“Does marriage counseling operate? My wife and I have tried seeing a marriage counselor for the past handful of weeks, but it doesn’t seem like it really is performing something… What am I performing incorrect?”
If you are like many of the lost and confused husbands in the 21st century, then you have already tried the most commonly prescribed answer to any marriage difficulty, i.e. marriage counseling.
I don’t know when it became such widespread practice, but somehow the go-to solution 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 tips that you are going to get is “have you attempted marriage counseling?”
You would think that such a booming and trustworthy sector would be so highly encouraged because of its higher accomplishment price, appropriate? In other words, marriage counseling is so common because it has a history of legitimately fixing the marriage challenges that plague so a lot of relationships these days, right?
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 price of any other counseling or therapy connected field.
So, does marriage counseling work? I would say ‘not even close’.
* Drug addicts in rehab have a larger achievement rate than marriage counselors
* Alcoholics in AA have a larger achievement rate than marriage counselors
* Anger management therapy has a higher good results price than marriage counselors
* Even the prison counseling applications for murderers, rapists and other criminals have a greater accomplishment rate than marriage counseling
You would feel that for up to $200 per hour there’d be some sort of guarantee that you’d see outcomes in your marriage, but this is definitely not the case. Marriage counseling DOES NOT Operate for most couples, and marriage counseling success prices are surprisingly low (much less than 25%).
There is a variety of couple that can benefit from marriage and loved ones counseling, but it is the exception, not the rule. Most marriage counselors never successfully address the correct issues that are leaving you and your wife ‘unfulfilled in our marriage’.
Does Marriage Counseling Operate? Do We Have the Highest Divorce Rates, Ever?
Admittedly, according to current statistics, the divorce price in America has finally come to somewhat of a plateau in the past couple years mainly because less persons are getting married, so there are much less couples to divorce.
But nonetheless, in the past 10 – 25 years divorce rates have sky rocketed, and I want you to genuinely assume about this for a minute… Does not it seem strange that the rise in divorce rates correlates virtually directly with the thriving marriage counseling business? Some may possibly argue that this tends to make sense for the reason that more divorces require extra marriage counseling, but what if the correct source of the dilemma 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 have been married for over 20 years, and they tried all the things in the book to save their marriage. They attempted not 1, not two, not three, not 4, but Five unique marriage counselors more than the course of ten YEARS, and not a single one particular of them did anything to save their marriage.
In truth, the marriage only ever got worse since my parents became frustrated with their lack of progress, and that frustration led to even far more issues 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 complete quacks, but a surprising amount of them are. Their marriage counseling solutions and strategies are based on theory, conjecture and textbooks, not actual romantic or human practical experience or even on profitable marriages.
Marriage counseling near me Established or Relevant Experience
This could almost certainly be stated about lots of therapy related fields, but I feel that it is particularly true in marriage counseling. I know of a number of marriage counselors who have in fact gone by means of a divorce, but continue to teach other folks how to fix their marriage. Clearly these people have no concept what basically performs if they can’t even save their personal marriage, so why would you trust them to save yours?
Again, I never want to make any overly broad generalizations here, but I do feel like the marriage counseling field has become equivalent with divorce attorneys… It is just 1 extra cog in the machine top to the simultaneous degradation and capitalization of marriage in America. I mean, from a value standpoint they’re each expensive… It will run you about $400 for an hour to speak on the phone with a divorce lawyer, and a single marriage counseling session will typically price you at least $100, and a lot more for a ‘good’ one particular.
These are individuals that know you’re desperate and are willing to take benefit of that are their own obtain.
Feel about it, if you have been truly passionate about assisting folks and saving marriages, would you demand $300 per session for some thing that you haven’t even observed regularly yield final results? I am not saying it really is morally wrong to charge a lot of income for your solutions, but when there is so a great deal dollars involved it really is only all-natural to query correct motives, specifically without having outcomes to justify a higher value.
Believe about it, most marriage counselors advocate at least ten sessions to see benefits in your marriage, which means you happen to be dropping $1,000 to $2,000 on completely unproven approaches and techniques.
Which brings me to the implied second portion of our original query… Does marriage counseling perform, and why or why not?
And to me, this is what appears to be the cause most marriage counselors fail:
Most Marriage Counselors Have Been Trained To Analyze Troubles, Not Create Solutions
This is what I truly think it comes down to… Anything that your typical marriage counselor has learned, and in turn every little thing they teach you, was quite likely written by a psychologist.
All those factors that your marriage counselor tells you…
* “Just keep operating at it”…
* “Communication is the crucial”…
* “Be far more open with each other”…
* “Commence obtaining intimacy time”…
* “Date nights are the answer”…
* “Make her feel loved”…
All of those items are written in some text book somewhere and that textbook was written by a psychologist. These are points that females consider they want, and they do when every little thing is already best, but they will NOT save your marriage.
These are all items you should be undertaking when your marriage is thriving, more like characteristics of a effective marriage than actual techniques to repair a broken a single.
But You Can Clearly See Their Train of Thought…
A good marriage has open communication, correct? So it ‘makes sense’ that to fix a broken marriage you ought to develop open communication, proper?
A very good marriage has spouses who enjoy intimacy time with each other, correct? So, it ‘makes sense’ to say that if you force intimacy time you’ll repair your marriage, suitable?
But marriage is not backwards compatible like that… It doesn’t work mainly because these logical options are NOT going to perform when there is no feelings of attraction or emotional fondness behind them. So even if you are going by way of the motions properly, there is no guarantee that you will truly repair your marriage.
In truth, if anything you’re virtually assured to make it worse, mainly because you are going to remind your wife how undesirable issues have to be that she can’t feel Something even when you’re apparently attempting so really hard.
Recall, attraction is the ONLY issue that will save your marriage. With out attraction there is no emotional incentive driving your wife to come back to you… Logic, cause, counseling, courses, books, rational tactics and perseverance will not save your marriage. Feelings, emotion and passion will.
So, does couples counseling function? Does marriage counseling function? I suppose I should let your personal experiences give you the definitive answer, but from all of my personal knowledge I would say that you’re greater off trying to repair issues on your personal than with a counselor.