Interesting that you say this, as I would have assumed the opposite (eg. I would have thought that marriage counselling might be more useful for working through problems that are liveable than trying to save marriages that are on the brink). Perhaps the problem is that a lot of people approach marriage counselling assuming one of the people needs to be “fixed”, which is generally very difficult to achieve? As you said in your previous paragraph, sometimes it is better to just accept that life is imperfect rather than needing to make some radical change - but I think counselling can help people do exactly that by helping people view their problems with a different lens.
I personally found counselling quite helpful, but my experience may not be typical of most couples who seek counselling, since my impression is that in many cases people only seek out out as a last resort. In my case, I’d only been married to my spouse for two years (and together for five total), but were facing some recurring issues that seemed to be causing a lot of friction and we thought working with a third party might help since we didn’t seem to be getting anywhere just talking it through ourselves. In my case the main benefits that I got out of it was a better understanding about the differences in how my partner and I handled conflict (I didn’t recognize that sometimes when my spouse was “flooded” with emotion it was better to give her space and time to collect her thoughts rather than try to figure out what was wrong in the moment, which was my instinct), and having the counsellor facilitate the sharing of some “unspoken” values that we each had and helping us frame those values in ways that the other partner could understand.
I think it turned out to be a good thing that we sought out counselling relatively early on before years of resentment built up - like many things I would guess early intervention can be more effective than late intervention. However there does seem to be this stigma that marriage counselling is only for couples who are in dire trouble, so I suspect that many couples only agree to go to counselling when it is too late.
My parents went through a rough patch in the late 1970s when I was in my teens and tried Marriage Encounter, a weekend retreat, which seemed to help, although I do remember my dad rolling his eyes a little about it. They’re still together.
One aspect to having it be successful is how receptive you are to the “art” of counseling. Counseling is definitely not a pragmatic, well-defined science. Counseling is going to be about discussing emotions in a touchy-feely way that gets stuff out into the open with the hopes that it creates improvement in your life. If you’re the type who wants a mechanical solution where there’s an initial diagnosis phase and then a well-understood set of steps to follow to fix the problem, then counseling may be frustrating.
In general, I think counseling works better for people who are the type who feel relief just by talking about their emotions. I think it works less well for people who talk about their problems with the goal of finding a solution to those problems. That is, if someone complains about bad traffic, one type of person feels better just voicing their frustration, but the other person is looking for a solution to where they don’t get stuck in traffic in the future.
thanks everyone. This is the sort of feedback that I expected to hear. It sounds like preparation and expectation management are really important, as well as a bit of luck.
My wife currently is seeing a therapist for herself, and speaks highly of her. Apparently this therapist also does couples counselling. Can I assume that it would be a very bad idea for us to see this therapist as a couple for the risk of her ‘taking sides’? Are they even allowed to do this?
yeah, this is a level-headed and big picture way of looking at it, but that is kind of what terrifies me, the idea of the counselling pushing us toward the exit…
It isn’t legally or ethically prohibited for a therapist or counselor to see clients separately or together but it would certainly be something of a conflict of interest in terms of your wife’s trust versus your collective trust. If you wife’s therapist is a relationship counselor then she almost certainly knows and can recommend other counselors (preferably someone with a MMFC certification) for marriage counseling.
By way of analogy, think of having a flat tire while driving down the highway. Would you rather gently pull off on the shoulder and see if you can swap the tire, or keep driving along until you have a complete sidewall blowout and then struggle to keep the car from swerving into another vehicle or rolling over? If if counseling is pushing you toward the exit, you’ll have more control over what happens and the choice to form a different kind of relationship where you may not be together but you can at least get along well enough to put the common interest of your kids at the forefront versus a destructive antagonism that doesn’t serve anyone and that ends up doing real harm to your children. Better to end a marriage gracefully, or at least forge a peace with what you have, than to end up dangling from a chandelier.
My ex and I went to marriage counseling and it did what you are afraid of - it helped me determine that the issues I had with my spouse were real and for my own health I needed to get out. There was not way he could have helped us stay together, IMHO, because my ex was convinced the counseler would gossip about us to other mental health professionals in town so he didn’t want us to bring up any of our actual issues. This made the sessions extremely frustrating for all involved and a huge waste of time.
Back when I was with Mrs. L v1.0, I realized something. Let’s pretend that I will die when I am exactly 73 years 2 months old. If I was 35y0m old at the time, I had 38y2m to live. Now I could spend the next ten years trying to fix this and I would have 28y2m to live. Or I could spend twenty years and have 18y2m to live. IOW every moment I waste now costs me later.
To me, that’s suffering without a point. Divorce was suffering that has a point. After getting past it, you can live again. But every moment you waste in a dead-end relationship is something you lose forever for the future.
I would be wondering the following…
Does she want to work things out, or has her heart sort of moved on? (She suggested counseling, but some may say “Well, I tried everything…” without caring.)
Does she seem willing to own the problems, or is it all your fault? I remain convinced that successful marriages (and divorces, for that matter) are about 50/50 in most cases.
Is she (and are you) going into this to build the marriage back or does it turn into a ton of griping about past errors etc.?
ISTM you should go, and keep an open mind. Not with the counselor she’s been seeing because that person has her version of everything and fair is fair.
