marriage counseling in Indore – FAMILY THERAPY INDIA

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Are You Losing Yourself in Your Relationship? Spot the Signs of Codependency

March 31, 2026 Ramneek Kapoor

Manoj (name changed) started feeling drained just a few months into his marriage.

His wife, a doctor, had quit her job and slowly began depending on him for everything. Not just financially, but emotionally, mentally, even for the smallest day-to-day decisions.

She would call him repeatedly while he was at work. If he didn’t pick up, she expected him to drop everything and respond.

Now imagine being in his place.
How long before you start feeling suffocated?

Sasha (name changed) came in for therapy because of anxiety. But every time she was asked something, she looked at her partner to answer for her.

Even her own voice didn’t feel like hers anymore.

Here’s the thing.

Depending on someone you love? That’s normal.

But when that dependence starts taking over your ability to function on your own, it stops being healthy and starts becoming something else.

It turns into a kind of emotional addiction.

You start abandoning your own needs just to keep the other person okay.
Or you expect someone else to constantly regulate your emotions and decisions.

Either way, someone loses themselves.

So what exactly is codependency?

It’s when one person relies heavily on another
or both people rely on each other

for emotional support, validation, decision-making, even self-worth.

And this doesn’t just show up in romantic relationships.

You’ll see it everywhere:

Parent and child
Friends
Coworkers
Partners
Even teacher-student dynamics

A parent-child version can get especially intense.

Some parents struggle to let their child grow, move out, or build an independent life.

And the child?
They often feel stuck between guilt and growth.

Is this just emotional support… or something deeper?

Humans are wired to depend on each other.

You don’t live life in isolation. You learn, adapt, and grow through people.

But pause and ask yourself this:

Can you function on your own?
Or does the idea of making decisions alone make you anxious?

Because when dependence starts interfering with your ability to think, decide, and act independently, it usually connects to deeper mental health struggles like:

Anxiety
Depression
Addiction
Low self-esteem
Chronic stress
Personality patterns like BPD or narcissism

Codependency in small amounts? Fine.

But when it starts replacing your sense of self, it chips away at your identity and your relationships.

Trust weakens.
Resentment builds.
And you start feeling stuck.

Where does codependency even come from?

Most of it traces back to childhood.

Not in an obvious way. But in subtle patterns you picked up early.

Think about this:

Did you grow up feeling judged or criticized often?
Did you feel ignored or emotionally unseen?
Did someone leave, creating a fear of abandonment?
Were your caregivers inconsistent, warm one day and distant the next?
Were your parents overly controlling?
Did you experience any form of trauma?
Did you grow up around untreated mental health issues?

When you grow up like this, you learn one thing fast:

Your needs are secondary.

And that belief quietly follows you into adult relationships.

How do you know if you’re codependent?

Look at your patterns honestly.

You struggle with self-worth
You constantly need validation
Saying “no” feels uncomfortable
You feel responsible for fixing other people
You chase perfection to feel accepted
You either try to control others or give them control over you

Now think about your relationships.

Do you:

Ask for permission for basic things?
Feel like you’re walking on eggshells?
Try to “fix” or rescue someone?
Take responsibility for their actions?
Sacrifice your comfort regularly?
Feel like you’ve lost who you are?

That’s what codependency starts to look like in real life.

A few situations that might hit close to home

A woman stays in an emotionally abusive relationship, hoping love will change her partner
A graduate turns down a dream opportunity just to stay close to a parent
An adult child moves back home and stops taking responsibility, while the parents enable it

None of these people are “weak.”

They’re stuck in patterns they learned long ago.

Can this be fixed?

Yes. But only if you’re willing to look at yourself honestly.

If ignored, codependency can deepen:

Anxiety
Depression
Emptiness
Loneliness

You might start feeling like you don’t even know who you are outside of your relationships.

That’s the real cost.

What actually helps?

Therapy plays a big role here.

CBT helps you break unhealthy thought patterns
Couples therapy improves communication and independence
Family therapy helps unpack long-standing dynamics

But beyond therapy, here’s something to sit with:

Can you be okay on your own?
Can you make decisions without needing reassurance?
Can you sit with discomfort without rushing to fix or please?

