If You Really Love Him, You'll Make This Move Before You Divorce
Have you done everything you can to save your marriage?
Prostock-Studio | Canva Whether you've been together for five months or five years, maintaining a happy and healthy relationship or marriage takes some serious work. From never-ending shouting matches to giving silent treatment, fighting all of the time can be physically, mentally, and emotionally draining. There's no question that all relationships need maintaining, but figuring out how to do it is sometimes easier said than done. But once the constant conflicts start getting to you (and they will), you've got to figure out another plan.
So before you do anything, you need to ask yourself this question: Do you believe that your relationship is worth fighting for? If you answered yes without hesitation, then couples counseling is your best move. So here's the deal. Getting help from an outside source doesn't mean that you're weak. There is nothing wrong with you. The problem is that no relationship is perfect, no matter how much we want them to be. We've all been through incredibly different times where we honestly felt like our love wouldn't make it. YourTango's Founder/CEO Andrea Miller, Imago Institute's Harville Hendrix and Helen Lakelly Hunt, Family Therapist Joyce Fine, LPC Jamie Simkins Rogers, and the former Relationship Help Doctor Dr. Rhoberta Shaler back this up by outlining the amazing benefits of couples counseling.
How can you use couples therapy to improve your relationship? Even though society often paints counseling in a negative light, there are scientific studies that refute that. The UCLA Newsroom conducted a study with 134 couples, with whom they met throughout 26 therapy sessions. They found that "When the therapy sessions were over, about two-thirds of the couples overall had shown significant clinical improvement." How's that for great news?
They even took things a step further by choosing couples who "were consistently unhappy [because they didn't want] couples who would get better on their own. We excluded almost 100 couples who wanted couple therapy but who did not meet our criteria of consistent and serious distress." After the experiment was over, they followed up with the couples every six months for five years straight, finding that the sessions worked. Hearing that our experts discuss just how effective couples counseling is will put any of your remaining doubts to rest. If the going gets tough, it may be time to call in some reinforcements. At the end of the day, if there's even a slight chance that it'll improve your love life, increase intimacy, and re-ignite those sparks, why wouldn't you give it a try?
Andrea Miller is the founder and CEO of YourTango; host of the podcast “Open Relationships: Transforming Together;” and award-winning author of Radical Acceptance, The Secret to Happy, Lasting Love; a passionate relationship catalyst. Harville Hendrix, Ph. D., is a couples therapist with over 40 years of experience as a counselor, educator, clinical trainer, author, and public lecturer and has received many awards for his work with couples. He and his wife, Helen LaKelly Hunt, co-created Imago Relationship Therapy, a therapy for couples now practiced by over 2,200 certified therapists in 30 countries. Dr. Joyce Fine, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist, certified divorce coach, collaborative divorce facilitator, and custody evaluator. Jamie Simkins Rogers is a Licensed Professional Counselor who focuses on relationship issues, blended family issues, anxiety, trauma, and women's issues. Rhoberta Shaler, The Relationship Help Doctor, provided urgent and ongoing care for relationships in crisis for more than 30 years. She was also the host of the Save Your Sanity Podcast.