Top Signs You Need Marriage Help

You've just had a fight with your spouse. Is this a harbinger of a brewing storm, or is it normal? How do you know when you and your spouse need marriage help?

As a practicing couples counselor for over three decades, I have seen marriage from every angle. I've worked in premarital couples counseling to help smart couples assess their strengths and identify their weaknesses as a couple. I have done couples counseling with folks who've been married for five months and for 50 years. Sometimes, they seek my help for marriage enrichment, and sometimes because their marriage is in trouble. I have done divorce and post-divorce counseling to help couples stop recycling the same problems in their divorce that plagued them in their marriage.. And I have been a divorce mediator for couples who seek a saner way of divorcing and an arbitrator for couples who insist on continuing their marital conflict long after they have divorced.

From all of those experiences, I offer the following 5 major signs that you probably need marriage help.

1.When you and your spouse continually rehash the same argument, you probably need marriage help. Whether you literally have the same argument, or if just the dynamics of the fight are the same, your marriage is in trouble. In healthy marriages, couples know how to identify and address their issues with each other before they become ongoing problems that tear at the fabric of their marriage. So if you find yourselves having an old, familiar argument, you are wise to seek couples counseling before you dig a rut so deep that it is difficult to get out of it.

2.If arguing and fighting are the primary way you and your spouse emotionally connect, your marriage is in danger. In a strange way, fighting is safe because neither of you has to feel vulnerable to the other, and yet it generates an intense connection. However, this mode of emotional connecting will become emotionally - and sometimes physically - dangerous. If this description fits your relationship, you definitely will need marriage help.

3.If you find your self-esteem eroded since marrying your spouse, your marriage is becoming too emotionally costly for anybody's good. Of course, your marriage isn't necessarily the only challenge to your self-confidence. But especially if you sense that your spouse is deliberately undermining you, you are in danger of losing yourself in your relationship dysfunction. This benefits nobody, and you likely will need couples counseling to help reverse this negative dynamic.

4.If it seems like everything and everybody is more important to your spouse than you, this makes very lopsided investments in your relationship. Maybe you tend to feel that way anyway, in which case you could need your spouse's help to heal that old wound. You will need to work on that to be an equal partner in your relationship.. But if you have married a very self-centered spous, you definitely will need marriage help to correct this potentially untenable situation.

5.If you find yourself just not liking your spouse any more, something is going very wrong. I am not talking about the temporary feeling we all occasionally experience when we are convinced that marring your spouse was the dumbest decision you're ever made! Rather, if this feeling is persistent and gets worse, you definitely will need marriage help before there is nothing left between you. In conclusion, while there is no one-size-fits-all approach to assessing a marriage, I hope this gives you some guidelines.

© Dr. Beth Erickson 6/08

If this fits your marriage it might be wise to go for a consulting.

Dear Friend,

I get emails almost every day from people who are struggling to make their marriage work or wishing they could truly experience marital bliss.

Maybe you've felt that way yourself. You don't have to feel alone. Most marriages in America are on the rocks-just one more "thing" from ending forever-in fact, 56% of marriages end in divorce. It's not their fault.

When giving your vows, all are sincere. However, something happens once the honey drips off the moon-the reality of your spouse kicks in.

Over half of all couples wind up frustrated and just go through the motions. Or worse still, they actually begin to despise each other and even argue in front of their children-just imagine what this does. Deep down, they wonder why they can't make it work.

The worst part is, they know some couples actually experience blissful marriages despite the odds being stacked against them-and begin the damaging finger pointing sessions blaming everything on each other.

Maybe some of these things ring true in your marriage. If any of this fits you, let me tell you a quick story.

One day, the marketing genius, Steve Harrison, spouted an idea off the top of his head.

He said, "Beth, you should develop "The Best Part Of Your Life" program for couples who value and want to strengthen their marriage. I'll bet lots of people would come."

What an amazing idea, I thought. I began to ask around. Naturally I started with my husband. You already know he backed me. (He better have.)

But as I began to discuss this idea with my entrepreneurial clients and the high-level executives I coach, they all responded with a resounding, "Yes!"

They all feel this is one area where they can use some serious coaching.

My clients range from successful self-made millionaires to C-Level execs. One thing they all have in common, is they spend excessive amounts of time and energy developing or running a business and feel they're lacking in their personal relationship.

These are the components for a perfect storm in their relationship-they may be unknowingly joining the 56%.

You don't have to fall victim to this "attack on marriage" in America. You don't have to give up hope that you either have to focus on family or your business. I'm here to tell you, both are possible. You just need the skills necessary to be successful.

Imagine 2-days and 1-night focused on your marriage. Don't you dare say you don't have the time!

Marriage in many cultures in considered HALF of your life! Imagine for a second a successful business person not having time for HALF their life. Absurd, isn't it?

7 Simple Steps For Creating the Best Part Of Your Life

With over three decades' experience as a marriage and family therapist, I looked at and worked with marriages from all camera angles, including the lens of divorce mediator. I distilled my observations and conclusions into a book discussing the 7 Keys experience tells me the most important skills that couples need to master in order to have a happy and fulfilling marriage. I illustrates points by telling stories from my clients' lives and my own.

I take couples' worst nemeses and shows readers how to combat them. I engages the reader in a dialogue throughout, as if they were sitting in my living room. I urges readers to have qualitatively different conversations with their spouse and with themselves, and I show them how. Marriage Isn't For Sissies is therapy, support group, coaching, and skills training in a book.