Marriage counseling, solutions to your household problems

Marriage does not always run smoothly. There are times, you will encounter various obstacles that might shake your relationship with your partner. When this relationship falters, you may look for ways to save your marriage. One of the methods that can be chosen is consultation on household psychology to an expert or it is called marriage counseling.

So, what is marriage counseling? Is this method really effective to solve your household problems? Check out the complete information here.

What is marriage counseling?

Marriage or marriage counseling, also known as couples therapy, is a special type of psychotherapy for married couples. This type of therapy can help married couples recognize and resolve their domestic conflicts.

Typically, this counseling is done by couples who are considering divorce or who are looking for ways to increase intimacy. By doing this counseling, you and your partner can make wise decisions to build or strengthen your marriage.

As with psychotherapy in general, marriage counseling is provided by a licensed therapist, such as a psychologist or psychiatrist. However, the therapists chosen are usually those who have been specially trained to deal with household and family problems, also known as marriage counselors.

However, unlike psychotherapy in general, counseling on husband and wife problems is often short-term. The Mayo Clinic said, this consultation can be done by both partners, but can also be done alone. The treatment plan depends on the problems and conditions of each partner.

Conditions that require marriage counseling

Generally, every married couple, whether new or old, who has any problems in the household can do marriage counseling. However, some of the specific problems that marriage counseling generally helps with are:

• Having communication problems or poor communication.
• Sexual dissatisfaction.
• Household financial problems.
• Trust issues, including unfaithfulness or any signs your partner is cheating on.
• Conflict about parenting.
• Conflicts with extended family, including in-laws or in-laws.
• Substance abuse.
• Anger problems.
• There is often conflict or high levels of stress in marriages.
• Major life changes that affect marriage, such as the death of a loved one, moving house, new job, or retirement.
• Power struggle.

Some marriage counseling sometimes has premarital counseling or premarital counseling for engaged or about to marry couples. The benefits of premarital counseling are to help understand each other or overcome differences before marriage.

Not only that, that relationship abusive or domestic violence (KDRT) may also be helped by a marriage consultation. It's just that sometimes this condition is not sufficiently resolved with counseling, but also requires handling from the police.

What happens during marriage counseling?

Counseling for husband and wife problems is usually done once a week. Generally, this consultation is short term. However, the healing process of the relationship can take more time. The therapy can also continue as long as the couple is committed to solving the problem until they actually reach a solution.

At the first counseling meeting, the marriage counselor will ask a number of questions to the couple together or respectively to find and understand the problem. The counselor will also express his opinion on the matter.

Then, he will also provide a plan and treatment goals that will be undertaken by this couple in the future. The duration of therapy and the results obtained depend on the couple's motivation and dedication to this counseling process.

During the following counseling sessions, the therapist will help your partner learn some skills that can help strengthen your relationship. This includes:

• Communicate openly with your partner.
• Ability to solve problems.
• How to discuss differences rationally.

These things are needed to be able to jointly identify the source of the conflict without blaming each other and find a way out to fix it.

During the process of finding a solution, the therapist may also provide "homework" for you and your partner. This usually takes the form of home communication exercises to put into practice what has been learned during the session. For example, talking face to face with your partner about things that are not stressful without any distraction.

In special circumstances, such as one of you has a mental disorder, substance abuse or addiction, or other serious condition, the therapist may suggest additional types of psychotherapy. The type of additional therapy will be adjusted to the problem that occurs.

The results or benefits to be obtained by marriage counseling

By consulting domestic issues with experts, you and your partner will get a number of useful results. Here are the results and some of the benefits you can get from marriage counseling:

• Helping couples solve their problems and find solutions with new perspectives.
• Acquire new ways to identify and resolve domestic conflicts in the future.
• Improve communication with your partner so you feel more heard, understood, and connected.
• Strengthen the emotional bond of a partner.
• Increase partner cooperation in undergoing marriage.
• Achieve the expected ideal household goals.
• Relieves stress that often arises at weddings.
• Making new commitments or clarifying the reasons why they should end the marriage, including finding the right way to end the relationship.

Is marriage counseling effective?

Marriage counseling is believed to be effective in helping domestic problems. According to the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, this therapy shows a high level of satisfaction. More than 98 percent of couples who participated in marriage counseling reported that they were very satisfied with the counseling experience.

The same thing was shown in a study published in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy. The study reported that, marriage counseling was successful in helping seven out of ten couples in rediscovering the integrity of their household.

Although the level of effectiveness is high, not all couples will get the same effects from marriage counseling. There are several factors that can affect the success rate of this counseling in married couples who undergo it. One of them is that the couple has mentally and emotionally decided to end the marriage.

In addition, several other factors that can affect the level of effectiveness of marriage counseling are:

• Dedication and motivation from you and your partner to change and achieve goals. Therapy will be less effective if one of you refuses to participate or change.
• The extent to which you and your partner adapt new patterns or perspectives taught during counseling, such as interacting with or maintaining communication with your partner.
• Have mental or substance abuse disorders. If these problems are not treated, it is difficult to achieve success in counseling.
• Domestic violence that may hinder successful counseling.