Marriage Counseling: More Than a Last Resort

She storms off to the other side of the house, slamming the bedroom door behind her. He pauses for a moment unwilling to follow, but eventually, his anger overcomes his better judgment as he barges into the room.

“I can’t believe you slept with her,” she cries.

“Well, you’ve been so busy and critical of me,” comes his sharp reply. “She’s been helping me with the project, and she’s been there for me. I know it was wrong, but you were so distant.”

She starts to cry and between sobs manages to whisper, “I don’t know how you could do this. We need help.”

Unfortunately, it’s often the most dramatic of circumstances that lead couples into marriage counseling. Couples don’t come in to deal with the distance, instead, they wait for an affair. They don’t come in for the increased hostility while drinking, instead, they wait until their spouse gets fired for being drunk at work. They don’t come in for money lost gambling with friends, instead, they wait for their spouse to lose the car on a big bet.

The stigma around marriage counseling keeps many people away from it because “healthy” couples do not need any help. Instead of seeing small issues and taking them seriously, they put them off and hope they will work themselves out in time. The problem is waiting until the last minute to get into marriage counseling is risky. Sure, it can help but often the damage is already done.

While some couples will have a relationship saving, hail Mary, last-ditch experience in marriage counseling, others will not. While you cannot disregard the value of marriage counseling in dire situations, you don’t have to wait until the 11th hour to get help. Even “healthy” couples need guidance. And getting help sooner rather than later can be the difference between a marriage that lasts and marriage that doesn’t.

Jesus and Marriage Counseling

While Jesus never mentions marriage counseling, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t address the topic. When the religious teachers of his day approach him with a legal question about the stipulations for divorce in the law, he cites Genesis,

“It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So, they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.” – Matthew 19:5-9

Jesus refers to the establishment of marriage in Genesis and expands on it, making it clear that marriage is a serious union and one that is not to be separated. He acknowledges that there were provisions for divorce in the Old Testament but that these provisions were not God’s original design. Jesus understood marriage to be a serious union not to be broken.

This perspective continues to elevate the relationship, encouraging believers to treat it with the utmost importance. In light of this, it seems like Christian marriage counseling which focuses on strengthening and preserving marriages would have been approved and affirmed by Jesus.

Do I Need Marriage Counseling?

Again, if you are asking this question, remember your marriage doesn’t need to be falling apart to need marriage counseling. Common reasons couples get into marriage counseling are things like:

• Communication problems
• Anger
• Sexual issues
• Substance abuse
• Conflict over raising children
• Infidelity
• Distance in the relationship
• Addiction
• Disagreement about finances
• Persistent tension with in-laws

Some items on this list, like addictions and affairs, are obvious reasons to get into marriage counseling. However, others seem like run-of-the-mill issues found in most relationships. So why are they on the list if most couples struggle with them? Because more couples need marriage counseling than you think.

This might be surprising, but if you look at the data, then it shouldn’t be. There is some dispute over the exact numbers, but anywhere between 20%-50% of marriages in the United States end in divorce. That means at the low end, one in five couples will get divorced – a significant number.

And those numbers are for couples that will actually get divorced. They do not cover couples who settle with unhappiness and disconnect in their marriage, rather than getting divorced. As followers of Jesus, the goal is not to avoid getting divorced. It is to build a meaningful, loving marriage that is reflective of God’s love for his church.

So, if you feel like there are persistent, unresolved problems in your relationship, then marriage counseling is a powerful way to preserve and strengthen your marriage.

What Does Christian Marriage Counseling Have to Offer?

Working with a professionally trained, Christian counselor can do wonders for your marriage. You can start by bringing in whatever you are processing or struggling with as a couple.

What is the tension you can’t resolve, the fight you keep having, or the missing spark of sexual intimacy? Once you decide what you want to work on, your counselor can provide you with psychologically grounded practices and biblically-based wisdom on how to proceed to:

• Work out your conflict in a healthy way
• Communicate clearly, loving, and effectively
• Make your needs known
• Deal with tough problems together
• Grow in deeper respect and appreciation for your spouse
• Set healthy goals for your marriage
• Recover trust and intimacy
• Integrate faith and spirituality into your relationship, setting your relationships with God as the foundation of your marriage

How Does Couples Therapy Work?

It focuses on you as a team

As Jesus said, “what God has joined together let no man separate.” Christian counselors approach counseling intending to keep the marriage intact. While there are some biblical reasons for divorce, these are clearly not the ideal.

Instead, your counselor will help you to communicate and come back to common ground so that you can feel like you are on the same team. You cannot move forward in your marriage standing on opposing sides. If you are discussing the issues from a place of division, you may not be talking about the issues at all.

It creates space for emotion

A key tenet of marriage is safety. This is the one relationship in life where you can be fully real. Your spouse has committed to be with you through thick and thin. So, this should be a safe place for you to express your emotions.

However, in marital conflict, this is often not the case. A counselor will help establish practical parameters and guidelines in these discussions and help moderate them as you begin the process. Once you learn to hold one another’s emotions in a healthy way, you will better be able to resolve the issues.

It gives you guidance on how to move forward

A good Christian marriage counselor will help give practical advice on how to move forward. While they won’t tell you what to do, they will offer alternative responses to your problems. It will ultimately be up to you to decide how you will proceed, but they will offer both biblically and psychologically sound advice for how you can move forward.

Conclusion

According to Jesus, marriage is meant to be once and for all. That doesn’t mean that marriage will be easy, but it does mean that it is important. Jesus calls Christians to be good stewards of the gifts they have been given. And what greater gift is there than marriage?

Since this relationship is so important, do not settle for an okay marriage. Fight for trust. Fight for intimacy. Fight for friendship. Do not wait until the last minute when everything is falling apart. Pursue marriage counseling now to strengthen and fortify your marriage.