Christian marriage counseling is an option that Christians have when their marriages are in trouble. But it may not be for everyone. A great deal has to do with how deeply religion figures into your life. In some situations, though, Christian marriage counseling can make a huge difference in your marriage.
Regular marriage counseling is certainly an option for anyone who is having problems in their marriage. This is a secular form of counseling that focuses on the way you treat each other in your marriage. While Christian marriage counseling also focuses on this, often there's an emphasis on prayer and giving over your problems to God.
While this approach may work for some people, it certainly isn't for everyone. And it's not even right for every Christian. Much depends on both partners attitudes at God, church and religion in general.
Some Christians prefer to let God handle every problem and they spend lots of time praying. Others feel more that God answers prayer when you take action to try to fix the problems yourself. If a husband and wife have differing views on this issue, Christian marriage counseling could actually cause more problems.
If the counseling is faith-based and focused on action over prayer and waiting for a miracle, the prayer-centered partner might not feel good about it. If the counseling focuses on prayer rather than action, the more aggressive partner might feel it's a waste of time.
And the last thing you want counseling to do is cause more problems. But if the approach is one that can be seen as divisive by either person, it could cause more problems than it solves.
You need to find out what kind of approach the Christian marriage counseling will take before you go. Or agree to go to once session and see what it's like. But you should agree that if either of you find it offensive, condescending or going against your beliefs that you won't go to a second session.
Sometimes this type of counseling uses edicts from the Old Testament of the Bible that essentially give the woman no rights. When counseling is of this type, essentially the blame for marriage problems falls on the woman. Some churches believe that the women should be as subservient as women were in Biblical times.
You would do well to find out if this is the church's attitude. These groups feel that women should basically serve the man, and the man only fails if he doesn't respect the woman and praise her for all her service and obedience.
If you get involved in this type of counseling, it should be little surprise that this could cause far more problems than it solves unless this is the attitude you both share. As with any type of counseling, it's important that the approach is one you can get behind.
Also, with both secular and Christian counseling, it's important that you feel comfortable with the counselor or the pastor who will be helping you.
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