Marital & Relationship Counselling

Marital and relationship counselling at Rahama Wellness Center gives a couple a neutral room, a trained counsellor and a structure for the conversation they have not been able to have on their own. Sessions are held at our centre in Sabon Lugbe, Abuja, and cover conflict that keeps repeating, trust that has been broken, intimacy that has gone, and the decision about whether to stay together at all.

What counselling is actually for

Couples counselling is not a hearing at which a counsellor decides who is right. It is a structured conversation in which each person gets heard properly, usually for the first time in a long while, and in which the pattern the two of you keep repeating is treated as the problem rather than either of you. Some couples use it to rebuild. Some use it to separate without destroying what is left. Both are legitimate outcomes and neither is the counsellor's to choose.

Where it fits in a Nigerian marriage

Our counsellors understand the family and cultural dynamics that sit around a marriage here: the in-laws with a stake in it, the expectations about children, the pressure not to be seen to have failed, and the reluctance to take a private matter outside the house. Those are worked with rather than dismissed, and nothing said in the room goes back to a family member who did not hear it said.

Pre-marital, mid-marriage and separation

Couples come at every stage. Pre-marital counselling works through money, faith, children, in-laws and expectations before they become arguments. Mid-marriage work usually starts with one difficult year. Separation counselling helps two people end a marriage with less damage, particularly where there are children. Where the difficulty involves the wider household rather than the two of you, family and couples therapy is the better room, and where one partner is carrying something of their own, individual therapy often runs alongside.