Does marriage counseling work? - Why I doubt marriage counseling will save your marriage from divorce

There has been a lot of talk about marriage counseling over the years and it seems to be the number one choice that couples go for when they need help to deal with their problems but does marriage counseling work or is it just a practice that’s been hyped up for decades? Please do keep in mind that I am not some type of "relationship expert” and my opinions and statements is just that, my opinions. Also, keep in mind that there are marriage counselors who do things differently than the traditional way and they might be amazing (and maybe not).

When people find them self’s in a difficult situation where they don’t know what to do, what to say, how to deal with it, they tend to seek out the ones that do know (or claim to know) and thus are often the authorities in our society. People tend to believe in and put faith in them as if thus people have super powers but in reality, the authorities in our society are the same as the rest of the people, in the process of learning. Of course, this applies to relationship counselors to and some of the “marriage counseling techniques” that they use every day causes more harm to relationships than good. I will tell you about thus marriage counseling techniques in a minute or two.

It is easy to assume that marriage counseling is how to save your marriage from divorce it kind of sounds right, “marriage counseling” but what are the activities you and your spouse will engage in as you get there? Basically, they will sit you guys down; they will start asking you and you wife/husband some questions and they will listen to you guys talk, explaining your problems, the counselor might ask something like, what is it that your husband do that makes you angry, how does it make you feel when he does this? And you/your wife, will begin to think back to the feeling of the anger and then explain to the spouse how it feels and the thoughts that goes with it and now, you/ your spouse knows something about your self/ them self’s that, up till that moment didn’t even exist. At the same time, the spouse, who described their feelings have now “verbally” stated the feelings while the other one heard every word of it. once its been said out loud its not just a matter of frustrating thoughts anymore, it’s a reality between the married couple, and the process of repairing their marriage will be longer, on top of changing the bad habits and behaviors between the two, they also need to work trough and tackle the emotions and words they threw at each other in the "clinic". That’s double the effort than the minute before they set for in the marriage counseling clinic, when you in fact got there to save a failing marriage. In other words, the couples make their marital problems real by describing them out loud. (Not the best way “to save your marriage from divorce”, forget about the bad past and begin to move forward to a brighter and happier relationship? is it?)

You might not share my views on this right now but think about this though, how can a married couple forget about bad habits in the relationship and bad feelings and just move on together on the path for improvement if they remember the words they threw at each other in the room with the marriage counselor? It is easy to forget that witch never was mentioned but it is more difficult to forget about things that have been said. Let me give you an example,

Imagine that you are walking down the street and as you do so, there is a stone laying there on the sidewalk and you walk pass it.

Would you remember the shape of that stone later on?

Now, imagine that you and your spouse are walking together down the street and as you do so, your spouse says look at that weird shaped stone.

Would you remember the shape of it later on?

Since she brought your attention to the shape of the stone you would remember it later on and that is part of the power of words. Proper communication in marriage is of extreme importance but the most important thing that I want you to understand is that you do not solve marital problems by talking about the problems - that is where the majority of marriages that ended in divorce settlement went wrong. That is not "how to save a failing marriage". You want the problems to go away but that will not happen if you describe the problems in grate detail. The way to remove the problems is by describing the solutions in grate detail. You do not talk about negativity to make things positive, you talk about positivist to make things positive. You will find that the same thing that I described earlier will take effect but in a good way, that is "how to save a failing marriage"

Let me put it this way (and I want you to distance your self from what I am saying right now) When the marriage counselor ask his questions about their marriage issues and the couple continuously responds, every single marriage problem between thus two people will eventually be out in the open by the “marriage counseling techniques” and when the two of them review the session later on, it can seem so overwhelming that thus two think that a “divorce” is the way to go, but it is not!.

Or how about this, if there is something that your husband/wife is doing that makes you feel disgusted but you haven’t said anything about it, but there you are in a clinic where you are suppose to express your self and work on saving your failing marriage from a divorce, and you explained exactly how you fealty about it in great detail. Can you really expect a positive result out of that? Like that would be the first step to straighten it out? What if the spouse actually got offended? What if the spouse tries to find something that you do that is disgusting (even if your spouse never even felt that way before?) just too even things out? I probably made my point several paragraphs ago.

“does marriage counseling work” Maybe it does but only if the solutions to the problems are the main focus and if the problems remains in thought form and unmentioned. If it is worth the "marriage counseling costs" is another question though, the marriage counseling costs are quite high and it makes no sense to go for a cheap clinic does it? the best way to solve marital problems is (like I said) to talk about the solutions and you certainly don’t need to pay someone by the hour to sit there and listen as you ask your spouse, “if there were something new that I did tomorrow that would make you feel wonderful and content, something that you wanted me to do for some time now, what would that be?” once you started to make some small changes here and there in the way you deal with your spouse, you will find that it becomes more and more easy to have them do the same. You do not need the expenses of the "marriage counseling costs" when you deal with your spouse, only when you feel like your out of control and need to turn to a professionals for help - and that should never be necessary in a marriage. Remember that you and your spouse is suppose to be one, that’s what you promised each other at the alter.

