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Posts Tagged ‘Marriage’

A good marriage counselor can be very helpful. Working on the issues in your marriage may seem simple but sometimes it is helpful to have an objective marriage counselor to assist you. A good marriage counselor will give you tools and techniques to improve your communication and help you deal with your problems in a healthy way. Seeing a marriage counselor can make you feel like you have hope for a happy marriage. A marriage counselor knows how to help couples facing money issues, issues with their sex life and other issues that couples often face and can help you overcome your problems.

Top Three Reasons to Look for a Marriage Counselor:

1. To allow you to better deal with the strong emotions that are associated with problems in a marriage.
2. To help you find a path to a happy and satisfying marriage that you can be excited about.
3. To give you the tools you need to work on the problems in your marriage.

If you and your partner are able to cope with the emotions that problems in your marriage bring, to work towards a resolution to your problems and you have the tools to do this than you probably would not get a lot out of seeing a marriage counselor. Couples really need to try to work out their issues themselves first before seeing a marriage counselor. If you and your partner need help dealing with issues in your marriage, though, you should see a marriage counselor because the issues are not going to go away on their own.

What Should You Look for in a Marriage Counselor?

You can simply open up the phone book for your local area and choose a marriage counselor if you want to. You could also get a recommendation from a trusted religious leader or your doctor. The best way to find a marriage counselor is to talk to a friend or family member that has used a marriage counselor and has a much better relationship now. Not everyone is willing to talk about their experiences with a marriage counselor, though, so this is not always easy to do.

However you go about selecting a marriage counselor it is important to choose wisely so you get someone that can really help you. The marriage counselor needs to be someone who you and your partner can be comfortable with so you both need to have input into the choice of the marriage counselor.

It is important to make sure any marriage counselor you select has the right credentials including a license and certification in family and marriage counseling.

Your marriage counselor should have a current license in the mental health field. The majority of marriage counselors have a certificate and license in marriage and family therapy. Every state has their own rules for licensing therapists and counselors. Marriage counselors in most states have to have a Master or Doctorate degree of some sort, must have done training during graduate school in marriage and family therapy and must have worked under experienced therapists for the required amount of time. A marriage counselor has the option of becoming licensed with the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) which has its own specific requirements for membership.

A marriage counselor can set up their own office or they can operate out of a health clinic, hospital, or a government organization. Your doctor may be able to recommend a good marriage counselor for you to work with or you can ask people you know if they have any recommendations. Other sources for a marriage counselor recommendation include your insurance company, a religious leader or local government organizations. Or you can just open up the phone book and look there.

When you are looking for a marriage counselor you will want to be sure to ask potential therapists the right questions.

Here are some questions you should ask:

What licenses and certifications do you hold and what professional organizations are you affiliated with?
What degrees do you have and what training have you gone through?
How many couples have you counseled with our specific problems?
What are your fees?
Will our insurance cover any of the fees?
What is your office location and your hours of operation?
What is the length of the sessions you offer?
How often would we meet with you?
How long would we have to attend therapy sessions?
What do you do if we have to cancel a therapy session?
Are you available if we have an emergency?

How Much Does Marriage Counseling Cost?

In most cases, you and your partner will be responsible for part if not all of the cost of the marriage counselor. What types of rates can you expect from a marriage counselor? You can pay anything from $50 to $200 for a session with a marriage counselor but the average price per hour is close to $100. The average couple will spend about 3 months in therapy, meeting with their marriage counselor weekly so the process will probably end up costing close to $1200. This is the average cost of therapy for most couples. Depending on how severe your issues are, though, you could meet with your counselor weekly for as long as a year or two. This could mean spending as much as $10,000 on the therapy but it is a small price to pay if you avoid a divorce.

If you put the cost of a marriage counselor in perspective by looking at how important to you mentally and emotionally to have a happy marriage than it doesn’t seem so expensive after all. You will get more satisfaction from a happy marriage than you would with material goods you could buy with the same money. Actually, people often start working together better and improve their financial situation after they learn how to communicate by seeing a marriage counselor. 

