Silence A Problem for Marriage Counselor
We’ve talked a lot about couples who enter into marriage counseling because of constant arguing and fighting. This type of habitual communication breakdown can cause incredible damage to people as individuals and as a couple and often lead to marriage counseling in order to learn newer and healthier ways to communicate. What happens, however, when a couple has issues that they never fight about?
Izzy and Dennis came to marriage counseling after 28 years of being together. Both were nearing retirement and ending a lifetime of difficult and time consuming careers. They had always said that they would have more time for each other when they retired and had professed that they had worked hard for just that reason. As retirement came closer, however, so did the realization that they felt like strangers whenever they spent any length of time together.
This was not the typical marriage counseling case, and some work had to be done to get to the heart of the problems and help this couple heal their relationship. Izzy and Dennis were quiet individuals who never really fought. Upon deeper consideration, both agreed that this was probably not a good thing and didn’t help the fact that they both considered their marriage dull and lifeless.
Both were passive personality types and preferred to keep things quiet but too much quiet had lead to a silent showdown, where communication broke down and a still avoidance set in.
Eventually, through marriage counseling, this couple learned to communicate better and assert themselves, leading to a positive and lasting relationship through their retirement years.
Marriage counseling is for more than just people who can’t stop fighting, its also for couples who need to speak up and make themselves heard again.
Related Posts
- A Marriage of Silence
- Learning Silence in Therapy
- Common Marriage Problem Causes
- Marriage Counseling at the Early Stages of a Problem
- Irreconcilable Differences – When a Problem is too Great
