Marriage Counselling Alternatives - What are Your Options?

While marriage counselling is a fantastic resource for many couples that just can't resolve their marriage issues alone, marriage counselling isn't the only option for these couples. Marriage counselling alternatives are all over the place, from workbooks that guide you through exercises together as a couple to videos and audio tapes that guide you through processes designed to resolve issues in your marriage.

If you and your spouse aren't quite ready for marriage counselling or don't think it's necessary to resolve the problems in your marriage, consider online marriage counselling alternatives. If you're looking for a program that offers information and exercises to help resolve most marriage problems, take a look at the Save My Marriage Today eCourse from the highly successful author Amy Waterman.

Why traditional marriage counselling may not be for you.
Marriage counselling should be a process to save your marriage, but traditional marriage counselling sometimes drives you and your spouse further away from one another. In order to diagnose the problems, a marriage counsellor must see your relationship in action, sometimes for several sessions before they can even begin to understand the dynamics of your relationship. If you don't want to wait 3-4 weeks for a marriage counsellor to diagnose the problems in your marriage, and then months on top of that while you and your spouse attempt to address the problems, then marriage counselling may be a poor choice for you and your spouse.

In other cases, marriage counsellors can drive the wedge deeper between you and your spouse. Marriage counsellors force you and your spouse to confront the problems in your relationship, with the idea that the counselling session is a 'safe place.' However, when you leave the counselling session, there's no way to unsay what you and your spouse have said, so you have to live with these potentially hurtful and devastating revelations until your next session with the marriage counsellor - which may just consist of more of the same. It's easy to feel that the marriage counsellor takes sides, if one spouse is the source of conflict or if one spouse requires the most placating during a session. If you and your spouse are not 100% committed to resolving all the issues that come up during marriage counselling - if it's just a last-ditch effort to save your marriage but one of the parties isn't fully invested - traditional marriage counselling can cause more harm than good for your relationship. If this is the case, your relationship is better served by seeking out marriage counselling alternatives.

Marriage counselling alternatives.
In many cases, you and your spouse can fix your marriage without a counsellor - using marriage counselling alternatives. The first, and most useful alternative to marriage counselling is to learn to communicate effectively. The entire purpose of marriage counselling is to facilitate communication, and if you and your spouse can master this technique yourselves, you'll be able to do anything that a marriage counsellor can do. The Save My Marriage Today eCourse is full of guidance and exercises that can help you and your spouse improve your communication skills and avoid marriage counselling altogether.

If you and your spouse still can't seem to master good communication techniques, it may be a good idea to involve an impartial third party in your discussions. You don't have to present yourself to a stranger and air your dirty laundry - you can ask a family member, close friend or even your local pastor or priest to help you mediate a marriage conflict. The key to doing this successfully is to choose someone who you both trust implicitly, and whose opinion you are both willing to accept as impartial. If you choose to use a friend or family member to help you resolve your marital conflicts, keep in mind that these people are not professionals, and no matter how well-meaning they are, they simply aren't privy to everything that goes on in your relationship. Only you and your spouse can truly work through marriage conflicts, but having an impartial outsider's opinion can help you see where you're being inflexible or difficult.

Online marriage counselling alternatives.
If you want to keep your marriage difficulties confined completely to you and your spouse, but still feel you could benefit from outside help, you can always turn to online marriage counselling alternatives. The power of the Internet is that you can find practically anything there. If you're just looking for a friendly ear or to find other people coping with similar marriage problems, you can find online chat forums where you can post anonymously about your marriage trouble. The best way to utilize online marriage counselling alternatives is to find a product or program that includes exercises for you and your spouse. Talk is cheap, but exercises can help you and your spouse turn talk into action, and learn how to apply the things that the online resources tell you about improving your marriage. Save My Marriage Today is a great example of an online marriage counselling alternative, designed to help you understand your spouse's motivation and practice techniques to improve your marriage.