Can My Marriage Be Saved? (part 1)

Modern couples face a radically different world than their parents faced. Confronted with economic, family, social, and geo-political stressors that did not exist fifty years ago, modern couples must create meaning from an multi-layered, interdependent, complex, confusing, and always shifting reality.

At times one partner may react to these stressors with depression and anger. The other partner may react to these stressors with anxiety and compulsivity. This being the case, it is very difficult for modern couples to keep their psychological balance while simultaneously continuing to evolve, both as individuals and as a team.

As a marriage counselor in Denver, Dr. Wilson has noticed that couples tend to enter the process in one of three basic ways. First, some couples enter Denver couples counseling because they realize that their relationship is not as healthy as it could be. In essence, these couples are proactive in the face of their ongoing struggles and tensions. They want to continue growing together, and they begin couple counseling with this motivation.

Some couples begin Denver marriage counseling having already done some significant damage to each other, often over weeks or months. Such damage usually comes from one partner attempting to cope with feelings of dissatisfaction, helplessness, fear, or even boredom by taking drugs and alcohol, or engaging in sexual infidelity and/or economic betrayal (one partner is spending money in secret, etc). Of course, such coping mechanisms for dissatisfaction and fear have nothing to do with “feeling better,” but merely represent a deepening of basic conflict and pain. Couple counseling makes it clear that feeling better at your partner’s expense can not possibly lead to lasting satisfaction and happiness.

Finally, some couple"s begin Denver couples counseling with significant and very serious quantities of damage intact from years or even decades of consistently harming each other. These couples are usually on the verge of separation or a termination of their relationship. Sometimes the damage can be transformed into a rebirth of the marriage. Sometimes the couple decides to end the marriage, in which case they have an opportunity to work towards a collaborative divorce. Many times, through such therapeutic collaboration, these couples can end their marriages with an increased sense of compassion, patience, and kindness (as opposed to cruelty, contempt, and bitterness) for each other. This not only spares friends, family, and children a tremendous amount of grief, it usually saves a great deal of money in the end as well.

No matter which couple you resemble, the process of Denver marriage counseling begins with the creation of psychological awareness. As a marriage counselor in Denver, Dr. Wilson is skilled at creating relation and awareness in his clients. Any good relationship counselor must also be able to inspire courage, for it is only with courage that genuine communication begins. An open recognition of all those things between a couple that they normally never talk about is a necessary starting place. Each member of the partnership must become willing to go to these "scary places," both with themselves and with their partner. Most couple"s, even if they started out healthy and happy, somehow (with time and complacency) lose the ability to effectively maintain that co-created health and happiness. Cultivating a deep and abiding awareness about each other, and the relationship, as they actually are, is therefore the first step of couple counseling. This stage of relationship counseling builds the foundation for authentic caring and courageous intimacy.