“Does marriage counseling operate? My wife and I have tried seeing a marriage counselor for the past few weeks, but it doesn’t appear like it really is carrying out something… What am I carrying out wrong?”
If you’re like many of the lost and confused husbands in the 21st century, then you have already tried the most commonly prescribed resolution to any marriage problem, i.e. marriage counseling.
I never know when it became such common practice, but somehow the go-to answer for any and all difficulties that could plague a marriage (separation, loss of passion, divorce, infidelity, lack of communication, and so on.), the most prominent and extensively suggestions that you are going to get is “have you tried marriage counseling?”
You would believe that such a booming and trustworthy industry would be so hugely encouraged mainly because of its higher results price, appropriate? In other words, marriage counseling is so well known because it has a history of legitimately fixing the marriage troubles that plague so many relationships these days, proper?
Wrong!
Did you know that…
Marriage Counseling has the Highest Failure Rate of Any Therapy
Yup, marriage counseling and marriage counselors have the lowest good results rate of any other counseling or therapy connected field.
So, does marriage counseling operate? I would say ‘not even close’.
* Drug addicts in rehab have a larger achievement rate than marriage counselors
* Alcoholics in AA have a larger accomplishment rate than marriage counselors
* Anger management therapy has a larger good results price than marriage counselors
* Even the prison counseling applications for murderers, rapists and other criminals have a higher success rate than marriage counseling
You would think that for up to $200 per hour there’d be some sort of assure that you’d see results in your marriage, but this is totally not the case. Marriage counseling DOES NOT Function 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 never properly address the correct troubles that are leaving you and your wife ‘unfulfilled in our marriage’.
Does Marriage Counseling Work? Do We Have the Highest Divorce Rates, Ever?
Admittedly, according to recent statistics, the divorce rate in America has lastly come to somewhat of a plateau in the previous couple years for the reason that significantly less men and women are obtaining married, so there are significantly less couples to divorce.
But nevertheless, in the previous 10 – 25 years divorce rates have sky rocketed, and I want you to truly believe about this for a minute… Doesn’t it seem strange that the rise in divorce prices correlates pretty much directly with the thriving marriage counseling sector? Some could argue that this tends to make sense simply because extra divorces require far more marriage counseling, but what if the correct source of the dilemma wasn’t in fact divorce, but the total ineffectiveness, even counter-productivity, of marriage counseling?
I will tell you an instance of this – My personal parents are divorced. They were married for over 20 years, and they attempted all the things in the book to save their marriage. They attempted not a single, not two, not 3, not 4, but 5 unique 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 more challenges in the marriage.
In other words, marriage counseling added fuel to the fire, and it poisoned my parents’ marriage.
Now, I am not saying that all marriage counselors are full quacks, but a surprising quantity of them are. Their marriage counseling approaches and tactics are based on theory, conjecture and textbooks, not actual romantic or human encounter or even on prosperous marriages.
Lots of Marriage Therapists Lack Proven or Relevant Knowledge
This could most likely be stated about numerous therapy associated fields, but I feel that it is in particular accurate in marriage counseling. I know of numerous marriage counselors who have really gone by means of a divorce, but continue to teach other folks how to repair their marriage. Clearly these folks have no idea what in fact functions if they can’t even save their own marriage, so why would you trust them to save yours?
Once again, Marriage counseling near me want to make any overly broad generalizations here, but I do feel like the marriage counseling field has come to be equivalent with divorce attorneys… It’s just one particular additional cog in the machine major to the simultaneous degradation and capitalization of marriage in America. I imply, from a price standpoint they are each high-priced… It will run you about $400 for an hour to talk on the phone with a divorce lawyer, and a single marriage counseling session will usually expense you at least $100, and more for a ‘good’ 1.
These are men and women that know you happen to be desperate and are willing to take benefit of that are their personal get.
Consider about it, if you had been definitely passionate about helping folks and saving marriages, would you demand $300 per session for something that you haven’t even observed regularly yield outcomes? I am not saying it really is morally wrong to charge a lot of money for your solutions, but when there is so substantially revenue involved it is only natural to question correct motives, particularly without benefits to justify a high price.
Feel about it, most marriage counselors advise at least 10 sessions to see final results in your marriage, which means you’re dropping $1,000 to $two,000 on totally unproven approaches and approaches.
Which brings me to the implied second part of our original query… Does marriage counseling perform, and why or why not?
And to me, this is what seems to be the explanation most marriage counselors fail:
Most Marriage Counselors Have Been Educated To Analyze Challenges, Not Develop Options
This is what I actually feel it comes down to… Anything that your average marriage counselor has learned, and in turn all the things they teach you, was quite most likely written by a psychologist.
All those items that your marriage counselor tells you…
* “Just hold functioning at it”…
* “Communication is the important”…
* “Be a lot more open with every single other”…
* “Commence getting intimacy time”…
* “Date nights are the answer”…
* “Make her feel loved”…
All of those items are written in some text book someplace and that textbook was written by a psychologist. These are things that women feel they want, and they do when everything is already fantastic, but they will NOT save your marriage.
These are all points you ought to be carrying out when your marriage is thriving, a lot more like traits of a productive marriage than actual techniques to repair a broken one.
But You Can Clearly See Their Train of Believed…
A fantastic marriage has open communication, ideal? So it ‘makes sense’ that to fix a broken marriage you really should create open communication, ideal?
A superior marriage has spouses who enjoy intimacy time with every single other, right? So, it ‘makes sense’ to say that if you force intimacy time you are going to repair your marriage, right?
But marriage isn’t backwards compatible like that… It doesn’t perform since these logical solutions are NOT going to operate when there is no feelings of attraction or emotional fondness behind them. So even if you’re going through the motions appropriately, there is no assure that you will truly fix your marriage.
In truth, if something you happen to be nearly assured to make it worse, for the reason that you are going to remind your wife how poor items have to be that she can not really feel Something even when you are apparently trying so difficult.
Don’t forget, attraction is the ONLY factor that will save your marriage. Without the need of attraction there is no emotional incentive driving your wife to come back to you… Logic, reason, counseling, courses, books, rational procedures and perseverance will not save your marriage. Feelings, emotion and passion will.
So, does couples counseling operate? Does marriage counseling function? I suppose I should really let your own experiences give you the definitive answer, but from all of my personal practical experience I would say that you’re improved off attempting to fix issues on your personal than with a counselor.