Does marriage counseling really work? My name's Paul Friedman, I founded The
Marriage Foundation and I used to be a divorce mediator so I know for a fact
that marriage counseling doesn't work. How do I know? Well, all of my clients
came from marriage counselors and when I began to help people and I wanted to
start with one particular client, I wanted to start because my logical mind
said because I am good at negotiating, I'm good at communication, I'm good at
mediating that would be most of the problems with marriages, but it's not.
And so, it's very interesting about why marriage counseling doesn't work and
it's important for you to know. First of all, in a nutshell not any two marriage
counselors use the same prescription. They all have their own thing going -- it's
just how it works. Many marriage counselors started off as kids out of
college. They went to counseling school and they started right away working with
people and they've never even been married and their high rate of divorce
as a group should be a warning sign but they're good people.
Marriage counselors are good people. They just don't know any better. There are
some things that get in the way for them so why doesn't it work.
Number one -- they don't understand marriage. Marriage is not majorly complex
although there's a lot of moving parts but their training almost forbids
them from considering anything that is outside of the paradigm of what they've
learned which is a very atheistic like keep that spiritual stuff away from me
kind of thing which doesn't really make sense. Because you as an
individual, me, all of us we're a blend of spiritual and material. We are
we're souls. We have a body, we have a mind and it's blended together. It's in
what we call we, me, and the counselors I have, we call it the ego but marriage
counselors call the ego something completely different.
For them, it's a Freudian term and basically what happens is that all they
want to do is try and help the couple work out a particular problem or two
problems, and maybe it's a problem with one or the other of you, and that doesn't
work. It doesn't work because it doesn't get to the root of your marriage. It doesn't
get to the bottom line. Why did you get married? You got married in order to be
happy and there was sort of a subpart to that and understanding that you would
not just get happy but you would get happier every day. You would feel more
loved all of the time that your marriage would grow, that you would grow as an
individual. You as an individual would be happier, your partner would be happier
life would get better, that's your expectation. And so, when you
go to marriage counseling, they don't start there. They start with, "Okay, so
what's wrong?" Well, what does that do? It sets this
competition up between you. Well, who's more wrong than the other?
Who's the bigger creep? Who's the one who's really hurting the marriage? When
the fact is, this is a fact neither of you know anything about marriage. Here's
another fact, neither do marriage counselors and this is a huge problem so
it doesn't work. Now, there's processes galore on the
internet now and there's relationship coaches and they all rely on the old
things but some of the courses are a little better than others. They're not
great, they're not where we are with our course because they don't go all the way
but they do work on the do's and the don'ts.
They help for instance the women who are constantly complaining to their husbands
they learn that that's only going to push them away.
Great, but then they're stuffing it their whole life that they don't get to
complain because all the therapists in the world, all the articles and the
magazines are talking about, you have to express yourself which by the way is not
true, except you do need to express yourself as the lover, the best friend
who your partner married and that doesn't get taught by anyone. So marriage
counseling I wish I could say it worked because if it worked I would have stayed
as a divorce mediator making a lot of money and only working with those
couples who really truly should get a divorce.
There are some people should get a divorce
but instead, I found that of all the people that I worked with and I went
through just in my mind but I went through it in my mind and I thought, "Okay,
now that I know what I know and I know how to help couples stay together and
really turn their marriage around, who could I have not saved?" I don't think
there was anyone. I mean there are some borderlines
couples where things were way out there. I mean way out there but for the most
part, I think I could have saved everyone. In fact, when I started working with my
process first place I went was Second Saturday divorce support group for women
that's why I got my clients and I save so many marriages there.
Don't try marriage counseling. I really advise against it.
To this day, we get emails because we have a free counseling service -- it's not
marriage counseling but you could write in with what's going on and you'll get
an honest response. You want to really think about what's going to make our
marriage happy again, what's going to put us back on the track we were on before we
got married when we were looking forward to ever-increasing happiness and ask
yourself what went wrong. That's much better than marriage counseling. Marriage
counseling is going to hurt you so I started to talk about this one
email we got recently where the husband said, "My wife went to her therapist and a
therapist said there's no hope for our marriage unless I confess to all of my
sins." What a crazy notion, that's not necessarily reflective of all therapists
obviously not but there's enough out there with some really crazy ideas that
simply hurt your marriage more than help it. Please look around, think deeply
before you go and if you do go and if you say, "Well, that's an
interesting perspective." There's also a video I produced that talks about what
you should look for in a marriage counselor so at least take a look at
that. You can write down before you go in, you could write down some
expectations. One of the things that I really believe in is that whoever
you hire for whatever purpose, you should be clear about what your expectations
are. Don't you agree? If you go to a dentist
and you have a toothache, you expect that toothache to be gone. You go to the
doctor and you have a cold, you expect some medicine to help you alleviate the
symptoms and we could go down the list. You call a plumber, electrician. You pull
into a garage because your car isn't working well. You have in your mind
clear-cut expectations but when you go to marriage counseling people have been
taught not to have expectations to see how it goes and that's insane.
Frankly, it's crazy. Why you shouldn't you have expectations?
Why shouldn't you? You don't go to marriage counseling just to sit and talk
about your problems. You go because you want happiness and you don't want
happiness six months from now. You might give it a week or two but you want it
right away and you should have that happiness. You got married to be
happy. If it's not functioning it's probably not that complicated as to why.
Now, it's true that most people way too long at least to come to us but even
when they wait too long happiness is the first item that I want
people to expect, to get self-contained, to find your own space. People don't know
this but I'm going to share with you that marriage is a spiritual path for each of
us as individuals that we do together and we do it in a Hermitage, a cloister
where there's only two of you so it shouldn't be that difficult to get along.
It shouldn't be a big deal to make each other happy so that's the first item on
our agenda even if you're taking the course by yourself. You're supposed to be
happy. You're a soul, you're supposed to be happy that's not a requirement by the
way, we're not a church. We don't go, "You must be happy." No, we show you how to
find that inner happiness and it's concrete, it's tangible. You may not be
able to touch it but you certainly feel it.
So do your best before you go to marriage counseling and the worst part
of marriage counseling isn't that it costs money.
What's wrong with spending money to save your marriage, it's a good idea. The worst
part is that the underlying expectation that you have that your marriage will be
healed is set aside and you don't meet it, so what happens? You become
discouraged and be like milking a cow and no milk comes out. You get
discouraged. Okay, yes I have milk cows as a matter of fact and there is more to it
than just yanking. You do need marriage help if you're having
difficulty but I strongly suggest you avoid the marriage counseling. Does it
really work? No, it really doesn't work marriage counseling. All right, I hope you
got some benefit from this. If nothing else, I hope you're thinking twice about
booking with a marriage counselor and they're sweet. The good ones are sweet
talkers. You'll feel confident but they won't help your marriage.
Go ahead and subscribe to this channel. There's lots of videos that might help
you. If that's not helping out, write in to our counselors. Get some clear-cut advice
they won't mislead you. We're very very clear about that. No one has paid a bonus
or a commission if they suggest you take the course or get a book. We're a
non-profit foundation and we're here to help you. Share the video, share it with your
spouse so you're both on the same page and God bless you and blessings to your
spouse and blessings your family. Thank you for taking your time with me. I
hope I was helpful. Take care!