Relationships are an important part of our lives, and like most important things, they can also be complicated. Couples come to therapy for many different reasons. Sometimes there is something specific they want to work through, while at other times difficulties have developed gradually, or they find themselves returning to the same topics without quite knowing how to move beyond them.

We can become caught in patterns that are difficult to get out of, where the same conversations or arguments seem to repeat themselves. At other times, there may be a growing distance between us, difficulty understanding one another, or a sense that the relationship is somehow different from before.

Relationships move with us through our lives. Changes in work, family, where we live, becoming parents, loss, or simply getting older can change us individually as well as the relationship we have with each other. Sometimes we can hold expectations of our partner, or of the relationship itself, that no longer quite fit the people we have become.

Couples therapy gives us an opportunity to slow some of this down and look more closely at what is happening: what happens between you when difficulties arise, how you each respond, and what patterns have developed over time.

When home means different things

We each bring our own experiences into a relationship, of family, relationships, communication, and what we have learned to expect from other people. For international or intercultural couples, some of those experiences may also have been shaped by growing up in different countries, cultures or languages.

Often these differences simply become part of the life a couple creates together, however questions of where home is, relationships with extended family, language, traditions, or how and where to raise children can carry different meanings for each person.

There can also be the experience of one person building a life somewhere that is already home to the other. The same place can therefore be experienced very differently within the relationship, familiar to one person while still requiring adjustment, transition or a sense of finding belonging for the other.

Understanding these different experiences can become part of understanding the relationship as a whole.

Having moved to Norway from Scotland myself, I have some understanding of what it can mean to build a life and raise a family somewhere that wasn't originally home.