By Mashum Mollah
Did you know that 80% of all divorces occur during the first 4 to 5 years of marriage?
Many people claim it’s due to decreasing passion, growing apart from each other, or learning you aren’t as compatible as you thought. What if we told you that these excuses weren’t the main cause of divorce?
Divorce occurs when both parties stop trying to make the marriage last. However, with the benefits of marriage counseling, you both can learn how to fight for your relationship properly.
If you would like to save your relationship, keep reading to learn 5 ways a marriage counselor can help.
1. Fix Communication
Miscommunication is the main reason most couples split up in recent years. This means that saving your marriage lies in the way both spouses communicate with each other.
You may think you need to have an argument with your spouse every single day to classify yourself as having communication issues. But this isn’t the case, oftentimes both partners just feel either ignored or misunderstood.
This results in a negative mentality with each other due to increased feelings of loneliness. Someone you once considered your best friend is now acting like a stranger.
A marriage counselor will teach you both how to properly listen to each other. Instead of assuming you already know where the person is heading in the conversation, you will learn skills to let them talk fully.
Not only will you learn to listen effectively, but you will also learn to articulate your responses or concerns easier. Instead of having a small issue turn into a huge problem, you will both learn to discuss problems in a calm and healthy manner.
This applies to opening up your relationship to more difficult conversations, perhaps about intimacy and the need for you or your partner to visit an ED Clinic Stone Oak if they are struggling with physical symptoms such as low libido, or mood swings.
Counseling can contribute to creating a safe space to encourage your spouse to speak freely, and be honest and open in their communication.
2. Trust Issues
Infidelity can ruin a relationship because it destroys trust.
This may have occurred at the beginning of a relationship but you both decided to look past it, but it’s never that easy to do.
Once someone has been cheated on, mistrust takes over. Your partner may claim that the infidelity issue is over with, yet they still randomly check your messages, missed calls, and Facebook account.
Although, your current spouse may not even be the cheater. Mistrust can occur from previous relationships where one has been cheated on and now they don’t trust anyone anymore.
When situations like these arise, we can either grow from it or let it hurt us. The benefits of couples therapy are that you can both learn how to move on and trust one another again.
3. You Both Want Different Things
When you first met, neither of you wanted children. It has now been three years into your marriage and your spouse is making hints at you that they want a child.
You are confused because you both established that neither of you wanted children. This is an extremely common occurrence due to the fact that everyone changes over time.
Sometimes a partner doesn’t want a child because they are afraid, an issue like this can be fixed. A marriage counselor understands the stress when it comes to having children, especially if you are both working and need to pay for childcare.
These disconnects don’t always include children, sometimes this can happen when one partner receives a great job offer in another state or country. It is hard to relocate your life for a person and having an outside opinion can help you determine the right move.
Whether you’re looking for marriage counseling Dayton Ohio or somewhere else, it can help you discover where the disconnect is.
4. Mental Health Issues
In all of the romantic movies you see, love fixes every problem you may have had previously. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works in real life.
When you or your loved one suffers from a mental health problem, all aspects of their life are affected. You may have a kind and loving spouse, a good job, and a lot of friends yet still suffer from depression.
Whether or not you or your spouse is seeing a personal therapist, sometimes it’s more beneficial for you both to see one together. A marriage counselor can help you both communicate through the hard times instead of having the person deal with their mental health issues alone.
By having your spouse there with you, they will get a better understanding of what you are going through mentally.
Although some mental issues may persist, having a support system both inside and outside of the home is crucial for success.
5. Realizing The Strengths In Your Relationship
When things start to go wrong in a relationship, that’s all we spend our time focusing on. That is unfair to both you and your spouse.
Marriage counseling benefits include realizing and appreciating the good things in your marriage.
For example, your husband may have forgotten about prior arrangements and planned something with his co-workers. Instead of fixating negative emotions as to how forgetful and inconsiderate he is, you can look at the positive aspects.
Maybe every morning he gets up first to start brewing coffee for you. As small as this gesture may seem, it shows that he cares about you daily.
By seeing a marriage counselor, both of you will realize the small gestures you do on a daily basis and the strengths you both have in the relationship. Maybe you both are really good at saving money and completely forgot because you only notice the negatives.
The Benefits Of Marriage Counseling
No one says that maintaining a successful marriage is a walk in the park. In fact, it is often really difficult to put aside differences and reduce arguments.
By having an outside perspective hear and monitor both sides, you can rest assured that you and your thoughts will not be ignored or ridiculed. It may seem like marriage counseling is only for extreme circumstances but in actuality, it’s for any relationship.
The benefits of marriage counseling include knowing that you fought for your marriage. When counseling begins to improve your marriage, you can spend more time traveling and less time arguing.
