How Marriage Counseling Can Save Your Marriage

Providing a Safe Environment

When couples meet with a counselor, they meet in a private room with only themselves and the counselor. A professional counselor knows how to create a welcoming and safe environment where couples feel comfortable opening up about difficult or painful subjects. It is a judgement-free space where the shared goal of all three parties is to help the couple’s relationship survive and thrive.

Getting Impartial Advice

Each person in the marriage has their own point of view from which they see situations or problems. When two people have opposing viewpoints, they can wind up fighting endlessly without perpetual empathy. Having a neutral third party to provide advice and an outside perspective can be helpful for revealing problems. Also, a counselor can suggest ways to mitigate problems when couples cannot see one other’s perspectives clearly.

Releasing Frustrations

Marriage counseling sessions often involve venting from one or both parties. Resentment and frustration are two negative emotions that can be toxic for marriages when they are not addressed. People often let them build up instead. Many divorces are tied to stonewalling, resentment, frustration, anger and other negative actions. Counselors can show couples productive and peaceful ways to express their frustrations and negative emotions without shouting, arguing or engaging in other destructive behaviors. Couples can practice these techniques with the counselor and use them at home to avoid falling into toxic traps.

Bonding

Whether couples are newly married or have drifted apart after decades of marriage, bonding is an important goal in counseling. Feelings of discontentment, disconnection and indifference are addressed. A counselor can show a couple how to avoid letting these feelings spiral into deeper problems and negative actions.

Building Trust

In some marriages, there may be infidelity, lies or other issues that destroy trust. Rebuilding trust is a critical step in counseling, and trust is a necessity for a relationship to survive. If both people want to save the marriage, a counselor can teach a couple effective strategies for rebuilding and maintaining trust in the future.

Another key to making counseling successful is being open to working out problems and learning about the other person. This is a lifelong process. However, when couples embrace it, they can enrich their relationship and strengthen their bond. If only one person is invested in the success of the marriage, it is harder for a counselor to help. To learn more about how marriage counseling can save your marriage, please contact Dr. Piper Walsh at South OC Counseling. Dr. Walsh has a wealth of experience in marriage counseling with couples of all ages and backgrounds. She finds joy in being an advocate to couples who want to regain happiness and work through their issues.