Why couples wrongly avoid marriage counseling

Marriage counselors often find themselves working with just one spouse in an effort to solve the problems in a marriage.

And though an attempt is usually made to involve the other marital partner in therapy, it often is not successful.

I reached this point recently with a wife who had come to me for help with her marriage. She had done everything she could think of, and then everything I suggested, to get her husband to join her.

"I just can't understand why he won't come in," she said with more than a bit of exasperation.

My reply surprised her: "I can."

Actually, there are a number of reasons husbands and wives avoid counseling, even when their spouses are signaling clearly that something is wrong.

First, a lot of us see a marriage counselor as somebody we are going to pay to tell us it's all our fault. And who needs that?

Many of us feel guilty enough (though we often won't admit it) when our marriage is in trouble. We don't need some expert confirming our suspicion that we are at least partially to blame.

A second reason also has to do with the question of blame. Sometimes we decide the difficulties in our marriage are entirely the fault of our spouses. We see very clearly what they are doing to contribute to the problem, and we are convinced that if they just got themselves "fixed" everything would be fine.

On the other hand, some of us resist our spouses' cry for help because we honestly don't see a problem. We are satisfied enough with our marriage, and often believe our spouses would be to if they would just let things be.

Fourth, some of us avoid working on our relationships because we are convinced they aren't fixable. We are afraid our marriages will go down the tubes no matter what we do. In fact, we suspect, trying to make things better will only hasten their getting worse.

Finally, some of us just won't give our spouses the satisfaction of our admitting that they might be right. Our marriages may need help, but we're not about to let them "win" this one. We see refusing to meet with a counselor as just one more stand we can take in the chronic marital war we've been fighting.

There are, I'm sure, other reasons why people avoid marriage counselors. I think, though, these are the ones I hear most often. And, as you might suspect, there is a problem with each of them. Let's look at them one at a time.

1. Marital problems are never all our fault. We may feel like they are (the "I'm so awful" syndrome), but a marriage takes two people to work, and usually two people to not work. When we shoulder all the blame, and then use that as a reason to avoid working on our relationship, then we really are just making things worse.

2. Marital problems are never all our spouses' fault, either. I often suggest to couples caught up in blaming each other that I'll give them 50 percent of the credit for what is right in their marriages, and 50 percent of the blame for what is wrong. They soon catch on that attempting to assign such percentages, and blaming in general, doesn't really help matters at all.

3. Just letting things be, settling for the status quo because we can live with it, is no answer either. If one marriage partner is unhappy, then there is a problem, even if the other partner doesn't see it. Marriage must be a satisfying and growing experience for both husbands and wives. And it is both spouses' job to make it so.

4. Unfortunately, sometimes we are right when we suspect that our marriage isn't fixable. If that is so, however, it is time to find out for sure.

Waiting around for things to just fall apart on their own, doing nothing out of fear of doing the wrong thing, or perhaps hoping that things will somehow just get better on their own are not fair to either of us. We all are entitled to healthy, fulfilling marriages. And we deserve a chance to build them, now or in the future.

5. When we won't join our spouses in therapy simply out of spite, we need to be aware that the cost of winning that little battle can be losing the war. Our refusal to work on our problems may, in fact, be the beginning of the end for our marriages.

I don't know that all this will convince anyone. I guess I'd like to think it would. Too many marriages die not because they have to, but simply because one spouse was not willing to try to save it. That's sad.

• Dr. Ken Potts is on the staff of Samaritan Counseling Center in Naperville and Downers Grove. He is the author of "Mix Don't Blend, A Guide to Dating, Engagement and Remarriage With Children."