To round up this article (since its getting way to long) here is a few advices for you whose asking “how to save my marriage from divorce” but please do keep in mind that I don’t know your reasons to read this article, it can have with money to do (the financial crisis has been thought) you might want to learn how to stop arguing with your spouse, it could be about the children and so on, therefore ill speak in general. Note: you might also want to read a previous article - how to save your marriage by yourself

The best way to improve the quality of a relationship is trough communication, and I know that it sounds easier than it is but the thing is that there are professional resources to look into in order to do things correctly, communication courses and books etc can be worth your attention. Words have power and combined with actions, things can turn around quite drastically in a relatively short time period, ask your partner some questions and make sure you phrase your questions in such a way that “negativity” is unwelcome, for example;

Instead of asking what you do wrong or why your partner does this and that (which would probably start an argument) phrase the question smarter.

Here is how “not” to make a question;

It doesn’t matter what I say or do, you always find something wrong with it, nothing is good enough so what do you want from me?

And this would be a constructive question to make;

If something mysteries happened that instantly made you and I feel the connection that we use the share back when we met, if you were to feel that way right now again; what would the mysterious thing be? What would have to happen?

When you talk like this you exclude negative feelings and responses from the conversation and it will have the same effect that the “marriage counselors” questions that I mentioned earlier have, but the “opposite” effect, a positive effect because now your spouse begin to think in positive ways about your relationship. You also get an answer and now what you need to change in order to make things better.

And keep in mind that it is not the questions that will save your marriage from separation, it is the process of making your spouse think positively about your marriage that can save your marriage from a divorce and you do so by using questions as the tool. And do not act needy (especially if you are a man, woman flee from signs of weakness and neediness is one).

Are you starting arguments for ridicules reasons? Stop that, to much arguing in marriages is devastating. Hear your spouse out even if you disagree and instead interrupting or looking away, pay attention to what he/ she says and figure out how you can explain your thoughts of the matter in a way that benefits your spouse to, or leave it alone. You do not really want to make a distance between the two of you verbally and if you disagree with what your spouse is saying that that is exactly what you do. You want to get closer to your partner right?

There are many things you can do to save your marriage and fast to but you need to be awake and make the effort required to make the changes you need to make. Now, if you still feel interested in “marriage counseling” than you can certainly find lots of information about it online I do believe that you can experience success with their help and my opinions in this article are my speculations and that’s it. However, I do believe that you can save your marriage from divorce by applying some simple steps and work for the results and thus steps does not cost hundreds of dollars.

How To Stop Arguing With Your Spouse - Magic relationship words

How to stop arguing with your spouse
Frequent arguments in a relationship can do serious harm in the long run so it is wise to look for help before it’s too late, when you are arguing with your spouse (and it could be over petty things), you are actually distancing yourself from him/her and that is actually the last thing you want to do if you want a close and loving relationship.

If you need to know "how to stop arguing with your spouse" than know this, the key to have a successful conversation is to communicate correctly, I don’t know if you know this but the way we structure our sentences have different impacts on our listeners and if we don’t think about it, we might come off as arrogant or insensitive witch in return spark an argument that actually wasn’t intended.

There is an excellent e-book on this matter by the way entitled "magic relationship words". If you want to learn how to talk to your spouse to make you self more understood and do so without saying the wrong things than magic relationship words might be something for you to look into. Here is the link to the website with more information - magic relationship words.

Now, back to how to stop arguing with your boyfriend/girlfriend, husband or wife. Ready? Think about this, what is it that you most often fight over? Is it over financial issues, is it about the children, and is it about your opinions and views of things in general?

Whatever it is, you should know how it usually goes, but think to yourself, is there something I can say or do differently in order not to spark arguments with my spouse? If you were to think back to the last time you guys were "fighting", how did you go about it, did you have anything to do with it? Could you have done or said something differently to get out of it?

sometimes it’s really difficult not to say exactly what we think and feel but if our thought and feelings is presented in a clumsy manner than the listener might get offended, it is wise to listen to what they have to say and figure out a way to present our views and opinions in a way that appears to benefit the listener as well. Remember that people is looking for their interests and if your argument is about you than their argument will be about them. Try to discover the way to make your points in a way that benefits them as well and you will find that they agree more than resist.

Demonstrating the willingness to learn how to stop arguing with your spouse is the first step and you did that, now think about how you can improve your communication to get your points across without engaging in arguments.