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| Mark Altman |
Finding help for troubled marriages
Last week I covered some reasons you should consider getting professional counseling to get your marriage back on firm footing. Remember, it's much easier to keep a marriage healthy than it is to fix a broken one.
However, for those of us who have accidentally allowed our marital health to slide, this week I want to provide you with suggestions on where to find that help.
The first place I would suggest is the local church of your preferred religion and denomination. Several studies have shown that marriages in which the couples are regular church attendees have a lower divorce rate than couples who do not attend church. Interestingly enough at least one study, a 1997 article in the Journal for Scientific Study of Religion, showed the wife's religious commitment to be of greater importance than her husband's in deriving a marital benefit.
If you do not have a spiritual life, I might suggest you reconsider if only for the physical and mental health benefits suggested by many different studies. However, if this suggestion isn't for you, there are a number of other avenues you should explore.
Because it is snowing to beat the band as I write this, the first place I suggest you look is on the Internet. While it is true there is a vast amount of poor information online, there is also a wide variety of helpful information, including both parenting advice and marital help. The information you can find on the Internet is best for small problems where you are not so much trying to fix something bad in the marriage as much as you are trying to improve something that's already good. For example, you can easily find new ways to be romantic over the Internet, but overcoming infidelity is a job best left to a marital counselor.
There are a number of marital counselors easily found in the local phone book; however, there is also the Dirne Community Health Center on Ironwood Drive here in Coeur d'Alene. They use a sliding scale based on income to determine how much each couple pays. Every Tuesday and Thursday evening, counseling sessions are provided by the volunteer clinic. If you want to find your own counselor, many insurance plans have some sort of coverage for these services.
If your marriage isn't necessarily broken but is in need of maintenance or repair, then possibly going to a marriage conference or two will be helpful. I caution you against going to a conference believing it will cure all your marital ills in a weekend. However, if the conference provides follow up and exercises you can continue at home then you may find it well worth your time. An Internet search, asking friends and neighbors, and keeping your eyes and ears open are the best ways I know of to locate these seminars.
Whatever time and money you spend on your marriage will be paid back to you ten-fold, even if "to death we don't" because you will hopefully use the "lessons learned" in your next relationship. As I have said here before, make sure you are the "best you" you can be and you just might find your partner becoming better as well.
P.S. Remember Valentine's Day is just around the corner!
Mark Altman is a speaker and leadership consultant with the Altman Leadership Center. Mark has completed graduate work in Marriage and Family Counseling and is working on a Ph.D. in Leadership studies at Gonzaga University. He is happy to speak to, or provide a workshop, for your organization and can be reached at mark@taolc.com.
