is behaving abusively to their partner enabling them to understand what has led to them behaving abusively (such as witnessing domestic violence as a child), and to develop more helpful ways of managing difficult and challenging feelings.

Abusive behaviour can often bring up feelings of shame, guilt, helplessness, fear, confusion, anger, sadness, and uncertainty. These are all to be expected if you are living in a relationship where abuse is happening, either as the person experiencing abuse, or the person behaving abusively. Counselling can help you to make sense of these feelings in a non-blaming and non-judgemental way.

How couples counselling can help with unhelpful behaviours

If couples counselling is appropriate for your situation you and your partner will be able to explore what happens with difficult and upsetting feelings that can lead to unhelpful and harmful behaviours enabling you to:-

  •  Acknowledge what behaviours are happening 
  •  Understand the impact of those behaviours individually and for your relationship
  •  Identify what triggers the unhelpful behaviours
  •  Develop a more understanding and caring way of managing difficult and upsetting feelings that trigger unhelpful behaviours
  •  Develop more effective communication 
  •  Work together in creating more of the type of relationship you both want