Is It Possible To Save A Marriage By Talking To A Counselor?
Does going to therapy or couples counseling really help solve all the issues that are tearing apart a relationship? This is the question most people are pondering as they grow desperate to save a marriage they really are not ready to let go of. The big question is whether talk sessions with someone else can really work for two people in crisis.
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.
Before even walking in the door to your first session, have a clear understanding that the therapist is going to give an objective point of view, not validation to your own thoughts and feelings. If you go in there expecting this person to see that you are right and “fix” your spouse, then you will get nothing out of it but frustration and disappointment.
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.
What a therapist does is get you to ultimately open up to one another so that the root issues standing in the way of happiness can be discovered. Believe it or not, the real issues are not who forgets to take out the trash or who forgot someone’s birthday.
If you don’t fix the deeper issues the marriage will only continue to unravel.
So, what do you do to make your sessions actually work? You go in with a selfless attitude. You just listen to what your spouse has to say without getting up in arms or being defensive. You have to genuinely listen to how they think and feel without placing blame.
A husband who flies off the handle because his wife says she is lonely may shout out that he has to work because she sits at home with the kids earning nothing. This is defensiveness that prevents him from really hearing that she is lonely. This is what doesn’t work.
That is extremely hard to do, but if you can both force it at first then things will get easier. You have to remind yourself that the other person’s problem doesn’t always mean something negative about you. If you can do this, then chances are high that you can save a marriage through counseling.
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