Marriage Counseling & Couple Therapy

Marriage counseling

can help couples who wish to restore a broken relationship and often hope that therapy will lead them back to marital bliss. This may prompt couples into considering marriage counseling. Of course, not all marriages can be saved. The critical decision to save the marriage is up to the couple. This section may help you decide whether to seek marriage counseling. Partners often seek counseling when they feel misunderstood, frustrated or deeply hurt. Others seek counseling when they feel a profound sense of sadness in their relationships. Often these feelings are not new, but have been stewing for years. This is why couples that enter counseling early stand a better chance of saving their marriages. Marriage is a tough job, but it can also be one of life's most rewarding experiences. If you don't want to be among the 43 percent of couples that end their marriage in separation or divorce within 15 years, then you should consider the preventative measures suggested by Lorna Jorgenson Wendt, the founder and president of Equality in Marriage, a nonprofit organization that provides information and support to men and women, so they can strive to maintain an equal partnership. Wendt defines a 50-50 marriage as one in which both husband and wife feel valued. These changes may be different ways of interacting within the relationship, or they may be individual changes related to personal psychological problems. Couples therapy involves learning how to communicate more effectively, and how to listen more closely. Couples must learn how to avoid competing with each other, and need to identify common life goals and how to share responsibilities within their relationship. Sometimes the process is very similar to individual psychotherapy, sometimes it is more like mediation, and sometimes it is educational. The combination of the these three components is what makes it effective.