Congratulations on taking this bold step to get help for your marriage. Research shows that the average couple experiencing problems waits six years before ever seeking marriage counseling. I am proud of you for wanting to fight for your relationship. Why settle for a miserable marriage or divorce. There is another alternative: a supremely happy marriage!! So whether it is fighting all the time, communication, arguing over children, living two separate lives, an affair, or losing that "lovin" feeling, my strong conviction is that you have the power within you to dramatically turn your marriage into a passionate, best friend relationship. It will not be easy, but it is so worth it!
There are no accidents. You fell in love for a reason. Why throw your life into divorce, where there is loneliness, emotional problems, and huge money problems? Like one client said after five marriages, "There ain't no perfect partners, and the grass ain't greener on the other side of the fence." I am ridiculously confident that your marriage can turn around and be a 'fairy tale' marriage. Why do I say that? I have seen countless relationships turn from disaster and despair to peace and passion. I refuse to believe that a marriage is hopeless. Whatever hope you do not have I will supply the rest. This is no absolute guarantee, but the extremely high percentage of marriages that are now booming with success gives me the undaunting courage that your marriage can be one of these.
When you come in for your first appointment, I will see your spouse first, then you, and then we will do an exercise for your marital relationship designed to begin moving you as a couple forward. No arguing in my office is allowed. You can do that at home. I will not take sides, but simply help each of you to become your best in the marriage.
If your spouse refuses to come, that is okay. Your example of getting help plus all of the powerful strategies that we devise together will begin to improve your marital relationship. Unlike my earlier years of counseling, I now believe one spouse can singlehandedly turn around a marriage. I have seen it happen many times.
My approach is a combination of Divorce Busting therapy which Michele Weiner Davis made famous (I renamed it to Results Marriage Counseling because I get so many wonderful and powerful results with this approach) and Imago Relationship therapy made famous by Harville Hendrix. I believe that the combination of the two approaches is dynamite.