Family Dynamics In Marriage-Take A Step Back With Unbiased Eye

There can be many different family dynamics in marriage that occur. Often, the ones you are dealing with can be causing a lot of tension and stress. To get to the heart of all the negative issues that plague your marriage, you may need a little more help. Finding a professional who can walk you through it might be a very good idea.

It’s a rare individual who can look at themselves and see all of their flaws. It takes and even more unique individual to actually admit to those flaws even if they have noticed them. When you put two flawed people together with these traits into a marriage, well, yeah the sparks will fly!

The first step you have to do if you want a clear picture of the family dynamics in marriage is to take a step back and try to see your marriage as clearly and with as unbiased of an eye as possible. It might be hard for you to do but it will be easy for your friends, family or a therapist to do.

They aren’t emotionally invested and they aren’t worried about being the one who is “wrong”. They can see things far more clearly than you will be able to see them. Of course, family and friends will be reluctant to tell you the truth because they won’t want to hurt you or lose your friendship by making you mad. So, it’s probably best to find a good therapist, they have nothing to lose so you know they will be honest.

Finding the unhealthy dynamics in your family is just step one, the next step will be to get all parties involved on the same page. Trying to get more than one person who is willing to face their own flaws and actively make changes is challenging, to say the least. Most people simply aren’t strong enough to be willing to face their flaws let alone actually make strides to change the. Trying to get two or more to do it is close to impossible.

Still, it is worth a shot. The depth of the issues and the depth of the love are two very important factors that will help determine how likely you are to succeed in each making some needed changes. If one partner just doesn’t care that much, or is just too selfish and immature, and won’t try, it will be pretty close to impossible to make any real changes and make the dynamics of the family any better.

Whatever the dynamics of your family are, you should always try to make improvements if you aren’t happy with the way things are. No one knows whether it will fail or succeed but if you aren’t happy right now, you really don’t have anything to lose, do you?

Family dynamics in marriage has many sides and can be quite convoluted. For that reason finding a professional who has experience in these issues will go a long way to helping your family find the peace and stability you all really want.

If your relationship is in trouble, you might want to consider counseling to help save your marriage.  Your marriage is the central point in your life.  All of your other relationships – with children, with family, and with friends – revolve around the marriage axis.  Therefore, there is a need to help save marriage.

How do you know if marriage counseling is right for you?  If you have any of these problems, you might want to consider counseling to help save your marriage:

·    Infidelity
·    Communication
·    Conflict
·    Work-Life Balance
·    Problems with Children
·    Blended Family Issues
·    Family Violence
·    Substance Abuse

A family counselor or therapist will be able to help you to enhance your family relationship by helping you to explore effective communication techniques, conflict resolution solutions, and other kinds of “coping skills” that will make your family work better.  A therapist can also help you work on resolving deep issues that have carried over from childhood traumas.

So, how to you choose a family therapist?  Well, you should know that you don’t have to pick the first one you call.  It is perfectly acceptable to interview three to five counselors before deciding which therapist will work best for you and your spouse.

Some of the questions you might want to ask include:

·    Have you worked with couples experiencing the difficulties we’re having?
·    What should I expect from counseling?
·    What are your treatment methods?
·    What are your prices?

You can find the names of therapists by asking for referrals from friends or family members who have tried counseling themselves.  There are also referral services set up by non-profit boards who can give you the name or names of licensed professionals.

If you do not get a satisfactory number of referrals, you might want to check out therapist’s sites on the internet.  When the yellow pages was the only source of advertising for therapists, the consumer would get little more than a name and a phone number.  But now, a counselor’s site can include a resume, articles he or she has written, and a description of their practice.  You will be able to get an idea of how a therapist will work from his or her web site.

You do want to make sure that the therapist you choose is licensed.  Some therapists have what is known as a MFT (Marriage & Family Therapist License) which can only be obtained after a therapist completes both a master’s degree in Psychology and 1500 hours of internship work under another licensed therapist.  Other acceptable licenses include the LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker), Ph.D or Psy.D. (Psychologist with a doctorate degree) and M.D. (Psychiatrist.)

You want to choose a licensed professional because there are educational, internship, and practice standards that must be maintained to retain the license.  “Relationship coaches” and others with similar names do not have similar obligations.

Different counselors have different payment options.  Some offer sliding scale fees while others are able to take insurance.

What can save your marriage when everything seems hopeless?

Marriage is considered a sacred institution by most of the world’s religions.  It is the foundation of the family, which, in turn, is the foundation for society.  So, there is a lot of emphasis on saving a marriage.

But that doesn’t mean that marriages today don’t run into trouble.  The changing roles of men ad women, financial pressures, and difficulties with children all make it hard to make marriages work.

So who do you turn to?

Perhaps the best place to look is the institution that values marriage more than any other – the church.

While a clinical psychologist or licensed family therapist will take an individualistic approach to marriage counseling, a pastor will focus on making the marriage work in a wholistic sense.  Over all, this has a better chance of actually saving the marriage.

Why is a pastoral counselor better than a secular therapist?

A secular therapist’s education focuses almost entirely on treating individual psychopathologies.  Even “Marriage and Family” designated counselors may have only one class or elective dealing specifically with couple’s therapy.  Do you think this approach can save marriage?

A pastoral counselor, on the other hand, will be educated in how to bring couples closer together.  With the exception of abuse in the relationship, they have the fundamental belief that once the vows are taken, the marriage is forever.

Some pastoral counselors have formal education in counseling.  More and more seminaries are offering pastoral counseling degrees.  But even ministers without a formal degree take classes and seminars in the subject.

If you don’t have a church home, you might have some difficulty finding a pastor to help you.  And, you don’t have six months to establish membership in a church before approaching the pastor.

In this case, you can call various churches and ask them if they have any upcoming couples retreats where you can save marriage through these weekend seminars.  Once you have established a relationship with a skilled pastor in these settings, you may be able to do follow up counselor with the same person.

A good couple’s retreat will help you deal with many different types of issues.  There will be group sessions and couple’s sessions.  You will also have time to work on questions individually.

Communication is a big issue at these conferences.  If you can work on your communications issues, you will find that the other pieces of the relationship fall into place.

Sex, finances, and child raising are also addressed.  The goal is to get you back on track in every aspect of your relationship.  You don’t have to be on the same page going in, but the hope is that you will be when you leave.

Marriage is tough.  Sometimes it seems like the relationship cannot endure.  But, there are so many reasons to see if you can’t make it work.  In this case, consider seeing if a pastor can save your marriage.