What did relationship counselling do for your relationship?

[wannabemum]

After chatting to some lovely (and very helpful ladies) in some other threads, I wanted to hear from you all who have had couples counselling. Was it a positive experience?

[sockstealingpoltergeist]

We had relationship counselling before we married, by the pastor who married us, as we got married in a church.

It really helped us I think.

This is because, it looked at our ways of dealing with conflict, how they could improve etc etc.

It also helped us outline what we expected of the relationship, what was fair to the other person, respect and boundries.

It looked at parenting, religion, money all of those type of things that can effect a marraige.
It also looked at our long term goals. Where we on the same page.


The main point i got was that if one person is geting their own way all the time, that the relationship won't work because evantualy the person getting the raw end of the deal feels duped and it just doesn't work.

Over all it was a postive experience, that said hearing from others and from one counselling experience I've had, you have to ensure that your counselour has no bias of their own, so you need to ask what their values you are??? For eg It's no good going to a sexist counsellour for relationship counselling, when the counsellour is not objective (which they are supposed to be).

[simady30]

I found that it depends on whether or not both parties are willing to put in the work outside of the counselling. We went about 2.5years ago and our counsellor was FANTASTIC - I still try to do the things she suggested etc but DH just grunts and nods and thats as far as it goes! But everyone is different and I guess it all depends on the issues etc.

[Lastcenturymum]

We also had pre marriage counselling and found that great (I think everyone should have such counselling before even living together!) it showed us areas we are different and yes even after all these years the TB drives me nuts sometimes, but I have strategies to deal with that ! We also did a marriage enrichment course a few years into our marriage and learnt a lot about communication skills and how to deal with conflict, how to listen to each other and how to show respect amongst other things.

As Simady said, if you are both committed to working on your relationship you will get a lot more out of counselling. All the best if you seek it.

[talavoumama]

Hey,

We are doing marriage counselling at the moment and even though DH grumbles before each session and we only decided to go because I insisted, we both get a lot out of it and agree that it has helped us seriously improve the way we relate to each other. We still have a bit of work to do and its obvious when one of us stops putting in the effort and reverts back to old behaviours but I definitely know it's working so we'll keep going for a while.

I just think it helps us to both be a lot more conscious in our actions.

Hope this helps!