Does marriage counseling really make a difference when your wife leaves?
“Does marriage counseling work? My wife and I have been trying to see a marriage counselor for the past few weeks, but it doesn’t seem like I’m doing anything… What am I doing wrong?”
If you are like many of the lost and confused husbands of the 21st century, then you have already tried the most commonly prescribed solution to any marital problem, namely marriage counseling.
I don’t know when it became such a common practice, but somehow the solution to each and every one of the problems that can affect a marriage (separation, loss of passion, divorce, infidelity, lack of communication, etc.) The most prominent and pervasive piece of advice you’ll get is “have you tried marriage counseling?”
One would think that such a reputable and thriving industry would be highly recommended due to its high success rate, right? In other words, marriage counseling is so popular because it has a history of legitimately fixing the marital problems that plague so many relationships these days, right?
Wrong!
Did you know that…
Marriage counseling has the highest failure rate of any therapy
Yes, marriage counseling and marriage counselors have the lowest success rate of any other field related to counseling or therapy.
So does marriage counseling work? I would say ‘not even close’.
* Drug addicts in rehab have a higher success rate than marriage counselors
* Alcoholics in AA have a higher success rate than marriage counselors
* Anger management therapy has a higher success rate than marriage counselors
* Even prison counseling programs for murderers, rapists, and other criminals have a higher success rate than marriage counseling
You would think that for up to $200 an hour there would be some kind of guarantee that you would see results in your marriage, but this is absolutely not the case. Marriage counseling DOES NOT WORK for most couples, and marriage counseling success rates are shockingly low (less than 25%).
There is a type of couple that can benefit from marriage and family counseling, but it is the exception, not the rule. Most marriage counselors do not effectively address the real issues that leave you and your wife ‘dissatisfied in our marriage’.
Does marriage counseling work? Do we have the highest divorce rates in history?
It’s true that, according to recent statistics, the divorce rate in America has finally plateaued in the last two years because fewer people are getting married, so there are fewer couples to get divorced.
But still, in the last 10 to 25 years, divorce rates have skyrocketed, and I want you to really think about this for a minute… Doesn’t it seem strange that the rise in divorce rates correlates almost directly with prosperous marriage? counseling industry? Some might argue that this makes sense because more divorces need more marriage counseling, but what if the real source of the problem wasn’t actually the divorce, but the complete ineffectiveness, even counterproductive, of marriage counseling?
I’ll tell you an example of this: my own parents are divorced. They were married for more than 20 years and tried everything to save their marriage. They tried not one, not two, not three, not four, but FIVE different marriage counselors over the course of 10 YEARS, and none of them did anything to save their marriage.
In fact, the marriage only got worse because my parents became frustrated with their lack of progress, and that frustration led to more problems in the marriage.
In other words, marriage counseling added fuel to the fire and poisoned my parents’ marriage.
Now, I’m not saying all marriage counselors are complete quacks, but a surprising number of them are. His marriage counseling methods and techniques are based on theory, guesswork, and textbooks, not real romantic or human experiences or even successful marriages.
Many marriage therapists lack proven or relevant experience
This could probably be said about many fields related to therapy, but I think it’s especially true in marriage counseling. I know of several marriage counselors who have been through a divorce, but continue to teach others how to fix their marriage. Clearly these people have no idea what really works if they can’t even save their own marriage, so why would you trust them to save yours?
Again, I don’t want to make too broad generalizations here, but I feel like the field of marriage counseling has become equivalent to divorce attorneys… It’s just one more cog in the machine that leads to the simultaneous degradation and capitalization of the marriage. In America. I mean, price-wise, they’re both expensive… It’ll cost you around $400 an hour to talk to a divorce attorney on the phone, and a single session of marriage counseling will usually cost you at least $100, and more. for a ‘good’ one.
These are people who know you’re desperate and are willing to take advantage of that for their own benefit.
Think about it, if you’re really passionate about helping people and saving marriages, would you demand $300 a session for something you haven’t even seen consistently deliver results? I’m not saying it’s morally wrong to charge a lot of money for your services, but when so much money is involved it’s natural to question the true motives, especially without results that justify a high price.
Think about it, most marriage counselors recommend at least 10 sessions to see results in your marriage, which means you’re spending $1,000 to $2,000 on totally unproven techniques and strategies.
Which brings me to the second implied part of our original question… Does marriage counseling work and why or why not?
And to me, this is why most marriage counselors fail:
Most marriage counselors have been trained to analyze problems, not create solutions.
This is what I really think it boils down to… Everything your average marriage counselor has ever learned, and in turn everything they teach you, was most likely written by a psychologist.
All those things your marriage counselor tells you…
* “Keep working on it”…
* “The comunication is the key”…
* “Be more open with each other”…
* “Start having private time”…
* “Date nights are the answer”…
* “Make her feel loved”…
All of those things are written in some textbook somewhere and that textbook was written by a psychologist. These are things that women think they want, and do when everything is already perfect, but they will NOT save their marriage.
These are all things to do when your marriage is thriving, more like characteristics of a successful marriage than actual techniques for fixing a broken one.
But you can clearly see his train of thought…
A good marriage has open communication, right? So it ‘makes sense’ that to fix a broken marriage you should develop open communication, right?
A good marriage has spouses who enjoy intimate time with each other, right? So it ‘makes sense’ to say that forcing intimacy time will fix your marriage, right?
But marriage isn’t backwards compatible like that… It doesn’t work because these logical solutions are NOT going to work when there are no feelings of attraction or emotional caring behind them. So even if you’re going through the motions correctly, there’s no guarantee that you’ll actually fix your marriage.
In fact, if anything, it’s almost guaranteed to make things worse, because it will remind your wife of how bad things have to be that she can’t feel ANYTHING, even when she seemingly tries so hard.
Remember, attraction is the ONLY thing that will save your marriage. Without attraction there is no emotional incentive for your wife to come back to you… Logic, reason, advice, courses, books, rational techniques and perseverance will not save your marriage. Will of feelings, emotion and passion.
So does couples therapy work? Does marriage counseling work? I suppose you should let your own experiences give you the definitive answer, but from my own experience I would say that it is better to try to work things out on your own than with a counselor.