“Does marriage counseling function? My wife and I have attempted seeing a marriage counselor for the past couple of weeks, but it does not seem like it is performing anything… What am I doing incorrect?”
If you happen to be like lots of of the lost and confused husbands in the 21st century, then you have already attempted the most commonly prescribed answer to any marriage problem, i.e. marriage counseling.
I don’t know when it became such common practice, but somehow the go-to resolution for any and all challenges that could plague a marriage (separation, loss of passion, divorce, infidelity, lack of communication, and so forth.), the most prominent and widely assistance that you happen to be going to get is “have you attempted marriage counseling?”
You would feel that such a booming and reliable industry would be so highly suggested for the reason that of its high accomplishment price, ideal? In other words, marriage counseling is so common for the reason that it has a history of legitimately fixing the marriage problems that plague so lots of relationships these days, correct?
Incorrect!
Did you know that…
Marriage Counseling has the Highest Failure Rate of Any Therapy
Yup, marriage counseling and marriage counselors have the lowest achievement rate of any other counseling or therapy associated field.
So, does marriage counseling operate? I would say ‘not even close’.
* Drug addicts in rehab have a higher accomplishment price than marriage counselors
* Alcoholics in AA have a larger achievement rate than marriage counselors
* Anger management therapy has a greater results rate than marriage counselors
* Even the prison counseling applications for murderers, rapists and other criminals have a larger good results rate than marriage counseling
You would feel that for up to $200 per hour there’d be some sort of assure that you’d see benefits in your marriage, but this is absolutely not the case. Marriage counseling DOES NOT Operate for most couples, and marriage counseling achievement rates are surprisingly low (much less than 25%).
There is a form of couple that can advantage from marriage and household counseling, but it is the exception, not the rule. Most marriage counselors don’t proficiently address the correct problems that are leaving you and your wife ‘unfulfilled in our marriage’.
Does Marriage Counseling Perform? Do We Have the Highest Divorce Prices, Ever?
Admittedly, according to Hope Relentless , the divorce rate in America has lastly come to somewhat of a plateau in the past couple years mainly because less individuals are finding married, so there are much less couples to divorce.
But still, in the past ten – 25 years divorce rates have sky rocketed, and I want you to actually think about this for a minute… Doesn’t it look strange that the rise in divorce prices correlates virtually directly with the thriving marriage counseling market? Some could possibly argue that this makes sense for the reason that extra divorces want far more marriage counseling, but what if the correct source of the difficulty wasn’t essentially divorce, but the total ineffectiveness, even counter-productivity, of marriage counseling?
I’ll tell you an example of this – My personal parents are divorced. They had been married for over 20 years, and they attempted all the things in the book to save their marriage. They attempted not one particular, not two, not 3, not 4, but 5 diverse marriage counselors over the course of ten YEARS, and not a single a single of them did anything to save their marriage.
In reality, the marriage only ever got worse since my parents became frustrated with their lack of progress, and that frustration led to even much more problems in the marriage.
In other words, marriage counseling added fuel to the fire, and it poisoned my parents’ marriage.
Now, I’m not saying that all marriage counselors are total quacks, but a surprising amount of them are. Their marriage counseling methods and tactics are primarily based on theory, conjecture and textbooks, not actual romantic or human encounter or even on prosperous marriages.
Lots of Marriage Therapists Lack Confirmed or Relevant Experience
This could in all probability be mentioned about lots of therapy associated fields, but I really feel that it is in particular correct in marriage counseling. I know of multiple marriage counselors who have essentially gone by way of a divorce, but continue to teach other people how to fix their marriage. Clearly these people have no notion what actually operates if they cannot even save their personal marriage, so why would you trust them to save yours?
Once again, I don’t want to make any overly broad generalizations here, but I do really feel like the marriage counseling field has turn out to be equivalent with divorce attorneys… It really is just one particular extra cog in the machine major to the simultaneous degradation and capitalization of marriage in America. I imply, from a value standpoint they are each costly… It will run you about $400 for an hour to speak on the telephone with a divorce lawyer, and a single marriage counseling session will typically cost you at least $one hundred, and much more for a ‘good’ one.
These are individuals that know you are desperate and are prepared to take benefit of that are their own achieve.
Believe about it, if you had been actually passionate about assisting persons and saving marriages, would you demand $300 per session for something that you have not even noticed consistently yield outcomes? I’m not saying it really is morally incorrect to charge a lot of dollars for your services, but when there’s so a lot income involved it’s only natural to query true motives, specially without benefits to justify a high price tag.
Assume about it, most marriage counselors propose at least 10 sessions to see final results in your marriage, which signifies you happen to be dropping $1,000 to $two,000 on entirely unproven methods and strategies.
Which brings me to the implied second part of our original question… Does marriage counseling operate, and why or why not?
And to me, this is what appears to be the reason most marriage counselors fail:
Most Marriage Counselors Have Been Educated To Analyze Difficulties, Not Produce Solutions
This is what I actually consider it comes down to… Almost everything that your typical marriage counselor has learned, and in turn every thing they teach you, was very likely written by a psychologist.
All those issues that your marriage counselor tells you…
* “Just maintain functioning at it”…
* “Communication is the essential”…
* “Be more open with each other”…
* “Commence getting intimacy time”…
* “Date nights are the answer”…
* “Make her really feel loved”…
All of these things are written in some text book somewhere and that textbook was written by a psychologist. These are items that ladies assume they want, and they do when everything is currently excellent, but they will NOT save your marriage.
These are all points you ought to be carrying out when your marriage is thriving, more like traits of a successful marriage than actual strategies to repair a broken one.
But You Can Clearly See Their Train of Believed…
A superior marriage has open communication, right? So it ‘makes sense’ that to repair a broken marriage you must create open communication, ideal?
A good marriage has spouses who enjoy intimacy time with each other, proper? So, it ‘makes sense’ to say that if you force intimacy time you’ll fix your marriage, appropriate?
But marriage isn’t backwards compatible like that… It doesn’t perform because these logical options are NOT going to function when there is no feelings of attraction or emotional fondness behind them. So even if you’re going through the motions correctly, there is no guarantee that you will in fact fix your marriage.
In reality, if anything you happen to be virtually guaranteed to make it worse, for the reason that you are going to remind your wife how terrible factors have to be that she can’t really feel Anything even when you’re apparently trying so tough.
Remember, attraction is the ONLY point that will save your marriage. Devoid of attraction there is no emotional incentive driving your wife to come back to you… Logic, cause, counseling, courses, books, rational approaches and perseverance will not save your marriage. Feelings, emotion and passion will.
So, does couples counseling work? Does marriage counseling function? I suppose I should let your own experiences give you the definitive answer, but from all of my own practical experience I would say that you’re much better off attempting to fix things on your own than with a counselor.