Couple Counseling Can Save Your Marriage
Check it out for yourself...
Click here for a Couple Counseling Questionnaire.
Print out two copies of the Couple Counseling Questionnaire.
Each one of you should complete the survey separately, answering "Yes" or "No" to the all the questions.
Compare your answers.
Then, make a list of all of the items that either one of you answered "No".
Discuss the importance of these qualities.
If there are several, and you feel they are important, discuss how you can work toward achieving these goals.
If you struggle to communicate, or cannot agree on important characteristics of a healthy relationship you definitely should consider couple counseling.
If Your Partner Doesn't Want Couple Counseling
It might be that one of you wants to seek couple conuseling and the other doesn't. The unwilling partner feels pressured to "try it" or "come along and see what it's like." This reluctance to engage in couple counseling is often the result of misperceptions about the process and goals of couples counseling.
So let's clear it up...
What Actually Happens During Couple Counseling Session?
The couple counselor does not take sides, nor does he or she make rules. Instead, the counselor's job is to understand the needs and desires of both of you and to help you develop better ways to understand and meet each other's needs.
When we work with a couple we always question them about the positive things in their marriage as well as the areas of difficulty. We find that good things are often forgotten and discarded when a couple is in difficult time. There must be many strong points in your marriage and while you address your marriage problems, these strong points are your mutual base.
During a couple counseling session, it is very important for us to help and encourage each one of you to express your feelings. It is even more important that this expression will be communicative and not attacking. Learning to negotiate instead of fight is often an important part of the couple counseling process.
Poor communication is often at the core of unresolved problems.
The more you try to explain your feelings to each other, the more misunderstood each of you feels. In these situations, the cuonselor seeks to facilitate communication by working to understand two things. First, what is being said; and second, what the other is actually hearing.
Undisclosed expectations are another source of great disappointment and frustration between ocuples. You have (sometimes without even realizing it) many ideas of what constitutes a "good marriage" and how partners "supposed" to behave. When you commit to your partner, you assume, sometimes without realizing it, that your partner will naturally fulfill these unspoken expectations of which you yourself are only vaguely aware.
Once you recognize these expectations, you can openly discuss and re-evaluate them.
As frustration and disappointment mount in your marriage, you tend to find yourselves at opposite poles and when you attempt to talk things over you "lock horns". Learning to listen to each other and to seek alternative solutions is important for the future growth of your marriage. Couple counseling seeks to help resolve issues of the present and also works to develop negotiating techniques that you can use in the future.
Couple Counseling Can Save Your Marriage
Couple counseling can help you sort out your goals and discover what you would like to do with your marriage. Whatever your motive for couple counseling, it is the counselor's job to help you decide what to do.
It is not the counselor's job to make decisions for you.
You Have the Right to Be Happy!
We can help you to resolve your marriage problems.
Check out our online couple counseling service for help and advice...
Or... check out our Marriage Advice Column.
Remember: better relationships = better life!