Marriage Counseling is a bad idea, if…
“Do you offer marriage counseling?” If I had a nickel for every time I was asked that question, I’d be moderately rich. It’s the big question for many married couples because conflict is inevitable. At some point, communication will break down between husband and wife. And when two spouses hit an impasse, when communication gets bad it’s common for a well-meaning friend to say, “You should go to marriage counseling.”
You can’t blame the friend. The suggestion is usually sincere. However, in the vast majority of cases, marriage counseling as the first and only intervention when conflict arises is a bad idea. Here are four reasons why.
1) The couple is in the beginning stages of divorce
If you drive a car long enough without putting oil in it, eventually the engine block will crack. At that point you can’t just run out and buy a couple quarts of oil, you need a new engine. The same can be true of a marriage that ignores regular and routine maintenance.
Every marriage includes two imperfect people with baggage. If there aren’t preventative steps and consistent upkeep, the relationship can drift toward emotional erosion, bitterness, resentment, disengagement, and eventually betrayal. When a couple has already started divorce proceedings or is highly committed to exploring divorce, marriage counseling is often a waste of time. In many cases, no amount of counseling will overcome years of compounded neglect, or the damage done by repeatedly refusing the “maintenance” that a marriage requires.
2) The wife just wants to dump on her husband
A good marriage counselor treats the marriage as the client, not either spouse as the “hero” or the “problem.” But often the wife is the one driving the ship when it comes to marriage counseling because she sees it as her last hope of getting through to an emotionally distant or immature husband.
That dynamic can easily turn sessions into a dog pile. The wife may do most of the talking, and the counseling room becomes a place for criticism rather than change. Today, women are often praised for high emotional intelligence while men are chastised for low emotional intelligence. But a large economy of words and a strong emotional vocabulary doesn’t automatically mean those words are being used wisely.
If the wife mainly wants a setting where she can unload on her husband without receiving feedback, correction, or accountability herself then marriage counseling is a bad idea.
3) The husband doesn’t know how to reflect on his emotions
The number one complaint I hear in marriage counseling is usually from the wife: “He’s not emotional,” or some version of that. And sometimes there’s truth there. Husbands can appear emotionless for several reasons:
He doesn’t express emotion the way his wife does (especially not with words).
Culture permits him to feel almost nothing except anger and when he shows anger, he’s told he’s emotionally repressed.
He tried being emotionally open, his wife used it against him, and now he’s shut down—confused, embarrassed, and looking for escape (often porn).
He genuinely has little interest in emotional self-reflection and sees minimal value in it.
Usually, it’s a mixture of all of the above.
Whatever the reason, marriage counseling is often not the place for a husband to begin learning emotional awareness from scratch. If he lacks basic emotional literacy, the counseling room can become a stage where he feels exposed, behind, and constantly failing, fueling defensiveness or withdrawal. In that situation, marriage counseling is a bad idea as a starting point.
4) Marriage counseling is the only accountability variable in the couple’s life
Conflict is inevitable, but who knows about it and how they respond matters. Often the wife has close friends who know what’s going on and give advice that may be helpful or may be harmful. The husband tends to be more isolated. Many men don’t like opening up, and they prefer the appearance that everything is fine and under control.
A wife needs trusted friends, and a husband needs trusted friends. But those friends should be invested in the health of the marriage, not merely telling each spouse what they want to hear.
If a couple doesn’t have other mature, impartial sources of accountability, especially couple friends who care about the relationship as a whole and the counselor becomes the only place where honest feedback exists, marriage counseling is a bad idea.
Marriage counseling isn’t automatically bad—but it’s often the wrong first step. If you’re already halfway out the door, using counseling as a venting room, emotionally unprepared, or isolated from real accountability, it will likely stall rather than heal. The better path is a humbler one: own your part, build wise support around your marriage, and pursue the kind of change that happens both inside and outside the counseling office.