That’s where the real shift begins.

Codependency is learned. Which means it can be unlearned too.

And when that starts happening, your relationships stop feeling like survival…
and start feeling like choice.

Are you a happy couple or an unhappy one but you are in love.Pick up some Tips for Building a life lasting Relationship

March 14, 2026March 14, 2026 Ramneek Kapoor

Ankur and Meeta have been married for a number of years now . They seem to have been having serious thoughts on their relationship already. The couple have been staying with and without each other quite frequently in all these four years . One small tiff and the bags get packed . Meeta gets back to her mother’s house, or if she does not go out then it’s Ankur who would shift to the separate bedroom at the first floor of the house. The accusations and blames keep them apart for a few months, till one of them apologizes.They come together and the honeymoon begins again . Ankur’s mother has by now adjusted to their frequent bouts, as it has become a routine affair. Meeta wants Ankur should be dynamic in today’s competitive world and drop his laid back attitude .She would like him to move fast in his career ,and match the dynamism,she feels she is equipped with.For Ankur,the priorities are his family,his ailing mother who needs him and hence he feels satisfied with his progress.

Somewhat similar story has been going on between Bhuvan and Anita .Their 16 years of marriage has come to a stand still with both virtually accusing each other of neglect and oppression .Anita blames Bhuvan of having neglected her for all their marriage period. She feels she could have done better if she had adopted a career so that she could get away from the demands of married life. Bhuvan on the other hand feels oppressed, saying, ” She has been a very demanding wife and does not allow me to breathe freely .I need space of my own now”. he continues, ” from the day we began dating each other she has been like this always”.

But does it happen only after marriage. Not necessarily . Ashy and Neelu end up quarreling on every date even though they would be making up soon. The new issue would come at the next date . For them ,it is wonderful feeling to be in love and date each other. The couple meets for awhile and then pine for each other till they meet at the next date.

While dating prior to the commitment made to each other for a long term relationship, everything is seen by the lovers from behind the rosy shades of love and affection for each other. The emotions of possessiveness and yearning do not allow the lovers to think of and bring in the mundane communication of a daily grinds of life.

It is definitely fine for short term love / date experiments .But being in a long-term relationship isn’t merely pining for the lover’s physical proximity and intimacy alone. Being in long term relationships will involve managing and taking care of many other lives in addition to the lives of the lovers. And it is not an easy task. Both people need to accommodate themselves to new family atmosphere and new relationships in their lives ( which come into their lives as an inheritance of marrying each other) . May be a few years later they will have to raise their own children to make their family a complete unit.

The lovers need to then communicate over many other issues in addition to the romance and love in marriage. The issues that gain priority over love may pertain to jobs and careers, money and household expense, household work and taking care of the babies, social, cultural and religious affairs, parenting and in many cases taking care of the aged and old in the families.

As a couple begins their journey into the long-term relationship of wedded bliss, their love for each other many a times may take a back seat and the love gets reduced to a few stolen kisses and quickies here and there. The couple forgets about nurturing and keeping the flame of love and desire for each other alive. Soon the infatuation of physical hunger wears off and then the focus shifts from the affection to the problems.

The stark realities of need for more money, career priorities and of culture, of religion, and of family may cause concerns and small squabbles. Before these squabbles get blown into major issues and a beautiful relationship begins to disintegrate. The couple needs to understand that every relationship is important in life and more so with the one with whom you have to spend your life time.

Needless to say, that every difference and misunderstanding should be treated as worth working for and saving, once the infatuation begins to fade.

Communication in person and not on the social media , is the only tool and doorway to establish a better understanding. The couple, need to take up all those problems that are causing strangled relationship .It is always good to keep the bedroom stories confined to four walls of the personal bedrooms .But should the couple feel they are not able to communicate with each other without raising voices and angers , they should get the professional advise of the family therapist and relationship counselor. The airing of grievances in the family sitting room can aggravate the problems and cut down the love quotient. Isn’t it a fact that the love still exists, we just have to bring it to the fore again.

Everything you wanted to know about couple therapy..

