Is couple's therapy worth it? What're the options...

[IndecisiveOne]

Hey All, I'm Justin, my girlfriend and I moved in together after being in a long distance relationship for a year. She moved here about (califronia) from Amsterdam about a year and a half ago so it's been especially hard because she doesn't have her own life here and is basically piggy backing on mine. I'm fine with it but I she deals with a lot of anxiety of not feeling like she can be an independent person now. We've also been fighting a lot about stupid small things but the arguments usually culminate in something related to not having independence. But I think there's more going on, we don't seem to be have authentic and open conversations like we used to when we primarily were talking over Skype.

 

Anyway we decided we'd like to consider seeing some, like doing couples therapy or relationship counseling but it's pretty expensive and it's hard for us to get our hours to line up. A few questions:

 

Is worth the hassle and money? How long till you start seeing results generally?

Does it make sense if you're not married?

What does it depend on? Us? The therapist?

How is it different from the two of us just talking to a good friend?

Do you know if insurance can cover these types of services?

Has anyone used any good online counseling or therapy services? A friend of mine recommended breakthrough.com and betterify.us. I was wondering if anyone had tried either of those or had any thoughts?

[smackie9]

Not all therapists are the same. If you don't get much out of it, find someone else. You should only need maybe 2 or 3 sessions, just enough to get the communication skills you need to take matters on yourself.

[basil67]

Do you really need couple's therapy? It sounds to me like she should be working on getting her life up and running again.

 

Does she participate in small groups? (Sporting/hobbies/educational) Also a quick Google search shows a few Dutch social groups in California. Perhaps this could be worth a look.