Does marriage counseling ever work?

I bet you didn't know that 80% of marriage counselors have NO TRAINING in marriage or family therapy. Lots of regular therapists do marriage counseling but are totally clueless about it. Here's a quote I found from a great magazine called Family Therapy Networker " A dirty little secret in the therapy field is that couples therapy may be the hardest form of therapy, and most therapists aren't good at it. Of course, this wouldn't be a public health problem if most therapists stayed away from couples work, but they don't. Surveys indicate that about 80 percent of therapists in private practice do couples therapy. Where they got their training is a mystery, because most therapists practicing today never took a course in couples therapy and never did their internships under supervision from someone who'd mastered the art. From a consumer's point of view, going in for couples therapy is like having your broken leg set by a doctor who skipped orthopedics in medical school."

All the marriage counselors agree the earlier the better when it comes to counseling. We did try counseling many years before we broke up, when we were still struggling with issues that seemed unresolvable. Unfortunately, we wound up with Caroline, a new agey flake. She said I had too much male energy and my ex too much female energy. Her remedy was an assignment to gaze into each other’s eyes and try to connect with each other’s souls.

We did try it a few times, but while my husband dutifully stared at me I kept wishing I could flee the room.
After his announcement about his affair, I dragged my husband to a succession of marriage counselors but since he was still having an affair and lying about it, there wasn’t much point. However, I truly believe some marriages can be brought back from the brink of death if there is some motivation left on both sides and you and he are willing to make a good faith effort. Sometimes, even if there is an affair going on, certain approaches might work.

What has your experience been with counseling?

by EricaManfred 289 Posts
Posted on 4/27/2008 1:19 PM

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Answers for "Does marriage counseling ever work?" (6) (You must be logged in to answer)

ok thats not always true, you just have to be careful who you go to. My mother is a social worker and she has a lot of friends in that area of business and she sent me and my husband to a certified phycologist and he was great. He read me and my husband like a book he saw through my husbands bullshit. just ask the right people to reccomend a good person.

by krys 29 Posts
Posted on 5/10/2008 6:08 AM

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I do not doubt that there are a few good therapists out there, but my experience proved that the bad ones are the easiest to find. After having told my husband that I was giving up on trying to work our marriage alone, he finally realized that we were in trouble and decided to look for a couple’s therapist. So, we went to our first session 6 weeks ago.

After hearing each side of the problem, the therapist made a point in emphasizing how different we are (apparently she figured us out in less than 40 min). The second therapy started in the same tone, and so in the middle of it my husband “told the therapist” that he wanted a separation. I went to the 3rd session thinking that my husband’s reaction was just part of his confusion, and that the therapist’s strategy was a way to make us work on our marriage together. By then, the therapist told my husband to move out to give me space, and then she told me that my husband needed the therapy more than I did. And so, I had to leave ½ hr. before the therapy was over, so that she could start my husband’s individual therapy.

I think that the therapist acted very unethically but, at this point, there is nothing else for me to do. My husband moved out the day after that last joint session, and he has stayed away for one month now. The saddest part of the story is that when I googled the therapist that my husband had chosen, I saw her specialization: “grief and loss.” I do not know if my husband chose that therapist on purpose, or if he trusted blindly on the referral he got from the insurance company. In any case, I think that therapists like those should be banned from treating couples, as they might contribute to rushing separation and divorce (I still cannot believe that a 10 year marriage can be ended in 2 weeks).

by Jusme 2 Posts
Posted on 5/1/2008 2:23 AM

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My ex and I tried counseling with many therapists. I think that it would work if both parties want to try. Our problem was ( and the therapist said so ) that he would tell my ex things that he needed to be doing. My ex would write them down and we would go back the next week and he woudl tell the therapist that he hadn't been doing them. One therapist told me that I needed only to come once a month , that my ex needed extensive counseling. I did this for a while but nothing changed. My ex came home and told me that he was told by the therapist that his mother didn't really love him. That he buying him things and paying his bills was not true love( he was 38yrs old) .
We tried our pastor but that didn't work either. Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that I didn't need the counseling. I am saying that he had bigger issues than I did and needed to work thru them before we could work together.
I finally said that I was not paying for it anymore. He wanted his mom to pay and I said she could pay for his if he wanted but she was not paying for ours.
I also need to say that my ex is bipolar. Severe bipolar and although he made attempts to work on things, with his mothers interference and the illness, it was just not going to work.
I also need to say that it has been 3 years since we finalized and we spent 2 years trying to reconcile. I still care about him and he does me. It was just not going to work.

by mtnvly 3539 Posts
Posted on 4/29/2008 7:06 PM

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Laure, there are qualified, effective therapists out there but they're not easy to find. I did a lot of research into this subject (too late for my marriage) and have a few recommendations: Go to a therapist who is trained in a proven approach. Many approaches have websites with lists of trained therapists, where you can plug in your zip code and find someone. Google: Imago (the approach founded by Harville Hendrix), John Gottman (he's the psychiatrist who did tons of research on what makes marriages work and he's trained therapists who do workshops) and Emotionally Focussed Therapy ( a little known Canadian approach but with many trained practitioners in the U.S.--they claim 70% effectiveness in saving marriages). If you're Catholic, or even if you're not, try Retrouvaille run by the Catholic Church. It's wonderful. Let us know how it works out for you.

by EricaManfred 289 Posts
Posted on 4/29/2008 6:49 PM

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I started going to therapy on my own about 2 months ago. The topic of marriage counseling has come up a few times. I always thought I had an obligation to at least try. My therapist also talked to my wife at one session to get her side of everything and when we finished she told me not to waste my time in marriage counseling. I just about fell out of my chair but thinking about it, I'm done with this relationship. I really don't want to work on things any more. Why waste even more time and money trying to fix something that is beyond repair?

How many people enter into marriage counseling thinking it is something they should do even though their heart isn't really in it? Add to that a councelor that really isn't properly trained and it all seems like a tremendous waste of time.

by RichBrewer 214 Posts
Posted on 4/27/2008 2:42 PM

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This is actually a very interesting topic. Years ago my husband and I sought couples counseling with a licensed psychologist. We had one session with him. My husband and I are educated, logical people and can pretty much see both sides to everything. During our session, my husband owned his mistakes and I owned mine. We talked about the things we needed to do to make things right and we talked about the things that needed to be disclosed in order to begin healing. The therapist said very little and concluded the session by saying, "I'm not sure what you're doing here; it seems that you have already got things figured out and you don't need me." Well, here we are many years later in the same boat and getting ready to embark on a whole new adventure of counseling.

I think that the therapist should be able to help couples on a deeper level than just the "lip service" that my husband and I gave to one another. Knowing what needs to be done is one thing, but doing it is something else. Without continuous follow-up things can easily get dropped as happened with us. I sincerely hope that he and I can find a qualified, effective therapist this time.

by lauraWA 50 Posts
Posted on 4/27/2008 2:05 PM

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