It totally saved my parents' marriage... and they were in some deep trouble. But they stuck at it for a long time... they had some pretty serious problems. But they are much better now. In fact, that is one reason why I chose to become a psychologist, because of all the hard work I saw them do, and how I saw the psychology and therapy could help people.For those of you who have actually participated in it, has couples therapy or counseling actually helped?
My husband and I went after over 20 years of marriage. It helped us deal with some issues that were getting in the way of our being happy with each other. I would say that we both benefited from it, and would go again if the need arose.
Couples therapy has helped my marriage in that I truly believe that if we had not talked to someone at the time our marriage would have dissolved. We have 6 children and they were still pretty young at the time. Raising such a large family can be very stressful. The four oldest chilren are not the biological kids of my husband but of my first husband. We have two biological kids together. My first husband caused many problems and refused to pay child support. My husband took over full financial responsibility of the four oldest kids and stepped in as their father, raising them as his own. My first husband was ordered never to contact them until they were 18. Needless to say, it was a hard road trying to raise the kids as it requires quite a bit of money to run a household like ours so financially it was rough. That and the ex husband constantly trying to destroy our relationship worked together to cause some major problems.
We held on and did the best we could. Often when you are raising kids it's hard to come to a united front when disciplining them, etc. It can cause fighting between you and your partner. You start feeling resentment towards eachother. It builds up. Then pretty soon all there is left is resentment and anger.My husband took his anger out by throwing things like the microwave. It was frightening to myself and the kids. I asked my husband to leave the home because the way he dealt with his anger and frustration was unacceptable to me.
I told him I needed time to think about what this marriage meant to me. He understood and felt the same way.
It was hard being without him as I loved him very much but I didn't want the kids to have to suffer because of our problems.
He suggested getting help from someone who might be able to talk with us.
That was important to me. My first husband couldn't have cared less about our marriage or about me to even try to fix it.
I realized that my husband was willing to do what it took to try and fix things. I agreed and we began to talk to a local
pastor at a church that we were not members of.
All it took was a neutral party to help us see things from a different point of view and to help remind us the reasons why we loved eachother in the first place.The pastor spoke to us together as well as separately and did not involve religion in the conversations. The pastor helped my husband to learn how to be more aware of what he felt when he became angry and how to stop his anger from going over the line into rage by being aware of the signals his own body was giving him. That was 12 years ago. We've been married almost 17 years now and I truly believe that the counseling helped give us a fresh outlook and fresh hope for our marriage when we coudn't find it ourselves.
I suggest you try counseling or therapy for your marriage if you truly feel like it is something worth saving. If you both agree on therapy then you should go for it. If one partner refuses therapy then you may have no choice but to separate for a time to think things over.
Good Luck.
We went to counseling before we got married; it was a polite request from his Mom. There's 20 years between us (I'm older)
I found it positive and helpful so did he.
What we wanted to be sure of was that neither of us had unrealistic expectations.
Go, it never hurts.
It didn't help at all.
I went with an ex-girlfriend (before it was over). We'd been not getting along that great, but at the therapist's it really became clear just how bad it was. She went over behaviours of couples that aren't getting along, and it was exactly like how we were behaving.
Strangely, it shed some light on how bad things were, which admittedly was helpful because the relationship was not a good one. If the relationship was worth it, I think that would have been a good step to carry on from, but in this case the bad state it was in made me realize that it just wasn't good and shouldn't continue.
Whatever the result, the therapist will hopefully give you a way to see an outside perspective, which is really valuable.
my parents have and NO they don't do sh*t!
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