December 17, 2020December 17, 2020 Ramneek Kapoor

Family therapist during meeting with a couple

In a country where approaching a psychiatrist/psychologist brings with it all kinds of taboos, fears and the unknown stigmas, reaching out to a family therapist by a couple simply can be a big uphill task. Most often the couple would prefer suffering in silence in their day to day disagreement and dispute rather than approach a professional family therapist. Approaching a therapist is often looked at as a step to lodging complaint against the partner. Couples shy off from reaching for the professional help because they do not want to disclose the problems they are having in their marriage to the family for one simple reason,”What would the people say “.

Let’s understand when do you need to approach a therapist and what process would couple therapy involve.

When you feel your communication with the spouse ends up into irritation and leads to the stomping of feet and rushing out of even a normal discussion quite regularly, the time to reflect is now.

When you feel your love has vanished and your acceptance of each other has been going down day by day, you need to be in touch with a family counselor.

When you carry strong resentment towards your partner on any account ,you should know,it is time to explore a session with a good family therapist.

When you feel you or your spouse has been losing interest in all kinds of spousal activities ,it is time to get a professional help to explore, understand, reflect and reconcile the challenges to your marriage .

Professional help can be available from an approved professionally qualified family therapist and not the usual agony aunts writing columns or providing readymade prescription to all problems.A good qualified professional family therapist necessarily should hold recognised postgraduate qualifications in family therapy in addition to a post graduate degree in psychology. The therapist should have a good standing in dealing with family therapy and counseling.

When you decide to eventually consult such a therapist you can be assured of total privacy and confidentiality of any discussion with the therapist.The professional code of privacy and confidentiality is absolutely sacrosanct for every therapist ,belying the fears “,What will people say”.

Let us now understand ,what would the therapy involve.

Usually the first session begins with the introductory process wherein the therapist is keen to understand as to what kind of issues,problems and disputes have been occurring in your family life and /or marriage.

The session involves knowing about your family history, the systems and the units of inner family circles within the family ,the communication system in your family and the power systems of the family.

The therapist is keen to understand the reasons for your contacting him/her i.e. the problems you are facing as a couple.How long has the problem been occurring and whether you have been consulting any other counselor earlier,if so what has been the impact of such counseling.

The therapist in this session evaluates the relationship the couple shares only on peripheral level as the depth of understanding and the misunderstanding would be assessed only in subsequent sessions and that too with a complete unbiased mind .It is not the task of the therapist to judge you,nor does the therapist acts as a complaint centre. The major task of the therapist is to understand the underlying emotional upheaval prevailing within the relationship of couple ,or amongst all other members of the family .

Though the families of the spouses or / and the spouses obviously look towards the family therapist as the complaint lodging centre ,but that definitely is an absolute misunderstanding of the process of family counseling .The therapist lends an unbiased ear and attention to every dispute,difference of opinion and misplaced emotions. The therapist is not a judge but a facilitator for bringing about better understanding of the misplaced emotions and feelings amongst the family members . It generally happens that the therapist is looked at as the mediator of the disputes by the family members,but mediation definitely has never been the scope of any family or couple counseling.

The therapist would also try to learn from you ,your career graph if working or in own business,the money position,the spending habits,financial interests if any and of course about the extended family members’ financial interests if any in connection with your finances.

Then again sometimes either of the spouses who has contacted the therapist,expects by default that the therapist would align with her or him ,but a true professional therapist approaches the counseling without any kind of preset mindset.The main task of the family therapist is to understand the tensions ,stresses and hindrances prevailing within the marital /family relationships and evolve better perception of the problems prevailing between the marital partners and other family members.

The couple issues could relate to any of the following:

Relationship of either spouse with in laws and other family members.
Household responsibility and commitments of members in honouring their responsibility.

Daily chores and spousal attitude towards sharing the chores.

Relationship of the spouses within and outside marital boundaries .

Marital compatibility of thoughts and emotions.
Sexual adjustments and acceptance.
Sexual orientation and attitudes towards partners.

Parenting plans ,children and parenting issues.

Communication pattern between the couple and the problems being faced in the communication.

