To Save a Marriage Requires Effort in the Right Direction: Marriage Councelling May Be Needed
If a Christian couple has a struggling marriage, then God will fix it for them, right? Wrong! Most of us have had the experience of trying fix something without having the right tools. If our perseverance leads us to a solution than we can feel rewarded for our headaches and frustration. However, when we throw more effort at something and repeatedly experience disappointment, we can drive ourselves into a place of cynicism and despair. If we have prayed for God to “make our marriage a good one,” we can be doubly disappointed when we don’t see any improvement. Sometimes marriage councelling is necessary because we are too close to see the sign pasted on our backs that says, “I’m stubborn.”
Think of how little most couples ever seriously look into acquiring new skills and tools to be a good lover, a good friend, a good listener. When the pipes burst and your house is flooding, it’s usually not a great time to learn plumbing skills. We need to spend effort learning to do things within our reach that can make for a better marriage. Why is it such a blow to our pride to get training (i.e., marriage councelling) for the very foundations of our family life?
Expectations Need Calibration
Good marriage councelling can help calibrate our expectations with reality. In recent decades, there has a growing trend for people to set up expectations for marriage and for life itself that set the stage for disappointment. On the surface this sounds like couples just wish to live fully and with passion. In fact, I often ask couples if they are just settling for something that is less than what they can experience together in the way of joy, pleasure, purpose, and life-giving interaction.
The problem is not so much with high expectations of marriage or for one’s spouse. Rather, it’s the nature of the expectations: “I want you to fulfill my needs and make me happy, but I don’t want to expend efforts on the relationship unless it’s squarely in my comfort zone.” Good marriage councelling doesn’t make you “settle.” Rather, it helps you reach for the really good things that can be obtained.
“Now,” you say, “who says that?” Perhaps no one. Nobody states their expectation so bluntly, but it’s often a fitting summary of the overall stance that a husband takes toward his wife, or the attitude that a wife has toward her husband.
When marriage problems surface it’s important for one person to make a decision to acquire a new set of skills. When this happens it may or may not produce more conflict. if the skills and tools are sought with courage (“I’m scared, but I want to pursue something good”), the smallest effort can cause rings of positive changes to ripple through the marriage much like a small stone can cause ripples throughout a pond. This is, of course, very different from throwing stones AT each other. Marriage councelling during the crisis can be so helpful because it helps you focus your small efforts in a direction that is more likely to get positive results.
Timing is Important
Why don’t couples seek marriage councelling earlier in the unfolding of their marriage crisis? Pride. Also, one of the problems is that there is a widespread belief that whoever is at fault should be the one that should expend the most effort to save a marriage. To flip this idea around, it becomes a belief that has the following logic: “if I initiate the effort to make a change, then I am conceding that the problems are my fault!” This is a recipe for a stalemate.
Another problem arises because people assume that “trying harder” to save the marriage means that you do what your partner wants. This is tricky because it is good to try to please one’s spouse. However, sometimes what a spouse wants is something that isn’t good and it’s really bad for the relationship. So, a wife might wrongly conclude that “trying harder” equates to stop nagging her husband about how much alcohol he consumes. Or, a husband might mistakenly suppose that “trying harder” means that he should go along with his wife’s desire to not talk about the problem. In reality, trying harder to save a marriage equates to listening, learning, and taking steps that use the conflict for growth…even if the tension becomes greater temporarily. Marriage councelling with a skillful therapist can help refocus exactly what you are praying for, what you are working for, and the steps to get there.
