Does couples counseling ever strengthen marriages?

[Anonymous]

I think DH and I could use some couples counseling, but he is v. resistant: insists that counseling is a precursor to breaking up, and it just makes people dwell on their problems and so on. Any happy couples counseling stories?

[Anonymous]

Didn't work for us. He just used it as validation that I have issues and was ruining our marriage (which is still limping along).

[Anonymous]

We did couple's therapy for about a year and it seemed to cause more problems. However, once we stopped, things got so much better. The airing of grievances is over, we can focus on the future, and we have a couple hundred extra bucks a week to spend on having fun.

[Anonymous]

I loved couples counseling and yes, it totally strengthened our relationship and helped us form a deeper understanding and respect for the differences between us. Granted, we did this before we were married, but it gave us a strong foundation for our marriage. I also had a willing partner, I don't know if therapy "works" when one partner is resistant.

[Anonymous]

Sure, it can. I recommend behavioral based therapy instead of non-stop talking about feelings and ways you've wronged each other. Find a counselor who uses John Gottman as the basis for their counseling - he gives specific actions & behaviors that are scientifically proven/correlated with good marriages. Or just start out by reading one of his books yourself, they're an easy read. Would your DH be open to that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think DH and I could use some couples counseling, but he is v. resistant: insists that counseling is a precursor to breaking up, and it just makes people dwell on their problems and so on. Any happy couples counseling stories?

DH here. Done well couple counseling can provide a safe place to talk about issues and patterns that may not seem like a big deal right now, but that can either fester or have adverse consequences later.

The point is not to focus on problems, but to recognize ways that our own patterns of behavior may chip away at the relationship.

Each spouse typically comes into a relationship with one major model for how married relationships work (or don't) - that of their parents. And, for better or worse, without a conscious effort we tend to fall into those same patterns and assume our partner will fill his/her half of the model. But your partner isn't working from the same model, and that can create tensions.

I know that I learned certain behaviors from watching my parents, and so has DW. We've talked about them and we joke about it when one of us is falling into one of the patterns that we learned growing up.

For your DH, there are few people who learn less about relationships with the opposite sex growing up than guys do. Guys get coaching in sports, they have teachers for academics, but when it comes to relationships the best guide we have is media (yeah, THAT's gonna work out well) because you don't really talk about dating and relationships with your male peers (unless you have 1-2 exceptionally close, open friends, and even then it's still the ignorant leading the inexperienced). Women do much more talking and relationship analysis growing up - they actually learn from each other.

I'm sure your DH can think of some things you do that irritate the hell out of him, or the times when he knows that he needs to be walking on eggshells around you. He also may be terrified of talking about those things because he doesn't know how to do it in a way that won't (in his mind) avoid your exploding over it.

Couples counseling is a place where the counselor can help you both learn how to recognize and discuss those things that bother both of you, and the patterns in your relationship that lead to miscommunication, misunderstanding, tension and conflict.

Just as importantly, couples counseling provides you with someone who can help bring out the ways that each of you can better support and show affection and love for each other.

[Anonymous]

It did not help in my marriage, but I attribute that to DH being unwilling to really do any work on our marriage. He went because I asked him to, but his sole contribution was to sit his ass on the couch. He had little to say in the sessions and any advice or suggestions the therapist gave were followed, at best, once or twice.

I think that often couples counseling is a prelude to divorce for just this reason - one person is trying to make things better, the other is not doing squat, and the fact that this dynamic is not going to change becomes clear in counseling. If both partners really want things to improve and are willing to put in the work, then I think counseling can be e tr

[Anonymous]

Sorry, hit send too soon. I was going to say that I think counseling could be quite helpful,in a situation where both partners are on board, willing to look at their role in problems, and work on making changes. I just think it's unfortunately not very common that couples who get that point have two partners willing to do the work.

[Anonymous]

A friend says it helps him because his DW is nuts and the counselor will often take his side and tell the wife that she's being ridiculous (presumably in other terms, though). And HE'S the one that had the affair.

[Anonymous]

My wife and I went before we got married, and it pushed her from being hesitant to being in a relationship together at all, to wanting to get married.

So it definitely strengthened our relationship.

[Anonymous]

I haven't done it. But I know several couples who have who I considered very immature and basically it helped them to understand "the rules" of communication. They are still married, have kids, and are better partners.

[Anonymous]

We have tried counseling about 4 times. It really only works when BOTH people are committed to the program. Otherwise, you are better off going to an individual counselor. I will admit that at a minimum, it helps to baseline some things and set boundaries by allowing a 3rd party to share an objective, unbiased perspective. So there is that.

[Anonymous]

Counseling was helpful for us; it made me recognize that my depression was the biggest problem in our marriage and prompted me to go get help for that. Rather than "dwelling on problems" a good counselor can help you identify/resolve problems.

[Anonymous]

It certainly helped us. I agree that both people need to want to improve things and be open to the possibility that they contribute to problems, though. If either person goes in thinking, secretly, "this marriage is over, I'm just going through the motions" cunceling is obviously not going to help. And if either person goes in thinking "Our problems are 100% the other person's fault" it's going to be hard to make progress too. But if you are both able to go in with open minds, a willingness to be self-critical and a strong desire to fix problems, I think it can make a huge difference.

It did for us! We were in counseling weekly for a few months early in our marriage and it heped get us through some tough times (DH had been laid off and had a lot of anger/depression, coming out at me and the kids; I was resentful and exhausted, and we were snapping a lot). Since then we have occasionally gone back for a few weeks of "refresher" sessions when we feel like we're falling back into old patterns. For us, counseling also helped DH realize that he had some issues of his own to resolve, and he ended up getting some indiividual therapy which he feels was incredibly useful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: if either person goes in thinking "Our problems are 100% the other person's fault" it's going to be hard to make progress too. But if you are both able to go in with open minds, a willingness to be self-critical and a strong desire to fix problems, I think it can make a huge difference.

Ah, but what if the problems *are* 100% the other person's fault? Does the spouse who is acting reasonably have to shoulder yet more of the responsibility of marriage in the spirit of compromise?