Marriage Counseling Isn’t Just for “Broken” Couples

When you get married and agree to “for better or for worse,” I would assume you are thinking there will be more “better” days than “worse.” I could be wrong, but I know I was envisioning many more days of frolicking care-free, hand in hand, and way less days of wanting to strangle my husband for who knows what. Then life happened, kids happened, finance changes happened, and roughly 50% less sleep happened. And the “worse” days started becoming more and more frequent.

I wouldn’t categorize our days as “worse” necessarily, but they sure weren’t the “better” I was hoping for. Some days were better, and even the best. Some days were.. not.

So this summer, my husband and I decided after 6.5 years of marriage, 2 kids, a miscarriage, and a 3rd baby on the way.. it was time to suck it up and get in a counselor’s office. We didn’t do this because we were on the brink of divorce. We’ve never even discussed divorce and decided from day 1 that word wouldn’t be in our vocabulary. And to be honest, neither of us are even in the category of wanting that.

Counseling wasn’t a last ditch effort to save our failing marriage, it was an opportunity to increase our “better” days and slow down our “worse” days. Of course there will always be both, but neither of us liked the ratio we were currently in. Neither of us knew the best way to change it. Here enters the professional.

We didn’t really tell anyone we were going to counseling because the connotation associated with marriage counseling just isn’t great. No one cheated. No one developed an addiction. No one became abusive. We were just tired of being annoyed with each other as often as we were. We were tired of our own emotions dictating how we acted and reacted in our marriage.

I realize I have only been in the marriage game a few years compared to some of you, but my one piece of advice would be to GO. Go to marriage counseling if you find yourself having more “worse” days than “better.” Put your pride aside, put your worries aside, and put your fear of others finding out aside.

I’m not one to keep things a secret just because we as a society feel like it shouldn’t be talked about. Now that we are a few months into counseling, I think all of our close friends and family know we are in it. We don’t tell people for any reason other than if it comes up, we aren’t ashamed. We aren’t ashamed we are trying to improve our marriage. We aren’t ashamed that we aren’t the 100% perfect couple we all hope to be. We aren’t ashamed that we are imperfect humans trying to navigate a messy world together with tiny humans and half the brain cells we used to have.

I’ll be the first to say – I needed some direction and enlightenment. I needed someone unbiased to tell me, “Hey, you’re messing up here too.. and here’s how…” I needed this for our marriage, and I needed this for motherhood. I cannot be the best mother possible if our marriage isn’t the strongest possible. I want our kids to see a healthy version of marriage, not some half-way pretending version that includes 2 roommates they call “mom” and “dad.”

Our journey isn’t over. Far from it. We have appointments on the books through December and I have no problem going until next December! When it comes to our marriage, I will go as long as it takes to increase our “better” days. And with that increase, there can only be a decrease of those “worse, I want to throat punch you” days.. and that would be completely fine too.

All this to say – marriage counseling isn’t just for broken couples. It’s also for strong couples that want to be stronger.

Just like the gym isn’t only for weak people. It’s also for powerful people looking to get more powerful. And for this reason, I no longer have a problem letting anyone know that we are knee-deep in counseling and not looking to get out any time soon. 🙂