What is Relationship Coaching?
Relationship coaching is a life coaching specialization that helps people find greater fulfillment in their personal relationships. A relationship coach can help you set relationship goals, understand your current partnership, thrive inside your marriage, grieve a lost loved-one, or take your long-term romance to the next level. Relationship coaches typically have experience and training in various relationship dynamics, from romantic relationships to family relations and friendships.For some relationship coaches, it is not necessary to work with both partners in a relationship. Coaching helps clients let go of their own painful thoughts, and create their own relationship vision. This means clients are able to enjoy a satisfying relationship even without their partner’s participation in the coaching process.
Relationship coaches also work with people who are not yet in a relationship. They will work with singles who have a history of troubled relationships, who have difficulty knowing what they want in a relationship or just want to stay on track with their plan to find a deeper connection with someone. Other coaches meet with both partners and teach communication, conflict resolution and other coaching tools meant for couples. Relationship coaches, just like life coaches, take healthy people and make them high performing. A relationship coach can help you quickly uncover the essence of what you want out of a partnership, guide you around painful issues, and create a safe cocoon as you face your fears and discover your true desires.
Is Relationship Coaching the Same as "Couples Therapy?"
Relationship coaching is not “couples therapy,” just as life coaching is not psychotherapy. If therapists are surgeons, coaches are personal trainers. If you’re having relationship troubles, a coach might help you clear up your thinking, get some perspective or set inspiring new goals. However, in the case of problems with debilitating mental illness, couples therapy would be recommended. Likewise, if there are many unhealed childhood wounds, a coach will likely refer you to a therapist who specializes in working with past trauma. Unlike therapy, relationship coaching rarely requires you to re-tell your childhood story, but it can help you find peace with where you are now.
Can a Relationship Coach Save my Marriage?
Relationship coaching might help untangle love knots, but it doesn’t purport to “save” marriages. Coaching clarifies relationship issues – separating what we can control with what we cannot. It brings the bright light of awareness into the hidden corners of resentment, fear and avoidance. Even if only one spouse decides to hire a coach, when he or she lets go of mental suffering, the burden on the marriage could also be lightened. Marriages often benefit from coaching, but each marriage has its’ own unique set of difficulties, so it is impossible to say whether or not a marriage will grow stronger through the process of coaching.
What's the Difference Between a Relationship Coach, Marriage Coach, Dating Coach, Love Coach or Family Coach?
Each of these coaches has a specialization in the area of relationships, marriage, dating, love or family. There is some overlap between these coaching niches, just as there is overlap in our lives between love and marriage and between dating and relationships. If you’re not married, but want to be, you might call a dating coach (and save the marriage coach’s number for later.) If you’re fighting endlessly with your sister, you might call a family coach or a relationship coach– but pass on the love coach, who likely specializes in romantic relationships. Every coach is different, but most can help you in several areas of your life. In general, a relationship coach can help with any kind of relationship; a marriage coach helps married people, a dating coach helps singles, a love coach helps people with their romantic lives and a family coach helps sort out family issues.
