1. Find a Clear Direction Most come to couples counseling struggling with several different problems –lack of intimacy, anger management issues withiin the relationship, problems communicating – that they feel so overwhelmed by that they don’t know where to begin. Marriage therapy can help you to develop a road map to sort your problems out and point you in the right direction.

 

2. Understand Both Sides. You are both right in some ways and you are both wrong in some ways. There are no “bad guys” in couples counseling. You both  had a role in developing  and perpetuating the problems that brought you to marriage counseling and the only way to really help you is for a third party to take an unbiased approach.

 

3. Uncover Hidden Issues. There are three levels to communication: the concrete, the emotional, and the impact on your identity.  Most people who come to couples counseling are stuck because they focus on the concrete (e.g. money, sex).  For most this only leads to a circular argument of the he said/she said type in which you basically say the same things over and over again.  In my experience, its not the concrete issue but what it means to your identity.  Marriage Counseling makes it fairly easy to figure out what things mean on the identity level. Once you learn to talk about things this way  you will find yourselves developing empathy for one another and the power struggles begin to disappear.

 

4. Stay Away from Common Mistakes Most couples tend to make the same mistakes in trying to fix their problems as other couples do. Marriage counseling helps you to recognize and correct those mistakes.

 

5. Recognize Your Strengths Hard as it might be to believe at times, every relationship has strengths and yours in no exception. If you didn’t have any positives to your marriage you wouldn’t still be together. Marriage counseling helps you to recognize those strengths  and to use them as building blocks to restoring  your relationship.

 

  Provide a Safe Place to Talk. The goal of your marriage counselor is to help you to have a different conversation than the one you have been having over and over at home. Its a place where you both can really be heard and understood and to begin to purposefully design your life together.

 

Stop the Madness! Research indicates that most couples don’t seek help until they’ve been struggling for several years. Many people don’t go because they think that on some level they should be able to work through their problems on their own.  If you are hesitant to start marriage counseling ask yourself how long you’ve been working on the same issues and how much progress you’ve really made.  If the answers to those questions are a long time and not too much then you should seriously consider marriage counseling.

 

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