The Marriage Counseling Blog

The questions asked in a Couples Counseling session are designed to not only give the counselor a better feel for the relationship that they will partner in trying to heal, but to give the couple themselves a chance to really hear their partner’s answers. Often there is a time of “hedging” in these initial counseling sessions where one or both in the couple don’t answer the questions as truthfully as they should in fear of hurting their partner. Other times, however, brutal honesty can take a partner by surprise.

Carla and Jay had been together for 12 years when they entered into couples counseling. Their counselor asked them a typical relationship counseling question, “How would you rate your relationship satisfaction, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest.”

Here were their answers:

Carla
7

Jay

3

Jay’s answer to that question was simply not the answer that Carla had expected to hear. While both had expressed unhappiness and dissatisfaction, the depth of Jay’s unhappiness had not been, until that moment, quantified in a way that Carla understood. Carla’s surprise at the forcefulness of Jay’s answer eventually led her to understand that while her own level of satisfaction was being partly met, her partner’s were not. Jay was able to understand that she needed to communicate her unhappiness more clearly and define her own needs. Couples counseling was a pathway for both of them to communicate and relate to one another on a level that they both understood.

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• Marriage Counseling Questions
• Marrige Counseling Questions at the Start
• Couples Therapy and New Marriages
• Stopping Conflict with Couples Counseling
• Opening Up to the Idea of Couples Counseling