How To Find A Good Marriage Counselor | Paul Friedman

What makes a good marriage counselor? How can you find a good one? What should you expect at your marriage counseling sessions? Paul Friedman explains how to identify the expectations you should have and the expectations you should go in with in order to determine if you are working with the best marriage counselor.

This is tricky because it really depends on what phase you're in, in the relationship so I'm going to make a few really useful suggestions right off the bat. One is -- do not drag your spouse to marriage counseling, don't do that unless you are both really ready for marriage counseling. If one of you is going against your will then it's going to actually work against you - that's suggestion number one. Suggestion #2 is put a list together of expectations and I'm going to help you with that.

Why did you get married in the first place?

You got married so that you would be happier that your life would become a more fulfilling life. Forget the other person, be very individual right now. It was a selfish move to get married you wanted to be happier, you have to be clear about that.

What do you want from your marriage now? You want to be happier. Why are you going to marriage counseling? To be happier. So what should be at the top of your list in terms of expectations of marriage counseling? You want to be happier.

You don't want to go into marriage counseling and find out all the reasons why you're not getting along that's just dumb. You want to find out from the moment you walk into the session you want to start progressing in a positive direction of happiness. Some marriage therapists are just terrible and they go, "Oh no, we have to unpack this, we have to unravel what's going on. We have to get to the bottom of this." No, you don't.

A marriage counseling session is not a court of law where you're trying to get to the bottom of something. You want to fix your marriage, not this little thing or that little thing, you want to fix your marriage as a whole. In order to do that you have to bear in mind that the whole idea of your marriage is to be happier so you want to do things in that marriage counseling session that will bring you in the right direction. If you're sitting there venting; if you're sitting there blaming -- if you're sitting there explaining how your spouse is doing this to you and not considering and all of that stuff that's not doing any good.

The therapist's role should has to be to move you in a positive direction. Now for instance, when I met with couples together, the first thing that I did, and I only met with couples together after I matured my process I only met with them together one time and in that time what I did was I brought out from both, why they're there? And then which again, so they could be happy again, and then I wanted to demonstrate one to the other that both were sincere and would make a sincere effort to put their marriage back on a pathway to happiness and so that's what your expectations should be that the therapist that you meet with is focus laser-focused on creating a foundation for the both of you to be happy again. Is that so complicated? That should be an expectation.

Now if that's your expectation then you also need to have an expectation of the therapist that they know how to accomplish that. When you go in, the first thing a therapist will usually do is say, "What's going on?" But they usually say that because they don't know what to do. The sad fact is most marriage therapists don't know what to do so they muddle around and they go "Well, how about trying this? How about trying that?" You shouldn't be trying this or that. You should be guided to specifically, do this or that they should know well enough how to guide you back onto a path of happiness.

Expectation #1: You're going in there to become encouraged again that you could get back on a good solid foundation of marriage.

Expectation #2: You should be very clear that this therapist that you're meeting with knows what they're doing. Those are expectations and don't feel bad about saying to your therapist as you walk in because you've never met them before. It's like going in to meet any professional. You go, "Here are our expectations. How are you going to help us achieve happiness again?" And if they tell you, 'Well, we have to unravel all the problems." Then you have the wrong therapist. You cannot get there from here as they say in Maine, you have to start with a very positive process and the therapist you meet with should be an expert in getting you into that right process right from the beginning.

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