Can Marriage Counselling Help Your Family?

The loss of a child can have a devastating effect on the entire family. The empty space at the dinner table, favourite family experiences that now seem to just remind one of the loss, and silent blame are all aspects highlighting the need for professional help to overcome the loss of a loved family member. However, even with trauma counselling, families may still drift apart over the years because of a traumatic experience, such as the sudden death of a child. Marriage counselling is not a magic ritual that can solve deep-seated issues overnight. However, it does provide for a good foundation with an objective registered psychologist to guide the sessions and ensure meaningful engagement in communication.

Maybe your family has never been through a traumatic experience, but one of you has been unfaithful in the past. Even though the party has been forgiven, the unfaithfulness has caused a breach of trust. Being unable to address why the party was unfaithful and how it affected the spouse may be the reason for the constant distrust from the one partner and the hurtful remarks of the other. Marriage counselling provides a safe space in which to address such sensitive issues, thus helping partners to communicate without fear of ridicule, retaliation, or conflict escalation. It helps partners to solve issues and actively work towards understanding each other.

Can marriage counselling help your family in every situation? Perhaps not, but it does provide the platform from which to work towards the common goal of saving and improving the relationship between partners. Take, for example, how stressful it is when a childless couple tries to conceive a child without success. Also, consider the impact of the longing for a child and then consider how one partner can start to feel inadequate. Not understanding the fears, feelings of despair, and causes of stress between partners can lead to more conflict or even the complete lack thereof because nobody wants to address the issue. However, meaningful marriage counselling helps to build a bridge over the issues that have caused a divide. It helps the couple to work together as a unit.

Another example where marriage counselling can help to heal and rebuild is where a couple has experienced financial loss because of an investment mistake or perhaps retrenchment. Even though it does not seem as if it is a relationship problem, once the financial loss and the subsequent loss of security and hope for the future affect how couples interact with each other, it becomes a relationship issue that is best dealt with through the help of a registered psychologist.

Benefit from professional assistance. Get in touch with Tienie Maritz in Pretoria for a marriage counselling appointment.