I think : go to counselling (but ABSOLUTELY NOT with her counsellor ).
My Devils Advocate has two concerns;
Is it possible for a truly shit counsellor to drive a couple further apart and murder a marriage?
Is a possible for seemingly effective counselling to paper over the cracks thereby artificially reviving a dead relationship for a few more mediocre limbo years ?
You have no control over someone else’s decisions. Accept that, and consider attending a few therapy sessions with an open mind. If you get divorced, it’s your wife’s decision, not so much your therapist pushing her in a direction.
Deep down, I sense that you realize that the relationship isn’t good but that you’ve managed to find some comfort with it because you know what to expect. Despite the tensions, the relationship is familiar to you. Divorce is the great unknown, which is scary.
Counseling is going to fail most of the time because most marriages end due to the work of one of the partners, not both. My ex had no need to go to counseling because she left me for another man who she married. Hence no need for her to work on a relationship.
I am a fan of relationships that are based on loyalty. Where both people try. Hence, I am utterly out of place in the USA secular society of 2021. Our society is built for selfish people and people who enjoy serial relationships. I have no place here. I am in no way better off due to the end of my marriage. Just older, poorer, more responsibilities with children that prospective future partners really don’t care about. Potential partners are either selfish serial relationship seekers, cheaters, or too damaged by abuse from other men that they can’t bond with me. It doesn’t get better, at least not for me.
Yeah, but you don’t toss away the car if you get a flat tire.
I suppose a marriage is a lot like a car. At first it’s all shiny, new, and awesome. After awhile it starts to get old and worn and requires more and more maintenance. But it still serves some utilitarian value.
At some point it turns into a “classic”, or you just get tired of driving around this old shitbox.
I came here to post about Marriage Encounter, which really helped my marriage. It’s a weekend retreat, not counselling. One of their lines is “Make your good marriage great”, which was true for mine, and I’ve known couples for whom it made an OK marriage good. The focus is on couple communication, not individual or group therapy.
It was started by a Catholic priest and couples in the 1960s and has evolved since then; if you google it you’ll find different churches (like Methodist) running it as well as some non-denominational versions. I’m most familiar with the Catholic one, which runs weekends all over the US and the world; they’re faith-based but not trying to convert anyone. I know Hindu, Jewish and agnostic couples who’ve attended and been helped by it.
Since the pandemic started, they’ve been doing some of the weekends via Zoom.
Here’s the website for the Catholic one; non-Catholics are welcome, and under the “about us” tab there’s a page for “Other faith expressions”. Schedules for upcoming weekends, in-person and virtual, are under the “Apply” tab
To continue the car analogy, here’s something from the site:
Just as driving a car without routine maintenance can lead to problems, a marriage needs attention to stay on track. The Marriage Encounter experience is a skill-building enrichment program where together, you, as husband and wife, learn how to be the best couple you can be.
Yes, that’s true for the Catholic version of Marriage Encounter, sorry if I wasn’t clear on that. I meant to imply it by saying it was Catholic-based and assuming that people would be aware that the Catholic Church doesn’t perform same-sex marriages. I also assumed, from the OP’s male-sounding username and reference to their wife, that they’re in a male-female marriage, but of course that may not be the case.
There may be versions of Marriage Encounter that include same-sex marriages. The Episcopal Church, which does marry same-sex couples, might have one.
I don’t think the goal of “effective counseling” is to keep the marriage together. I think the goal of effective counseling is to help the participants lead better lives.
My husband and I went to marriage counseling, and it helped us negotiate better, and better understand what we did that stressed each other, and adjust our behaviors accordingly. So I think we each find the other easier to live with. She also suggested a couple of stupid little things we could do that were surprisingly helpful. Like buy a second set of bathroom towels, so when my husband started the laundry just when I wanted to take a shower, it wasn’t a problem. Yeah, we should have realized that on our own. But sometimes a third party cuts through the resentment and makes it easier to solve problems. And while not all problems a couple has can be solved, some can be.
My brother and his ex went to a couples therapist, and she was incredibly helpful to them. They ended up divorcing, but instead of going to lawyers, she became their divorce therapist. And she helped them negotiate all the details of a messy divorce, including who got the children when, who would live where, and how to split the assets. They divorced as friends, and still get along. (I think they still love each other, but they are both people who are stressful to hang out with, and ultimately, they were just incompatible.) She threw him a 40th birthday party, and invited both his new partner and hers. It was GREAT for their kids that they never fought over the kids or discipline or anything in front of the kids, and that all the pass-offs were amicable. I think they both felt the therapist was highly effective and helpful.
(They each hired a lawyer for the actual divorce, of course. But because they had agreed on everything, they told their lawyers what to do. And each lawyer tried to screw the other party. And each principal told their lawyer to cut it out, this is what they’d agreed on.)
For those for whom it may matter, and who might have trouble finding an LGBTQ+ informed relational counselor, here’s a forthcoming professional handbook:
She also suggested a couple of stupid little things we could do that were surprisingly helpful. Like buy a second set of bathroom towels, so when my husband started the laundry just when I wanted to take a shower, it wasn’t a problem. Yeah, we should have realized that on our own. But sometimes a third party cuts through the resentment and makes it easier to solve problems. And while not all problems a couple has can be solved, some can be.