It will be up to you and your partner to determine when you are ready to stop seeing the marriage counselor.

Often, men are anxious to stop seeing the marriage counselor as soon as possible even if the therapy sessions were their idea. Sometimes men resent the fact that the marriage counselor is telling them what to do and making sure they are following through. Some men go along with the marriage counselor only as long as they have to to make their wives happy and after the therapy sessions are over they are back to behaving the way they were before the therapy.

If you think that your partner is likely to behave this way, you should not stop seeing the marriage counselor until both of you feel you have made significant progress. It may be a good idea to go see the marriage counselor less often but not stop all together. Seeing a marriage counselor can do wonders for your relationship!

A few years ago I happened to pass by my boyfriend’s phone when it was ringing and I saw a girl’s name appear on the screen. At 11pm. I then realised how often he took his phone with him into the bathroom or how he got text messages without spontaneously telling me who they were from. It was a painful period, and of course it turned out he had another girl in his life… Now they live together and I’m happy in my love life, but it still hurts when I’m thinking of it. The fighting, worrying, wondering. The lies.

Me and the guy broke up and moved on, but sometimes infidelity is just an interruption in an otherwise happy relationship. It’s most times hard or impossible to justify or understand, but if the life you have together is larger than a drunken incident or a moment of inhibitions, you might give love a chance.

Some advice, if you want to save your marriage or relationship, are:

-      Cheating is external: See the cheating as a big black demon coming into your relationship. It doesn’t matter who was responsible for the act; both of you are hurt and damaged; one is feeling betrayed and the other ashamed. But the problem is best treated if it’s seen as something outside of the relationship that both of you have to fight off, move on from and leave it behind.

-      No blame game: If you don’t see the cheating as a shared problem, the post cheating phase can easily turn into a blame game where you play “victim and criminal”. If you keep on dwelling the past, you will be trapped in the negative emotions and memories. If you spend your time and energy finding ways to be happy from now on, it will be easier to move on.

-      How to move on? This means it is important that you don’t try to find answers or explanations for what happened if there are no rational reasons. Human beings are not always acting smart and we don’t always act according to our values. Sometimes we get carried away and loose control. Only look at the answer to the question “why did it happen?” if you also answer “How can we prevent it from happening again? Accept that the dark demon came in to your life and that you want a brighter future. The good guys win.

-      A new promise: Trust is the key to move on. You need to promise each other that you want to be together full on. You want to love and be loved. You want to be a team – strong and happy together. Tell your partner what you like about your relationship and listen to them. Trust doesn’t come from “I will never do this again”, but from “I want to love YOU and create a good life together”. Cheating and infidelity is very selfish. It can’t be justified. The cheater hurts other people, and if you have children you betray them too. But if you and your spouse seriously want to fix things between you, you seriously have to let go of the past. Create a new contract between you. Sit down, hug and kiss, and make promises and plans around these areas:

-      What will make you feel loved?

-      How can I make you happy?

-      What can I do in my life or my own personal development to make our relationship happier?

-      Can we spend more time together, give more compliments, have more sex, go out more with friends etc…?

As a love coach I prefer to give you some more questions, rather than giving advice. The best advice comes from within you. When you are aware of your feelings and understand the situation, you will know what to do.

-      Can I choose to trust my loved one?

-      What do I need (words, promises, attitude, new routines) to be able to trust my partner?

-      Can I get that?

-      If I can’t get it, can I still trust?

-      What does my partner need from me to feel happy in the relationship?

Bitterness and grief is a choice. Happiness and moving on is another. It’s up to you. Yes, it is that easy.

More on: http://infidelitycheatingadvice.blogspot.com

When couples come to us for Marriage Counseling, often each spouse is overwhelmed by their own individual feelings. They have reached the point of desperation by the time they get to us and feelings have masked their thinking. Feelings can range from Anger to Fear.

