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This subject came up with my best friend about her marriage and I was wondering how many couples have gone through marriage couseling and it still didn't work out? I know couseling is not a gaurantee that it will work itself out but it can help each other express things differently and hope that by practicing what you learn in couseling will help. Just wondering how often does it work itself out or maybe you knew for sure counseling wasn't going to help but you still went and wasted your money?
I've often heard that the problem with counseling is that by the time couples are willing to go to therapy (and pay for it), it's too late to repair the marriage. I suppose the key factor is how badly the couple (both parties) truly wants to fix the situation.
For approximately 5 years, my ex-husband and I were involved in ministry that consisted of counseling couples. We got to see a lot of marriages restored and couples stay together. All of which, to my knowledge are still together today.
However, I think one of the worst things that happened to us was doing this because I remember many times thinking, why on earth do you not practice what you preach as I would hear him talking to the husbands about what they should and should not be doing. I think this served to magnify some problems in our own relationship.
As the problems became evident, we ceased counseling couples because I felt we could not be effective anymore. At least I felt I couldn't and I would not be a hypocrite. So we stepped down from our position in leadership.
A short while went by and we found ourselves at the point of getting seperated. There had been a lot of issues that I just was no longer willing or able to put up with and if we were going to stay together, it would be a long road and one with many changes that needed to take place. We did seperate and agreed to go to marriage counseling before throwing out the divorce card. We went to marriage counseling and things just kept getting worse and worse. He was unwilling to change or see what his part in the problems were. Even at one point the counselor told him that he was not hearing or understanding what was going on because he didn't want to and only wanted to hear and understand what he did want to.
In any case, 3 months of weekly visits later, after he walked out of a session and we later got into an argument about it, I called it quits and said that it wasn't going anywhere and at that point we were just wasting our time and our money. A few weeks later he filed for divorce and within about 6 months we were divorced. That was 3 years ago.
So in my opinion. Yes, often it does work. But it takes both parties to not only want to make it work, but to work at making it work. Other times it doesn't work, often that is a result of either one or both parties not really wanting to make it work and/or being unwilling to put forth the effort that it will take.
Guess it is a case by case basis when it comes to what the results will be.
I am a huge proponent of therapy, but maybe that's because it was so beneficial to us. Our therapist kept focusing on us as individuals. Instead of saying, well, you won't do this, you aren't willing to change, etc., we learned to think in a new way. Now I think to myself, well, what can I do to help us? What could I have done differently? This takes away the blame game, which only causes resentment.
Thing is, our therapist stressed how one person can make this change and really turn things around. I remember saying, well, I can apply all these techniques, but what do I do when my H does not? He said, just keep trying, stick it out in the boxing ring (not for boxing, the safe place to talk - lol) until your H is willing to join you.
Our therapist was excellent. He was a great mediator and got us to see each other's point of views. I finally understood what my H was thinking and where he was coming from, and my H saw the same.
We learned to respect each other and not just blurt out whatever. Instead, when we approach an argument, we take a breather. We never did that before, we just let it escalate to total chaos. We call those our trademark fights. We haven't had one trademark fight in over 8 mos. (knock on wood).
If you're lucky enough to find a therapist like wanttomoveeast did, then it might be worth a shot. In my experience, they're few and far between.
As mari4him stated, BOTH parties need to want to make it work. If they do, then there often isn't any advantage in bringing in a third party - in fact, I've seen times where counseling had negative effects.
Counselors have their own prejudices and shortsightedness - part of my work is as a philosophical counselor, and I know from this what a tricky road counseling can be. Throw in the emotional and (often) spiritual / religious aspects of marriage counseling and you're left with a minefield to negotiate.
After 7 years, we were having some real communication problems, it was never a question about love, but whether we were each able to really be honest with each other about what we wanted out of life and out of each other, and ultimately out of ourselves. It was difficult at times, and I was never crazy about our therapist, but she was helpful in certain ways, I never took what she was saying as law, but I really appreciated having someone there to sort of make us talk about the real issues.
It didn't work right away, but it was good for us, we were young when we met and never really had any model on what a good couple/marriage was supposed to look like, so we were kind of flying by the seat of our pants, and it was scary. Having some guidance was a blessing for us. 3 years later, going strong.
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