What is Marriage Counseling?

Someone handed me a cartoon that was torn out of a New Yorker Magazine recently. It pictured a husband and wife standing in front of two doors. One door had a sign that read, "Divorce Lawyer - $150 per hour." On the other door the sign read, "Marriage Counselor - $100 per hour." The husband was saying to the wife, "Let’s go to the marriage counselor -- it’s cheaper." At first it seems kind of funny. But the more you think about it , the more you realize it makes an important statement about divorce versus marriage. And that is that the cost of divorcing is so much higher than counseling—and not just in monetary terms, either. Think of the incalculable emotional price that some divorcing families end up paying. I’m not saying that marriage counseling is the cure-all for every troubled marriage, but if even if some percentage of troubled marriages can be saved by counseling, isn’t it worth a try?

While I’m incredibly optimistic about repairing relationships, I think it’s fair to say that not every marriage can be saved. But it’s also fair to say that out of the thousands of divorces each year, at least some of them could have been saved with experienced and skillful guidance. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) monthly vital statistics report estimates that in 1997 alone there were over 1.1 million divorces in the United States. Over 25,000 of those divorces were in New Jersey and over 38,000 were in Pennsylvania. How many of those marriages do you think tried counseling? While the CDC doesn’t have a statistic for that, the noted author and marital researcher, Dr. John Gottman, says that fewer than 5% of divorcing couples seek marriage counseling. That percentage really says a lot about the attitude toward marriage counseling in this country.

So what is marriage counseling and why do so many people try to avoid it? Those aren’t necessarily easy questions to answer but here are some things to think about. There are many different types or "models" of marriage counseling. There’s no one perfect method. It’s not as predictable as modern medicine where if you have a bad infection, taking an antibiotic will usually clear it up. Unfortunately, there are too many variables in marriage for that kind of predictability. After all, when two adults unite in marriage, they’re also uniting their histories, their families of origin, and their future dreams, too.

There are many different models of marriage counseling. Some therapists use a "Systems" perspective to treat couples and families. A Systems perspective for marriage or family counseling essentially takes into account that the people in a marriage or family act and behave differently in a whole System (the marriage or family) from how they behave as individuals. No one individual can act or behave within the system without affecting the others in the system or marriage. So in Systems work, finding the right balance between partners and using "feedback" from each other is key to keeping things stable or improving. A behavioral perspective of counseling, on the other hand, looks more toward identifying and, if necessary, modifying or changing behaviors in each individual in order to make a marriage better. Conflict resolution, solution focused, psychodynamic and Gestalt are just a few of the other treatment methods that can also be very productive. Space won’t allow me to elaborate on all of those here.

But almost as important as the method, the relationship with the counselor is critical in marriage counseling, too. Having a good idea of what the specific goals are, a feeling that couples can connect with the counselor, and being confident that the marriage counselor has a good understanding of the issues at hand will help counseling sessions become productive. And since marriages are made up of so many different life ingredients like parenting, family, recreation, work, and much more, finding a counselor with a fair amount of life experience and maturity is important, too.

Marriage counseling can really be a very enlightening and gratifying experience. So many "fixable" things come up in counseling sessions. And they’re often things that just need a productive environment in which to be explored and improved. For instance, there are so many times when the unspoken and misinterpreted assumptions partners make about each other create all sorts of tension and conflict. It’s very common to see a couple learn to communicate better. Then they can get to work out their "actual" differences—as opposed to keeping the tension going with their "perceived" differences. So many couples play that "mind-reading" game—"I knew what you were going to say so I didn’t tell you." We counselors hear that story all too often from couples. But if people can talk more about what they "imagine" their partners are thinking or feeling, marriages can be greatly improved.

So why don’t couples go to marriage counseling when there are signs of trouble? The answers I hear most are that people feel embarrassed to discuss these things with "a stranger." That they feel they should’ve been able to "fix it themselves," or that it’s their "partner’s problem," not theirs, so why should they have to go to counseling? Well, marriage is a team effort and if a team member is having a problem, then the other team-member is having a problem, too. Fix it themselves? Would someone try and fix the foundation to their house or the transmission in their car by themselves? Probably not. And as far as feeling embarrassed goes, while that may be true at the very beginning, a skilled therapist can usually encourage a feeling of warmth, confidence and security fairly quickly. I’m sure lots of you know other reasons couples won’t go to counseling. If you do, I’d love to hear them. You can send me a note with your thoughts to: jg@marriagematters.com. I can put some of those reasons in a future article (anonymously, of course). If there’s a way to lessen some of the concerns people have about seeing a marriage counselor, and even one family is saved from facing the problems associated with divorce, wouldn’t it be worth it? Marriage usually involves hard work, but the rewards can be immeasurable and last a lifetime.

©Joshua Kates