The best way to stop painful feelings is to learn the “Feelings Follow Action” principle.

When we feel a negative emotion, we feel pretty powerless to do anything about it. We hope and pray that we will feel better – we expect the change in emotions to just “happen” to us, similar to how a cloud descends on someone.
We don’t “feel” like acting upbeat or cheerful. We’re sad, or upset, or anxious, etc. We can’t help what we feel. We feel like prisoners of our painful emotions. We want out, but are held hostage.

We can tell you a surefire way to change your feelings in less than an hour – but few people want to do it. When we are hurting – most folks just want to ‘stew’ in their emotional pot. Our negative feelings have sapped our energy.

When we are down, the last thing we want to do is to act happy. It’s fake, it’s phony, and we don’t really feel happy anyway. The truth is that if we take the ACTION of doing things that people do when they are happy – within about an hour, we will start feeling much happier. It’s hard to believe – but it’s the truth!
It seems too simple to actually work, doesn’t it?

All you need to try it for yourself is a list of behaviors you do when you are happy or in a good mood. Your list should be personalized to the things and ways you behave when you are cheerful and happy. Make sure to include doing loving things for other people. That is the greatest mood lifter of all. Even if you can only seek to bless your spouse – that’s OK.

Muster up the courage to try it, “Just this once”. Trying something once doesn’t usually overtax anyone. Tell yourself that this exercise won’t hurt you, and after an hour you can always go back to feeling the way you were feeling before.
Feelings really do follow actions!

There are two main types of controlling behavior in a marriage relationship. There is aggressive control, which is outward and overt and then there is passive control which is more covert and hidden.

Let’s tackle the aggressive, active control first. What are the typical ways someone can actively try to control one’s spouse?

It can be either spouse that tries to control their spouse. The root cause underneath the control is fear and insecurity. The controlling person believes that if they can control others their world will be more ok. Unfortunately it does not work out that way. The net result is distance, distrust and killing feelings of love.

When Michael and Susan came into our office, Susan presented as a meek and mild mannered woman. She said that Michael was a bully and that she was afraid of him. We spent some time with Michael individually as well, and he did not have much to say about himself or Susan. He was pretty shut down. When we worked with them as a couple we saw the dynamic between the two of them in action. Michael was obviously walking on egg shells, trying not to upset Susan. He was very careful to not say anything that would upset her.

Soon Susan’s façade as the meek and mild mannered spouse crumbled away as she showed her true colors by using anger to control Michael.

We work with a lot of couples in our Marriage Counseling practice where one spouse uses anger in an attempt to control the other. This is not the main problem in their recovery. The main problem is when the angry spouse does not own that they have an anger problem. When we gently confronted Susan about her Anger problem she became highly defensive and blamed her anger on Michael’s behavior. According to Susan, she was merely reacting to Michael and was not taking responsibility for her choice to become angry.

Passive anger commonly referred to as “passive aggressive” behavior can be just as destructive as overt anger.

Michael knew that every time he would withdraw in a discussion it would drive Susan up the wall. He knew that not following through on commitments infuriated her. He knew that breaking promises pushed Susan’s hottest button. Most passive aggressive behavior is intentional, although a passive aggressive person can really come across as the “nice guy”.

The more passive Michael would be, the more aggressive Susan would become. It was a lose-lose situation. How can this cycle of controlling behavior be broken? Since you can’t change what you don’t acknowledge the first step is getting both spouse to see and acknowledge their behaviors. Although it is the truth that set’s us free, it is the truth about ourselves not the truth in general.

After Susan and Michael each saw their own behaviors in this light, they were ready for the next step.

The next step was for each of them to come up with baby steps that would eliminate their individual controlling behaviors.

Susan set a goal to give herself a timeout when she first started feeling angry. She also started jogging which helped her release a lot of the stress in her life.

