Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Does Marriage Counseling Work?

By Nick Matthews

Marriage counseling can really help you out if your marriage is in trouble. Marriage counselors provide you and your spouse with and objective, professional point of view. They aren't biased and focus on helping solve your problems. Marriage counseling helps many married couples build a stronger marriage and happier life.

Marriage counseling, however, can only assist couples up to a point. The rest is up to the individual in the marriage. In order to reap the benefits that a marriage counselor can provide, couples must be willing to put in the hard work. They must be willing to implement changes and adopt suggestions recommended by the counselor. The counselor-couple relationship itself is a two way street. A counselor is not a magician; couples are the other important part of the equation in making sure counseling works.

1. Your spouse must be willing to go to marriage counseling and willing to work on the issues together. Otherwise, your chances of achieving success through marriage counseling are slim.

2. Try to keep and open mind. It will be difficult, but try to get out of the "right and wrong" mindset. The marriage counselor will not point out that you are right and your spouse is wrong. They will offer an objective viewpoint and show you ways that you can improve your marriage.

3. Be willing to change what you are doing. If what you are doing currently in your marriage is not working, changes will need to be made. This might refer to a simple behavior, or it could be a significant life-changing behavior. Don't be under any illusions. This can be difficult. But the potential rewards can be great.

4. Your marriage won't be fixed overnight. It certainly didn't get in the shape it's in overnight, but probably a period of years. So, don't expect all of the problems to resolve after the first counseling session. Understand that you're in for the long haul when embarking on marriage counseling.

5. Speak the whole truth and nothing but... Don't hide your feelings because your afraid of conflict. Some conflict in a marriage is healthy as long as your respectful of the other persons feelings. You'll need to be able to express your feelings freely in the marriage counseling session in order to reap the most benefit from it. - 15784

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