How to Bring Up Marriage Counseling with Your Partner

By Encompass Outreach Group

​There are a few subjects that can be incredibly difficult to bring up with your partner, including finances, planning for a child, issues with your sex life, and more. But, there’s one subject that may be the most difficult thing to talk about in a marriage: marriage counseling. If you are thinking about marriage counseling, it most likely means that your relationship is struggling from some issues like the ones listed above and those issues have gone unresolved because they are hard to talk about. Here are some tips for bringing up marriage counseling with your partner and working toward fixing your marriage.

• Make a Plan - The first step you should take when bringing up marriage counseling with your partner is to make a plan. Know what you are going to say and how you are going to say it. It’s important to voice your concerns in a calm, collected manner. You also shouldn’t blindside your partner with this conversation. Tell them you’d like to sit down to have a conversation with them and set a specific time to do so. This will help to make sure they are in the right mindset and will be attentive to everything you say.

• Focus on What’s Working in Your Relationship - When you talk to your partner about the potential of marriage counseling, don’t simply focus on the negatives in your relationship. Instead, make it clear that you love the things that are working in your relationship and you want to try to make the problematic areas like that as well.

 

• Listen to Your Spouse’s Thoughts - Be sure to listen to your spouse’s reaction to your proposal attentively. Really try to understand where they are coming from and make them feel heard. This is something that you should always do when talking to your partner, but when you are talking about marriage counseling it is vital that you listen to their concerns and talk to them calmly about how you think marriage counseling would benefit the both of you.

 

• Make It a Joint Effort - It will be hard to convince your partner to go to marriage counseling if it is a one-sided proposal. If you bombard them with different studies, therapists, books, etc. they may feel attacked and even less likely to agree to seek out counseling. The most important part is to make sure you and your partner are on the same page and then make those important decisions together, so it is a joint effort.

 

• Go on Your Own - If you’ve tried calmly communicating your thoughts to your partner and they are still resisting marriage counseling, you can go to counseling on your own. While it may seem like going to marriage counseling alone doesn’t make much sense, you can still receive the benefits of talking to a relationship expert about your marriage and things that you could do to improve the situation.

 
Encompass Connection Center helps couples learn how to resolve issues and create fulfilling, productive relationships. For many couples, those issues can stem from a lack of communication. Just like any problem, though, communication issues can be fixed. We offer a free relationship assessment to determine your relationship’s strengths and potential threats. For more help, look into our RINGS Experience, which includes marriage strengthening exercises and a coaching model to help build real intimacy and growth skills.

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