Toronto Psychological Services

1. DOES MARRIAGE COUNSELLING
REALLY WORK?

2.  With information found and shared the way it is
in modern society, you’d be had pressed to find
anyone who hasn’t heard horror stories and
scary statistics about marriage. Everyone gets
divorced, everybody cheats, and no one wants
to be married forever anymore…
 Of course, these statements are
exaggerations, but marriage does seem a little
more expendable than it used to be. It can be
tough to imagine living your whole life with just
one person under the best of circumstances.
And when circumstances begin to suffer, it can
be almost impossible.
 However, that doesn’t mean everyone with
troubles should call a divorce lawyer. Marriage
counselling is one way that some couples are
able to get their relationships back on track and
remember why they chose to get married in the
first place.

3. BENEFITS OF MARRIAGE COUNSELLING
 Generally speaking, marriage counselling has several positive benefits to offer
couples that want to make a difference in their marriage. Some of these benefits
include:
 Learning about the communication skills that lead to healthy conflict resolution.
 Learning how to communicate needs and feelings clearly before anger sets in.
 Learning how to be assertive in different situations without being offensive.
 Developing a deeper and more meaningful understanding of your spouse. Yourself and
both of your needs.
 Learning the ability to work through any unresolved issues that may be holding you back.
 Of course, marriage counselling is a process and it isn’t magic. There are certain
benefits that a counselor can help bring out, and having a professional monitor the
situation is a positive but that doesn’t mean it’s going to work for everyone.

4. IMPORTANT FACTORS
 The success or failure of marriage counselling depends
on several different factors. There is no definitive ‘yes’
or ‘no’ answer as to whether it works or not. It definitely
works in some cases and it definitely doesn’t work in
others. Much of the outcome depends on you.
 Take the time to look into the counselor before you make an
appointment. Not all marriage counselors are the same, and
you want one who has a proven track record and is focused
on teaching new skills to make your marriage better.
 Don’t go into it looking for a quick fix. In all likelihood, you’re
going to have to change the way you do some things and how
you process certain information.

5. IMPORTANT FACTORS
 Take the opportunity to talk about the issues that
are bothering you. Keeping quiet for whatever
reason isn’t going to help anything, because you’ll
still be feeling the same things when counselling is
over.
 Seek out help when you recognize there are
problems, not when the marriage is barely hanging
on by a thread. You want to go to help make your
marriage stronger, not just to decide if you should
stay together or not.
 Try not to view the counselor as a savior that will
fix everything that is wrong. Both spouses must be
interested in making some changes and doing
most of the heavy lifting.

6. ACTION IS CRUCIAL
 Regardless of which factors you have working in your
favor and which ones you don’t, marriage counselling
can only work if you go to marriage counselling.
 Naturally, that sounds like a ridiculously obvious
comment, but taking action is the most important part of
the process, because nothing else can happen without
it.
 It’s easy to look down your nose at something and say it
doesn’t work when you don’t give it an honest chance.
 If you really want to try and make the marriage work and
the marriage is in trouble, how can it hurt?

7. LESSONS FROM HAPPY COUPLES
 One way to help yourself out
whether you seek out
marriage counselling or
not, is to observe happily
married couples.
 Most people know at least
one or two couples that just
seem to be on the same
page most of the time.
 All couples experience
conflict, but the truly
successful ones handle it a
little bit differently.

8. LESSONS FROM HAPPY COUPLES
 There always seems to be an underlying foundation
of friendship and affection, and that foundation is
strong.
 Harsh words are seldom spoken and expectations
are usually realistic.
 Watch happy couples when you get the
chance, then try to adopt some of those same skills
and techniques in your own marriage.