“Does marriage counseling function? My wife and I have attempted seeing a marriage counselor for the previous few weeks, but it doesn’t appear like it’s doing something… What am I undertaking incorrect?”
If you are like quite a few of the lost and confused husbands in the 21st century, then you have already attempted the most normally prescribed solution to any marriage trouble, i.e. marriage counseling.
I never know when it became such common practice, but somehow the go-to solution for any and all problems that could plague a marriage (separation, loss of passion, divorce, infidelity, lack of communication, and so forth.), the most prominent and broadly guidance that you happen to be going to get is “have you tried marriage counseling?”
You would feel that such a booming and reputable industry would be so highly advised due to the fact of its higher good results rate, appropriate? In other words, marriage counseling is so well known for the reason that it has a history of legitimately fixing the marriage difficulties that plague so several relationships these days, appropriate?
Wrong!
Did you know that…
https://www.marriagecounselingnearme.org/why-is-marriage-counseling-not-working-for-you/ has the Highest Failure Rate of Any Therapy
Yup, marriage counseling and marriage counselors have the lowest good results price of any other counseling or therapy related field.
So, does marriage counseling work? I would say ‘not even close’.
* Drug addicts in rehab have a larger success rate than marriage counselors
* Alcoholics in AA have a larger results rate than marriage counselors
* Anger management therapy has a higher results rate than marriage counselors
* Even the prison counseling programs for murderers, rapists and other criminals have a greater accomplishment price than marriage counseling
You would assume that for up to $200 per hour there’d be some sort of assure that you’d see final results in your marriage, but this is absolutely not the case. Marriage counseling DOES NOT Work for most couples, and marriage counseling achievement rates are surprisingly low (less than 25%).
There is a kind of couple that can advantage from marriage and household counseling, but it is the exception, not the rule. Most marriage counselors never effectively address the true troubles that are leaving you and your wife ‘unfulfilled in our marriage’.
Does Marriage Counseling Function? Do We Have the Highest Divorce Prices, Ever?
Admittedly, according to current statistics, the divorce price in America has lastly come to somewhat of a plateau in the past couple years for the reason that significantly less people are having married, so there are significantly less couples to divorce.
But still, in the previous 10 – 25 years divorce prices have sky rocketed, and I want you to definitely assume about this for a minute… Does not it appear strange that the rise in divorce prices correlates nearly straight with the thriving marriage counseling industry? Some might argue that this makes sense for the reason that far more divorces have to have additional marriage counseling, but what if the accurate source of the challenge wasn’t basically divorce, but the total ineffectiveness, even counter-productivity, of marriage counseling?
I will inform you an example of this – My own parents are divorced. They were married for over 20 years, and they tried every little thing in the book to save their marriage. They attempted not 1, not two, not three, not 4, but Five distinctive marriage counselors more than the course of 10 YEARS, and not a single one of them did something to save their marriage.
In fact, the marriage only ever got worse for the reason that my parents became frustrated with their lack of progress, and that frustration led to even more challenges 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 comprehensive quacks, but a surprising amount of them are. Their marriage counseling solutions and approaches are based on theory, conjecture and textbooks, not actual romantic or human expertise or even on profitable marriages.
Many Marriage Therapists Lack Established or Relevant Expertise
This could possibly be stated about several therapy connected fields, but I feel that it is especially correct in marriage counseling. I know of several marriage counselors who have truly gone by way of a divorce, but continue to teach other individuals how to fix their marriage. Clearly these men and women have no thought what truly performs if they can not even save their personal marriage, so why would you trust them to save yours?
Again, I do not want to make any overly broad generalizations here, but I do really feel like the marriage counseling field has develop into equivalent with divorce attorneys… It is just 1 much more cog in the machine major to the simultaneous degradation and capitalization of marriage in America. I imply, from a value standpoint they’re each expensive… It will run you about $400 for an hour to speak on the telephone with a divorce attorney, and a single marriage counseling session will typically cost you at least $one hundred, and much more for a ‘good’ 1.
These are persons that know you happen to be desperate and are prepared to take advantage of that are their personal get.
Feel about it, if you were really passionate about helping individuals and saving marriages, would you demand $300 per session for something that you haven’t even noticed consistently yield outcomes? I’m not saying it is morally wrong to charge a lot of funds for your solutions, but when there’s so much income involved it is only natural to query accurate motives, especially without the need of outcomes to justify a higher price tag.
Believe about it, most marriage counselors advocate at least ten sessions to see benefits in your marriage, which signifies you are dropping $1,000 to $2,000 on totally unproven tactics and methods.
Which brings me to the implied second component of our original query… Does marriage counseling perform, and why or why not?
And to me, this is what seems to be the reason most marriage counselors fail:
Most Marriage Counselors Have Been Trained To Analyze Troubles, Not Develop Options
This is what I actually feel it comes down to… Anything that your typical marriage counselor has learned, and in turn everything they teach you, was really likely written by a psychologist.
All these things that your marriage counselor tells you…
* “Just keep operating at it”…
* “Communication is the key”…
* “Be additional open with every other”…
* “Start out getting intimacy time”…
* “Date nights are the answer”…
* “Make her feel loved”…
All of these issues are written in some text book somewhere and that textbook was written by a psychologist. These are points that ladies consider they want, and they do when every little thing is currently great, but they will NOT save your marriage.
These are all things you ought to be carrying out when your marriage is thriving, more like characteristics of a productive marriage than actual tactics to repair a broken a single.
But You Can Clearly See Their Train of Believed…
A good marriage has open communication, correct? So it ‘makes sense’ that to repair a broken marriage you must develop open communication, appropriate?
A superior marriage has spouses who take pleasure in intimacy time with each and every other, ideal? So, it ‘makes sense’ to say that if you force intimacy time you will fix your marriage, correct?
But marriage is not backwards compatible like that… It does not function simply 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 via the motions properly, there is no guarantee that you will truly fix your marriage.
In reality, if anything you are nearly assured to make it worse, since you’ll remind your wife how undesirable points have to be that she can not feel Anything even when you are apparently attempting so tough.
Keep in mind, attraction is the ONLY thing that will save your marriage. Devoid of attraction there is no emotional incentive driving your wife to come back to you… Logic, explanation, 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 personal experiences give you the definitive answer, but from all of my personal expertise I would say that you happen to be improved off trying to repair items on your own than with a counselor.