How to Do Your Own Marriage Counseling

Member

By Kristina Jensen
User-Submitted Article

Article Rating: (3 Ratings)

Before you take drastic measures, try to do your own marriage counseling.

Every married couple experiences serious problems at some point in their marriage. Bad fights, the tendency to drift apart, sexual problems, infidelity and unfaithfulness, growing distrust...the list goes on. When your marriage seems to be at a critical stage and you're afraid it might fall apart, you have a number of options. One is to ignore the problem. It might go away. On the other hand, it might not. Another option is to hire a marriage counselor. Marriage counseling has helped many couples. One thing you might want to try first, though, is to do your own marriage counseling.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Maturity
Patience
Commitment
Determination
Communication skills
Forgiveness

Step 1

Evaluate how important the issue is. It's not really worth it to go through marriage counseling if all your wife is doing is leaving her dirty socks on the floor, however annoying that may be. However, if she's leaving her dirty socks on the floor, her dishes in the sink, and spilling paint all over the carpet in your office, where you receive professional clients...that may be a problem worth addressing in marriage counseling. Especially if what's really bugging you is that you think she's sabotaging you on purpose.
Step 2

Decide what you think the cause of the problem is, but don't make any firm assumptions. Because chances are, there are more causes of your marriage problems than you think. Rarely does the fault lie with only one person, and rarely is the situation as simple as it seems at first glance.
Step 3

Decide what you want from your spouse. Do you want your husband simply to understand your perspective? Do you want him to stop, or start, a certain behavior? Do you want to change something major about your marriage or circumstances? Know ahead of time what you want out of your own counseling.
Step 4

Talk to your spouse about the problem and your marriage overall, not as a spouse does, but as a marriage counselor does. The marriage counselor asks questions like, "What do each of you think about this problem? How important is it to each of you? What do each of you want out of your marriage?" Most every question the marriage counselor asks is targeted at both husband and wife. That's because it's important that you each get a chance to speak and each feel heard. So when you speak to your spouse in the role of marriage counselor, be as interested in what your spouse has to say as what you have to say.
Step 5

When the conversation begins to go off track or a fight begins to develop, act as marriage counselor and say, "Let's step back for a minute here and see what's going on." Then discuss with your spouse what just happened and what the implications are. Sometimes fights that explode out of nowhere when you're discussing an issue can point to a problem that neither of you were aware of.

Comments

nchawk59 said

Flag This Comment

on 12/24/2008 Great advice. My wife and I are going through a separation, recently I moved out to give us both space. We have got more out of phone and occasional eye - eye conversations than counseling. The key is to put blame aside, move ahead to what is needed to make the marriage mend and survive.

jpwriter said

on 11/24/2008 Good advice and suggestions. Thanks.

MotherDove said

on 11/20/2008 I think that this would be a great exercise in communication for any couple, those in counseling already, those who are having problems and those who want to avoid future problems. Learning to listen and respond to your mate, like your article suggests, is a goal for all couples
Good piece!

Fuller1972 said

on 11/14/2008 This would certainly take a lot of maturity to accomplish on their own. It is great advice if they can get past the shouting and blaming. Remember too, that most pastors will counsel married couples without charge.