Setting up priorities for the marriage and providing needed priority,time and space to each other in the marriage.

Modern couples also look for personal space in marriage as otherwise the relationship often gets suffocated with too much closeness .

Having understood all that has been delineated above, the therapist has to understand personalities of both the spouses ,the acceptance level or non acceptance levels of each others habits ,attitudes,opinions and daily functioning.

In fact a good therapist will help the couple evolve a new outlook and perception of their respective relationship provided ,the partners have the patience to continue with the sessions conducted over a long period of time varying from three to six months .the session may be conducted once or twice a week depending on the convenience and availability of both the spouses.

Though initially every session appears to be an exercise in raising grievances by the couple against each the other . The therapist’s intervention helps the partners read positive and negative cues of each others emotions in the right perspective and the couple soon moves from the warring zone to the negotiation levels. The negotiation is often done by the aggrieved partner to secure future as assurances and promises .The understanding levels though still remain far fetched and many more sessions will be needed to gradually establish a trusting common bond ,wherein an acceptance of each other is re-established amongst the family.

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Post Infidelity Traumatic Stress Disorder

October 22, 2020October 24, 2020 Ramneek Kapoor

The revelation that her husband has been having an extramarital affair for past three years with one of his office colleagues came as a big traumatic shock to Shalini (name changed) and her two children.

She had been devastated, traumatized stressed and depressed .She felt as if someone had hit her with a big stone on her head. She felt dizzy as she could foresee a tough time ahead for her and her two children .Her heart sank. She could see her marriage of twenty years, falling apart at that instant.

Shalini and Amit (name changed ) have been married for twenty years .They have a son 11years and a daughter who had just completed her 18th birthday last week .So far they have had an acceptable level of understanding within the family, like any other middle class educated family. There have been occasional arguments and some fighting incidents between husband -wife or mother in -law and daughter in law, but none could have expected that one of them could be going astray in an age when it is often felt that marriage has withered all storms and it will be all smooth sailing from here. The kind of traumatic stress that had befallen all members of family after the revelation of extramarital affairs of the head of the family needs to be understood in the larger context here.

It has often been assumed that such an unfortunate situation affects the couple and it may not have much impact on other members of the family. But that is only a myth; in fact it leaves very deep scars on all members of the affected family.

The traumatic shock of such revelation of infidelity by (either spouse), brings about profound stress levels to all members of the family. The impact of such revelation of the infidelity perpetrated by the spouse can be as potentially and severely traumatic as the trauma brought about by a natural disaster uprooting entire family, mentally, socially, emotionally and financially. The post infidelity traumatic stress disorder unlike the other PTSD needs to be assessed on entire family as a whole and on each individual family member individually .

PITSD mentioned in the above case can be seen as it affected all members of the family, in the following manner.

The wife has lost total confidence in her and has ever since been suffering from low self esteem. She has not been able to find reasons for the infidelity brought about by her husband, around whom she had built her world of twenty years.

She often complains of somatic pains and sleeplessness. At times her memory gets affected .She forgets attending to smaller details about herself. Frequent visits to her psychiatrist /psychologist do help .Yet the gnawing pains and the thought “why” come back repeatedly. Seems she will take a long time to recover from the PITSD.

The young ones too suffer from PITSD .A sense of impending breakup of the parents’ marriage hurts them all the time. Their son not being in a position to side with any parent ,has gone into silence .He speaks in low tones and uses very few words to ask for anything needed by him This has resulted into his neglected of studies and self care. It has however brought both siblings closer to each other.

Daughter of the family doesn’t like such a situation .She believes that this could have been avoided if she had paid more attention to the family environment over the years. She has been in the process of self remorse .Any discussion in the family on the subject matter triggers her severe depression and she would start crying in no time .She believes her father has been her infallible hero and should have been more careful with his conduct. She ends up fighting with both her parents a few times a day. She refuses to listen to any reason by her father. She suffers from eating disorder and her physician has diagnosed her for IBS

Post Infidelity Traumatic Stress Disorder as such doesn’t happen to one individual .It virtually affects the complete family system. As a family therapist we have been focusing on the couple #both the spouses as a single system but in such cases it becomes obvious that the systems within the system too need as much attention and intervention/therapy as we give to the main couple.

