Marriage Counseling Should Be the First Step
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Any of my readers who have been with me for a while will know that I am divorced. If you followed along at all while I was going through the process, you may have heard me talk about the fact that my ex refused any and all forms of Marriage Counseling prior to the decision. That was devastating for me. I was willing to do anything at all to ensure that we were not part of the 50% statistic and that my child would grow up in a two-parent household.
I have always been a believer in the truth that marriage is a relationship that deserves hard work and effort. Counseling is part of that, because involving an impartial third party allows neutrality that is close to impossible when two people who know one another very well are trying to press forward through difficult issues.
I advocate pre-marriage counseling in order to make sure issues of finances; child rearing and lifestyle have been appropriately explored. I think counseling during trying times in a marriage is often times a life saver: a new child, a death in the family, the loss of a job, a move, an illness. We actually went though all of the examples I just listed and we did it alone. I was only once able to coax the Ex into counseling and that ended up leading immediately to individual counseling for him rather than actual marriage counseling.
When the issue of divorce came up, involving an unbiased counselor should have been our absolute first move. Running directly to an attorney is never the right reaction. Matters of the heart are not the realm of lawyers.
I continue to champion the concept of marriage counseling when I talk to my married friends. Although a marriage is a personal relationship in many ways, you can’t beat the benefit of having someone who is able to look at both of you without taking sides and see the situation through new eyes. That is true for any relationship.
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