When I was a little girl, oh, twenty-five years ago, marriage counseling was something people only did if they were contemplating divorce. Whenever I heard that someone was seeing a therapist, it meant that horribly bad things were on the horizon. It was shameful—people would have hidden their therapists in plain brown wrappers if they could.
It was with this mindset that I approached my own need to go to a therapist after my husband and I had been married for about eight years. We’d had some disagreements that we couldn’t resolve on our own, mostly stemming from the different ideas we brought into the relationship (when the children from two broken homes get married, it’s bound to be wild). When our bishop suggested that we go to LDS Family Services for some marriage counseling, I was very upset. Surely this was the beginning of the end.
However, it turned out to be a very good thing for us. Our therapist was very laid back and just listened to us for a while, then began inserting words of wisdom that made us stop and reexamine our belief systems and how we’d been viewing our relationship. In fact, I have to say that the counseling experience was absolutely what we needed at the time and if we hadn’t gone down that road, we probably would be divorced right now. Rather than accelerating our progress down that slippery slope, counseling helped us avoid it.
Parents often say they wish their children came with instruction manuals. Marriage doesn’t come with one either, and it’s hard for two people to learn how to become one, and not just one, but eternally united. It’s challenging to say the least. Even the best days are fraught with misunderstandings. It’s only natural for married couples to need a little extra guidance along that path, and a counselor just might be the person to help you.
Counselors are trained to look at both sides of the issue. Whereas your mother might agree with you and his father might agree with him, and thereby not the most reliable sources for objective advice, a counselor will work with the two of you together to help find a compromise that both of you feel good about. And, if you go through LDS Family Services or some other religiously-based organization, you know your therapist holds your same values and will keep the eternal nature of your relationship in mind at all times. Additionally, for those in financial distress, LDS Family Services can make payment arrangements with you and often your ward can help subsidize the sessions as well.
There’s no shame in having marriage counseling. In fact, there are times when it might be good to go into therapy even if you aren’t considering divorce. If there are things about your spouse that are driving you crazy and no amount of discussion is helping, it might do you good to pull another party into the mix and get some objectivity. We don’t have to sneak around and say we’ve been shopping when we’ve really been to see our therapist—we’re doing what we need to do to strengthen our relationships, and that’s admirable, not shameful.
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Working Through the Difficult Times in Your Marriage