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Marriage Counselors Grow, Too

Experienced marriage counselors have dealt with many common themes and scenarios that enter into their doors. For every couple that hesitates to talk about a specific subject or issue, chances are that at least two other couples have shared that same issue in that same office. Very seldom are there surprises in store for an experienced therapist.

Maggie, a marriage counselor for 15 years, found herself in the somewhat unique situation of being surprised by a couple that she was meeting with for the second time.

I had seen Joan and Richie for their initial session the week before. They had been married for 5 years and had just seemed to lose touch with each other. We talked about what they had felt when they first met and what issues they felt they had now. They expressed a clear disassociation with the emotions that they had felt when they were first dating. I asked them to think about the reasons that got them together in the first place, and how they felt initially.

The next week, Joan brought in a copy of their wedding vows, which they had written themselves. Richie hadn’t know that she brought them, and when she read them out loud you could almost see the connections with their past selves starting to spark again. The changes in their behavior and how they approached their relationship changed dramatically after that session. I was completely surprised at the changes initiated by reading those vows. It’s now one of the things I occasionally recommend to patients when the need is there.

Emotional connections and the drive to heal a troubled marriage are what brings most people to marriage counseling, but occasionally, even the counselors are pleasantly surprised by the strength of their patients.

This article was written by Staff Writer, and posted on Saturday, June 20th, 2009 at 4:36 am. It is filed under Marriage Counselors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.