“Does marriage counseling work? My wife and I have been trying to see a marriage counselor for the past few weeks, but they don’t seem to be 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 widespread advice you’ll get is “have you tried marriage counseling?”
You would think that such a thriving and reputable industry would be highly recommended due to its high success rate, right? In other words, marriage counseling is so popular because it has a track record 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 counseling or therapy related field.
So does marriage counseling work? I would say ‘not even close’.
* Rehabbing drug addicts 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 counseling
* 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 not the case at all. Marriage counseling DOES NOT WORK for most couples, and the success rates of marriage counseling are surprisingly 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 increase in divorce rates correlates almost directly with prosperous marriage? counseling industry? Some might argue that this makes sense because more divorces necessitate more marriage counseling, but what if the real source of the problem wasn’t actually the divorce, but rather the utter ineffectiveness, even counterproductiveness, of marriage counseling?
I’ll give you an example of this: my own parents are divorced. They were married for over 20 years and they tried everything they could 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 that all marriage counselors are complete charlatans, but a surprising number of them are. His marriage counseling methods and techniques are based on theory, guesswork, and textbooks, not actual 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 is especially true of 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 lawyers… It’s just one more cog in the machine that leads to the simultaneous debasement and capitalization of marriage. In America. I mean, from a price point of view, both are expensive… It will cost you about $400 an hour to talk to a divorce lawyer on the phone, and a single marriage counseling session will usually cost you at least $100, and more. for a ‘good’ one.
These are people who know that you are desperate and are willing to take advantage of that for their own gain.
Think about it, if you were truly 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 real 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-$2,000 on totally unproven techniques and strategies.
Which brings me to the second implicit 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 comes down to… Everything your average marriage counselor has 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 intimacy time”…
* “Date nights are the answer”…
* “Make her feel loved”…
All 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 they do it when everything is perfect, but they will NOT save their marriage.
These are all things to do when your marriage is thriving, more like traits 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 intimate time will fix your marriage, right?
But marriage is not 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 affection 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 it worse, because it will remind your wife how bad things have to be for her to feel NOTHING, even when she’s apparently trying so hard.
Remember, attraction is the ONLY thing that will save your marriage. Without attraction there is no emotional incentive that leads your wife to return 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 guess you should let your own experiences give you the ultimate answer, but from my own experience I would say that it is better to try to fix things on your own than with a counselor.