Michael started journaling his feelings. This was a safe way for Michael to start feeling his feelings and expressing his feelings. He shared a lot of his journal with Susan. Michael learned how to confront Susan when she tried to control him with her anger by speaking up and saying “I don’t deserve to be spoken to this way”.

There are many steps that couples can take in learning how to stop trying to control each other. We have shown just a couple ideas about how to stop the unhealthy pattern and bring the two of you closer.

If you need more help, we recommend getting into effective Marriage Counseling which can help you regain the closeness you once had.

If you are interested in finding out more about our Marriage Counseling practice, you can find us on the web at www.MarriageRescue.org

In Christian homes when the husband does not assume his Spiritual Leader role a vacuum forms and often the wife is forced into being the leader. This is uncomfortable for the wife since God did not give her that responsibility. It can create a great deal of resentment in both the wife and also the husband who can interpret this as “control”.

When the wife is forced into filling this role it can often lead to being the leader in many other ways. Now there is real danger of inappropriate balance of control in the home.

In our Marriage Counseling practice we see this situation often. We are presented with couples that are not filling the roles that they were designed to fill. When we speak with the wife who is perceived as controlling by her husband, she often tells us that she would give anything to “get off the throne” and follow her husband, but he just won’t lead.

What can she do? What can he do? The first step is to understand who God has called us to be. God has called the husband to be the “servant leader” in the home, even going so far as to lay down his life for his wife and family as Christ laid down His life for the Church. We see many husbands who would step in front of a bus for their wives but neglect to protect their wives in the day to day business of life.

There may be a number of reasons why he is not “stepping up to the plate” as leader. Oftentimes we see passive men marry more outgoing and active women. The man’s passivity becomes a serious problem in these relationships. He stays in his comfort zone, not realizing or caring what this is doing to the relationship. In this case, it is important for the wife to step aside and not lead; even if things fall through the cracks. The husband cannot fill a role that is already filled. He cannot lead if she is leading. It may seem very scary, but it is absolutely necessary to let him fill the role.

It may also be that she has always felt like she is the one who should be in control, thinking her husband as incapable of leading. It is particularly important for her to turn over the reins to her husband.

Sometimes it has nothing at all to do with the wife. Some men are just so passive that it would never dawn on them to be the leader. In this case it may require counseling from your Pastor or Marriage Counseling from a Christian Marriage Counselor.

So, what should the husband do? After realizing and understanding that this is his God given role, he will need to confront the fear of operating in the unknown. His job is to make sure that he understands who is in Christ. There are many good books written on this subject. God gives us the Grace to do what He calls us to do, so the husband is able to lead.

There are practical things that a Spiritual Leader does. He makes sure that he has his own personal time with God on a daily basis. That he “talks” with God on a regular basis. This includes more than just speaking to God (what we normally call praying) but listening as well. He himself needs to be strengthened before he can successfully lead others.

He is responsible for making sure he and his wife spend joint time with God. This can include Bible Study, prayer, attending a Church that fulfills both of them and making sure the whole family is included if there are children in the home.

He is also responsible for protecting the home from any outside bad influences or spiritual attacks.

He can also see that he and his wife become active in a small group at their Church. This will help surround the couple with fellow believers who are like minded and are there for each other.

This may seem like a big job, but God never gives us a job too big for us to handle.

We pray that your marriage fulfills God’s calling and that both you and your Spouse search out what God has in store for you. If you both are close to God, you will be close to each other.

Let’s face it. Usually one spouse is naturally neater than the other. While it seems like a small thing, this can turn into a much larger issue over time when it keeps adding up. Resentment can increase over repeated requests to keep the house neat.

Bills can fall through the cracks. Precious items can get lost. Appointments can be missed. Clutter drains the life out of a home. A messy house can even decrease a wife’s libido.

While the two of you may never have the same idea about what the standards should be for an uncluttered home, you should be able to agree to de-stress the marriage by eliminating clutter. Not because it will now be neat, but because your spouse will feel so much better emotionally.

