Your Questions About Marriage Counselling Does It Work

MarriageCounseling answers:

You’ve got two questions here.

First is the thought about a 3rd party relationship coach. Tell me something (rhetorically) – is it easier to look at someone else’s life and see where they might have been making things worse and making choices that hurt rather than helped the situation, or is it easier to see where you are doing those things?

I say it’s easier for someone else – anyone else – to have a more impartial view of two people’s interaction than those two actually involved in it. There’s no direct involvement or ego attachment to the actions or emotions of the interactions.

Now, when you have a relationship coach, someone who has been trained to help a couple figure out their own issues, someone who has no loyalties to either person in the relationship, that person can help the most in actually helping a couple find their own solutions.

The counselor isn’t there to say “you are wrong, you are right, etc” – they aren’t there to assign blame or take sides. They are there to fix the ‘dance’ – as far as each person is willing to fix that dance.

Imagine two people dancing to the music of their relationship. They step on each other’s feet. They give confusing leads or no leads at all. They can’t follow and crash into the other person. They can barely keep rhythm, let alone move together.

The therapist is there as a dance coach, to help them regain their own internal rhythms, then be able to interact with each other in their dance. The couple chooses their music, their dance, their own level of intimacy (intricacy of steps). The therapist lets them know what will help them – what makes the dance flow better, and what will not.

Most marriage counseling fails because one or both people want to be ‘right’ and cannot let go of their own part of the dance. They want the therapist to say to the other person “if you would just dance like this other person is dancing . . . ” They are not willing to give up their ego position and change some fundamental parts of how they dance to meet their partner in making the dance work.

It’s the same reason why most child therapy fails. The child starts to change, and then the family must change around them to meet the new steps that the child is learning in therapy. The family does not want to change and becomes anxious/angry/fearful of the change and makes the decision to end therapy rather than actually facing a dynamic change to the whole way the family ‘dances’ with each other.

You can make the choice of ‘whatever happens between the two should stay between the two’ – as long as you realize that you can never see outside of your own problems in the dance. However, if you think that ‘working things out’ like that will really get to the root of the problems and improve the dance of the relationship, then I personally wouldn’t give much hope to the relationship surviving – unless the two cling to the familiar dysfunctional clashing dance rather than face the scary unknown of dancing solo.

MarriageCounseling answers:

Chances are is that he has no interest in saving the marriage. Sorry.

MarriageCounseling answers:

I have been to quite a few counselors & have found I’ve gotten something from each one of them. The very last one I did get the most out of & by his honesty, was able to finally find out the problem with my marriage some 25 yrs. Ago. My husband is an alcoholic. I am too, but have been sober 20+ yrs. I gave him 12 yrs. Of my life waiting for him to get sober to have a chance at our marriage. The last counselor told us he was a “womanizer” & to get extra help with that along with AA. This of course he did not do! The last time he left me, called to come home to help him, I finally accepted the fact it was NOT going to ever work. I felt like a ton of bricks rolled off my shoulders. I told him to keep going back home a few states away. This has been about 25 yrs. Ago, I since have found happiness. Had this counselor never told us the truth, we never would have known! I DO believe counseling does help either by a professional or your church pastor. My Dad was a preacher & had many folks come to our home for help. Either would be acceptable to me. They may not tell you what you want to hear, but they are being honest with you. It’s up to you if you want to heed what they suggest to you…the best to you…:)

MarriageCounseling answers:

This is funny $#it. Why am I just now finding these?