The impact of such revelation/disclosure/finding is no less traumatic to the spouse who has been wayward and promiscuously adventurous .He feels miserable now thinking that his children know everything about him. He faces the wrath of his partner always feeling guilty. A defiance attitude was fine so long as he had been dealing with the spouse. But the reaction of both, the daughter (who’s an adult) and the adolescent son has been a little stronger to be taken lightly .Resultantly business suffers, nightmares occur and visit to family therapist occur frequently now.

Is your uncontrolled anger damaging your relationship with your spouse ?

September 28, 2020December 9, 2020 Ramneek Kapoor

Nothing else can be as fatal for the marital relationship as your anger. An uncontrolled anger is like a slow poison to the strong threads of relations between husband and wife .The uncontrolled anger virtually eats into the very roots of love,trust and respectability of both the partners .

I have observed while counseling estranged or opposing spouses that couples would often express their anger and resentment towards each other and after a while they tend to cool down when educated about their misplacement of their emotions or expectations from each other.

However heavens may help in situations where one of the spouses happen to have an uncontrolable anger . Such expression of constant complaints and anger often leads to physical abuse ,emotional accusations against each other and ultimate separation.

Anger is not so bad if used momentarily and allowed to subside and defused once it has been expressed. The message that the angry person has been upset over certain issues or acts of either spouse can be conveyed and thereafter both would do better to come to the levels of finding ways to negotiate peace and make amends .

There comes a stage when the partners need to involve a professional family therapist who can help them look at their differences or different perceptions in new light to sort out the disputes .Such intervention is arranged with a view to evolve newer and better emotional understanding amongst the couple ,even though the previous hurt still remains at the background. But the seething anger has been overcome as the partners give each other opportunities to grow their new closeness and understanding.

But many a times the harmed partner particularly wife finds it difficult to let go of the past and forgive her husband. Her anger seethes like a wild fire that knows no direction ,hovering over the relationship and destroying everything that comes in its path .Such situation finds no retrieval and the couple sooner or later ends up parting ways through legal separation,or finding it difficult to stay together peacefully.

A partner with such an uncontrolled anger often brings to the fore the mistakes of the other partner,by shaming him or her at every available opportunities,refuses to listen to any explanation by the partner and believes no compromise can be big enough to solve the problems which have arisen in their relationship.

An understanding partner can help coverup many shortcomings ,mistakes and at times blunders of the other partner unless it happens to be a complete erosion of trust and faith.But in the event of such a situation too,the partners need to sit together by letting the anger go and understand how to proceed with their relationship further or even give it a break by inflicting the minimum damage to the family and partners themselves.

It is important that both husband and wife should pay attention to their anger control and if they find that their relationship is getting affected by such frequent bursts of anger. They should consult a counseling psychologist and family therapist .A trained professional counselor and family therapist would help them with relevant anger management therapies including perceptive breathing exercises .

Family therapist during meeting with unhappy, married couple

While there are enough advisors in every social circle to guide and help the estranged or fighting couples but such unprofessional approach unknowingly out of their ignorance can ignite more anger or mistrust towards each other often leading to frequent accusations. As far as possible couples should avoid such agony aunts for their own betterment .Repeated complaints, frequent bickerings and trying to put down the partner or staging a show down for your partner just because you are angry with him or her can on the contrary take the love out of relations,resulting into the damaged partner finding solace elsewhere .No partner in the right mind who values relationship would like to be in such an embarrassing situation .Anytime you feel angry with or at your partner ,give yourself sometime to think over if the confrontation can be through anger or matters can also be discussed without losing control and being firm in your tone and body language.

,If you have such uncontrolled anger /domestic violence situation You should come to us at Family Therapy India and we will help you resolve all issues of your marriage in more amicable manner .Find us @ http://www.familytherapyindia.com.

Email us @mansikpramarsh@gmail.com

Call: 09179383554,917314263087

–Ramneek Kapoor – Family Therapist, Psychologist Counselor and Science of Living Expert .