One of the best ways to prevent reoccurring clutter is to put things away, not down. This prevents the necessity of having to have one spouse pick up after the other. It also means the availability of more together time since you won’t need to spend time picking up a mess.

It is a great tool to get your kids involved as well. There is no need for anyone to leave shoes, socks, dirty dishes, dirty clothes or anything else for someone else to have to pick up.

The key is to make sure there is a place for everything. Then everything can be put in its place.

If you don’t currently have a home for each item, then create a home for it. This may mean that there is not room for everything you own. It also may mean it is a good time to Clean Sweep the home. If you have things lying around that you have not used for a year or more, then do you really need it? Maybe it could be given to someone who has a need for what you obviously are not using.

In order to get the ball rolling, decide that the fun evening activities won’t begin until everything is put away.

No one is exempt. Not Mom, Dad, or the kids. Once you start putting everything away you fill feel less stress. Chaos will diminish and there will be more peace in the home.

In our Marriage Counseling practice this issue arises often. It is amazing how big a deal this can become. It is a sign of disrespect to the one who has to pick up after the other. Marriages do not sustain well when respect is absent.

Love is not just a noun, it is a verb. We can show our spouse how much we love them by making our home a place of peace, free of tension, and conducive to harmony.

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What kind of communication do you and your spouse practice? How would you rate it on a scale of one to ten?

Do you feel completely understood by your spouse? Does your spouse feel completely understood by you?

When we feel understood, we feel loved? Does your spouse feel loved by you?

In our Marriage Counseling practice, over 95% of the couples who come to us practice poor communication skills. As a result, neither spouse feels understood and loved.

What are some of the “poor” communication practices?

Here are a few:

Interrupting Stealing the topic away and making it about you Improper nonverbal communication (93% of all communication is nonverbal) Mindreading Not listening Speaking in attacking manner (not remaining neutral) Speaking too long without giving your spouse a chance to respond

There are many others, but these are very common. If you want to make your spouse feel loved, Marriage Counseling thinks that it is important to replace these negative practices with positive practices.

A few of these are:

Using neutral statements and questions Being concise when you speak Check it out if you don’t understand Be a great Listener Show interest in what your spouse is saying Never interrupt

Couples who have practiced poor listening often find it hard to turn it around to become good listeners. If you really want to make your spouse feel loved, Marriage Counseling encourages you to learn how to be a good listener.

In our Marriage Counseling practice, we work with couples and teach them to become really good listeners. They not only learn how to be good listeners, they also practice those skills while they are here.

Whatever condition your Marriage or family is in, you can make it better by learning to become good listeners.

In our Marriage Counseling Practice clients tell us that their marriages are very stressed. We have discovered a number of common threads that lead to this stress.

Here are a few:

Lack of time. Too many commitments often caused by the inability to say no to a request. Lack of money. With the economy causing job losses it is particularly a problem these days. Lack of sleep. This can be very hard on our bodies, our minds, and our emotions. Lack of organization usually leads to a chaotic home and schedule. Lack or exercise. With little or no exercise our bodies and minds don’t function well. No recreation. No fun in our lives. Too many outside activities for the children. This is stressful on both the parents and the kids.

Here are some antidotes for a stress filled life:

Prayer. God provides a place of Rest and Peace for us when we seek Him. Money management. If you need help budgeting there are those who can help. Don’t put things down, put them away. A messy house leads to stress. Do a “Daily Plan” to organize your time and make sure you are not over committed. Just say no to requests that are more than you can handle in a healthy way. Get plenty or rest and exercise. Mark out at least one day each week for fun, relaxation, and recreation. Limit children’s outside activities. Laughter. The Bible says that laughter restores the soul.

We can only handle so much stress before our personal health is affected.  Likewise our relationships can only handle so much stress before they are negatively affected.

Most couples can make these changes on their own. But, if your marriage has already moved into a heavily stressed relationship, you may need outside help. Often folks turn to Marriage Counseling for help from an expert.

There is hope that you can relieve the stress in your Marriage.