My Dating Relationship Advice

If there was one piece of advice I could give to someone before they choose what marriage counselor they wanted to go to, it would be this: choose carefully.

There are several things you should take into consideration before you start going to a certain counselor.

In our society we are trained to respect people who have a degree and advanced learning. And that, in my opinion, is appropriate most of the time.

But when choosing a marriage counselor, or any professional to help you out, you need to look beyond the degrees. The bottom line is that a degree only tells you that someone was able to get through school. They are most likely a good student.

A degree does not necessarily mean that they are any good at that chosen profession (though, in most cases, they will be).

A degree also won’t tell you if they will be compatible with you and your spouse. This may not sound important but it is. It seems that more people today are viewing all types of counseling as more of a collaboration than a “therapy”.

To a large degree, the days of you lying on a couch and spilling your guts while the therapist takes notes are over. Many therapists today treat therapy as more of a give and take.

Sure, you will talk about your fears, concerns and hopes but they will provide you with not only some insight, but maybe some tools as well.

Let me give you and example. Years ago my husband and I went to counseling. One of the biggest problems we were facing was the fact that he would fly off the handle at the smallest things the kids did.

When he overreacted I was put in the position of having to be peace keeper and trying to get the kids to calm down. From there it would just spiral out of control.

Instead of the counselor just listening and taking notes he actually gave us a tool to deal with it.

We had a “code word” that I was to say if my husband was going overboard. That way it wouldn’t sound like I was “taking the kids side” but it would avert a lot of blowups.

This simple tool, or technique, made it easy for us to stave off blowups. This was exactly the kind of thing I wanted from a therapist.

I didn’t want to go to therapy for years and years, I wanted some real world techniques that I could start using right away to improve the situation at home.

This is one of the things you need to consider when you are looking for a counselor.

Figure out if you want someone who will “just listen” or would you rather have someone who will give the two of you some real tools that you can use to start making things better right away.

Once you know what “style of counseling” you want, you can find a marriage counselor that fits in with what you want.