I have recently had a couple of heartbreaking conversations with two older couples, one of whom has been married for 29 years. In fact, I only spoke with the husband and not the wife of the 29 year marriage. He says that his wife recently initiated divorce proceedings and he wants more than anything to keep his family intact, but he has given up hope. She was interested in couples counseling 20 years ago, but he was not. The second couple’s marriage is struggling but they decided to pursue counseling in order to fight for their marriage. Although there are plenty of differences in their stories, including length of marriage (one couple has been married for 29 years, the other for 2 years), there are certainly some similarities. I write this particular post because I hope there are some readers out there who will make the decision that the second couple did and fight for their marriage before it’s too late.

There are several things that may tip you off as to whether it may be a good idea to seek counseling for your marriage. One of the biggest mistakes that not only the first husband made, but also many husbands and wives make is not listening to their spouse when they suggest the idea of counseling. One person thinks they could benefit from marriage counseling and the other does not. What often happens is they don’t go to counseling, or if they do go the person who doesn’t think they need to be there is resistant and uncooperative. One of the saddest things to see is a marriage that could have been saved, albeit with some hard work, but one partner decided that what their spouse was feeling wasn’t important enough to invest time in.

Lack of intimacy, especially being sexually intimate, is one of the things I see the most with couples who come in for counseling. Couples who are struggling to keep their marriage afloat rarely have satisfying sex lives. God gave sex to married couples as a way to bring them closer together. I have talked to several couples who haven’t had sex in years and some have convinced themselves that there is no issue with that.

Communication is another big one. It’s something that is so vital and so difficult to do effectively at times that there are no couples out there who get it right all the time. When couples say they have issues communicating, they may mean that they talk to each other very little, or they may mean that they argue a lot. It is actually more concerning for the couple who does not communicate than for the couple who constantly fights- at least the couple who is constantly arguing is speaking to each other. However, no matter where you’re at in your communication with your spouse, it is never a bad idea to learn new skills.

In closing, whether you’ve been married for 5 years or 50 years, if you’ve struggled in any of the above areas, you may benefit from some couple’s counseling. I of course do couples counseling here at the church but this is by no means solely a plug for my counseling services but rather for marital counseling in general. If you talk to your spouse and you’re both happy with where things are in your marriage, that’s awesome and God be praised! However, if they think it is a good idea, perhaps a counselor can facilitate constructive dialogue about issues you’ve been struggling with.

Jarvis