Self-improvement

Why is it that most couples end up in therapy or counseling of some variety when their marriage gets so confusing and painful that they can’t bear it themselves? There is an assumption that a third party will somehow be able to save a marriage by doing some of the work. So, how does this really work for them?

Before you go into a counseling session with your spouse, both of you need to understand that it is not the definite cure to all of your problems. You cannot hire someone else to do the dirty work and make things all better, no matter how skilled they may be.

Yet, counseling or therapy can really work if both of you go into it with the right mindset. The problem is that most go into it with the attitude that this third party will see that they are right and their spouse is wrong. They want validation, not objectivity.

A therapist is not going to take sides or say one person is right and the other wrong. Their job is essentially to steer the couple to working out the issues, which are created equally by both of them. They both share bits and pieces of the blame, but therapy is not about blame.

Marital problems are always deeper than someone not taking out the trash or constantly being late for dates. What the therapist wants to do is get beneath all the squabbling and figure out what is really driving all the unhappiness and ultimately wrecking your relationship.

Under every petty argument is a deeper issue.

In order to get to the bigger problems you have to go into counseling without the idea that someone is right and the other wrong. You have to be willing to just listen to your spouse without assuming what their words mean for you personally.

Let’s consider an example. A man goes into a session and hears his wife saying how lonely she is. He feels this is an attack on him for not being home and he starts saying how he is the one always working and she just sits at home. She is now defensive as well. Yet, what would have happened if he just heard that she was lonely and did not make it about his work pattern? What if he just simply listened?

If you want to save a marriage through therapy sessions then you can’t automatically feel blamed by your spouse’s problems. It’s extremely difficult to hear that the other is lonely without blaming yourself, but that is what must be done to make this approach work.

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