re: Anyone here had their marriage saved by counseling?

Counseling can work wonders if both parties are open to working on issues. Marriage is not 50/50, its 100/100. My wife and I have been married for 10 years and occasionally get off the rails. We still see our same counselor that we saw before we were married to help get us back on track. Marriage is the hardest thing 2 people will do together and if you are not willing to give 100% even when shite gets rough, then you shouldnt get married.

I had zero problems in my marriage, but got bullied into supporting a buddy that was going through a tough time with his. Through this process, I got bit by a shark and the stress caused problems in my marriage. Luckily we got hammered one night at a dance club and made up. I am now a shark attack survivor and never have to go alone....to Applebee’s.

Not really. Counseling seemed to pit us against each other. Most likely our immaturity at the time. We'd only been married seven years. We were a step away from divorce.

The book that really helped us was "The Five Love Languages" by Gary Chapman. A really simple book that works -- if you're both committed to make it work. We've been married 33 years now.

I've learned that both parties must work on being less selfish every day. Most, if not all marital problems stem from selfishness.

JMHO
YMMV

saved my marriage. Not afraid to admit it. I was seriously skeptical. Turns out I had no idea to communicate and neither did she. It taught us a lot about conflict resolution and only discussing the current issue not anything else that had happened in the past. We 100% would not be together today raising our 3 kids with out it. If you are in Lafayette let me know.

Meauxjeaux, thanks for sharing your story.

What a powerful reminder for you and your wife that He loves you and has a plan for you. And what a special legacy for your family and your uncle as well that can be shared with your children and their children.

God doesn't promise that He will intervene and make things easy or right in this life, but when He does intervene, it's life changing isn't it?

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The book that really helped us was "The Five Love Languages" by Gary Chapman.

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This is a great book even if you're not having issues!

Another one along that vein (written more for women) that I like is "The Dance of Intimacy" by Harriet Lerner.

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Meauxjeaux >>>>>>>> Mo Jeaux

And it's not even close.

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It's because of Jesus isn't it? Meauxjeaux let him take the wheel.

I wouldn't say the counseling saved my marriage. But it certainly didn't hurt it. What I found was, that we got a really good counselor who was no nonsense, and wasn't afraid to call us out on our bullshite. Mine was called out, and so was hers. Ultimately we were adult enough to want to save our marriage, and I wasn't as much of a frick up as it appeared to be.

No. My ex lied in the sessions and the therapist would take my side in one on one sessions yet take the wife's side in the couple's one. I told the therapist not to say I'm right for the sake of it but to be honest with me. I left each session more and more angry.

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What happened in the 20 minutes that your uncle was there that saved your marriage?

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Well it was just the fact that he showed up out of the blue...

I should have emphasized that my wife was at the same point I was - we both were done.

The conversation basically went like this -

Us: "Uncle XXXXX! What are you doing here?!??!"

Uncle: "Well, I don't know. You know I pray for you guys alot. And the Lord just led me to know that I needed to come see you. And I try to be obedient."

It was the shock of it all.

Neither of our families thought we were having marriage trouble. They knew we were under alot of stress, but were always amazed at how we were handling things.

It was just that day, that moment, for him to leave his family and drive 9 hours one-way just being obedient to what he thought he was called to do.

I will expand on this, that ultimately it revealed to us more about what marriage is, what the commitment is, what it sets us up to be in a spiritual battle that rages out of our sight here on Earth.

I know this crosses over into too much "God stuff" and that will turn some(many?) off pretty quickly, but it was a defining moment for us and hopefully others as well.