What is marital counseling?
Marital counseling or marriage counseling is a type of mental health treatment that helps partners resolve their conflicts together. It can help couples increase their ability to communicate effectively, assist with strengthening a bond between two partners, and more. One reason that people seek marital counseling is to help with intimacy issues or sexual compatibility. There are many reasons to seek marital counseling, and one thing to remember is that seeking marital counseling does not mean that your relationship is failing or that you have a bad marriage
Marital counseling doesn’t have to be long-term
The goal of marital counseling is to resolve some issues that are on the surface of your marriage and dig deeper to find out the root of those issues so that working through them is possible. You likely don’t want to stay in marriage counseling for years and years, and it’s highly unlikely that you will. You want to learn tools to effectively deal with the issues that your marriage has in marriage counseling and take those tools with you long after counseling is over. Marriage counseling exists so that you can work through roadblocks that you and your partner have and learn to communicate directly about the problems at hand. If you’re seeking marital counseling with your significant other, remember that it doesn’t have to be forever and that the goal is actually for it to be time-limited.
Not only is there marital counseling – There’s also premarital counseling
Sometimes, people embark on premarital counseling. You and your partner see a therapist before you get married so that you can talk out issues. Some topics include where you’re going to live, if you want to have children, or other things that you want to get on the table before you start your life together as a married couple. Premarital counseling can be useful so that you and your partner are on the same page after you start to live your life together. If you’re already married and issues persist, you might consider marital counseling.
Reasons why people go to marital counseling
Here are some common reasons that you and your partner might seek counseling:
- Communication issues
- Infidelity
- Fertility issues or wanting to have kids
- Adopting children
- Substance abuse problems
- Anger issues
- Verbal or emotional abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
There’s no way to necessarily prepare for a marital counseling session except for to go in with an open mind. The problems already exist, and the best way to deal with them is to go into marriage counseling without any preconceived ideas about how things should be handled. You’re seeking the help of a mental health professional because you’re at an end as far as how to handle the issues yourself goes, so you don’t have to come in prepared to do anything but be open and honest.
Marital counseling is about problem-solving
Before you solve the problems that are in your marriage, you need to get all of the information out there – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Your relationship isn’t all good and bad because there’s a reason that you two came together in the first place. You may be having disagreements because all human beings are different and it’s likely the case that neither of you are right or wrong. It’s about figuring out what works between the two of you for your relationship as individuals with their own thoughts and needs. A lot of the time, when people enter marriage counseling, there’s resentment and problems that have built up over the years. This is why having a party that’s impartial can help you. You’ll be able to deal with those issues with an objective party in the room.
It takes two for marital counseling to work
If you’re going to marriage counseling, make sure that you and your partner are both dedicated to the cause. If you’re the only one participating or being vocal in the sessions, it’s not going to work, so make sure that you’re both communicating during your counseling sessions. If either of you are struggling to engage, that’s something to talk about with the counselor. In order for this to work, both of you have to commit to the process.
Change is possible
As mentioned previously, it might be difficult to talk about your problems in marital counseling, but it’s worth it. It doesn’t have to be the rest of your life; the goal is for marriage counseling to be short term so that you can work through the issues surrounding your marriage and take the skills from therapy with you so that you can be productive and work through similar issues on your own as a couple in the future. Whether you see a counselor in your local area or online, marriage counseling can be extremely helpful in helping you and your partner work through wounds in your relationship that are causing distress. You and your partner deserve a happy life together, and marriage counseling can certainly help with that.
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