The TRUTH About Marriage Counseling

Join Dr. Joe Beam and Kimberly Beam Holmes, CEO of Marriage Helper, as they delve into the complexities of marriage counseling in this enlightening episode. Dr. Beam clarifies that he isn't against marriage counseling but emphasizes the importance of choosing the right counselor. Kimberly shares her journey from training in marriage and family therapy to her transition to psychology, driven by the transformative power of Marriage Helper workshops.

They discuss the challenges and biases within the field of marriage counseling, highlighting the importance of seeing the marriage as the client rather than an individual spouse. The episode touches on ethical considerations and the potential biases counselors may bring based on their personal experiences, emphasizing the need for a balanced approach that benefits the marriage as a whole.

Learn about the unique dynamics of counseling and workshops, the role of biases, and how to set boundaries and expectations with a marriage counselor. Discover why Kimberly and Dr. Beam advocate for workshops that focus on positive aspects and principles, aiming for the preservation and improvement of marriages.

For couples seeking guidance, learn how to engage with marriage counselors effectively and explore the potential of Marriage Helper workshops. Visit marriagehelper.com/apply3 for more information on workshops and to book a consultation with their specialists.

This episode is a must-watch for anyone navigating marriage counseling or looking for alternative ways to strengthen their relationship. Tune in for practical advice, professional insights, and a fresh perspective on making marriages work.

Book a call with an intake specialist.


Relationship Radio is hosted by CEO of Marriage Helper, Kimberly Beam Holmes, and founder of Marriage Helper, Dr. Joe Beam.

Regardless of your situation, what we teach will not only make your relationships better, but will also help you to become the best version of yourself along the way.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

People sometimes ask me hey, dr Beam, based on some things I've heard you say, it appears that you are against marriage counseling. No, that's not right. I try to tell people that if you're going to get marriage counseling you need to know some things about marriage counselors so that if you go get that help, you'll get the right person to help you.

Speaker 1: 0:50

So let's talk about marriage counseling Dr Joe Beam with Marriage Helper. This is Kimberly Holmes, our CEO. Kimberly actually trained. At one point you were in marriage and family therapy, getting your master's degree before you changed over to pure psychology. And why did you not finish the MFT degree?

Speaker 2: 1:09

Well, because I realized firsthand the frustration that I experienced of having a couple in my office that just continued to stay stuck in their patterns and in their behaviors. It was difficult to get them to see what to do differently, Whereas on the weekends I would be working at our workshops, at the marriage helper workshops, and within three days I would see the amazing turnaround that would happen within couples in similar situations. And so that's when the light bulb went off for me and I said I see the potential of marriage helper and what it does for couples and how effective it is. And so that's when I made my transition to put all of my passion and energy into helping marriage helper grow.

Speaker 1: 1:56

So it wasn't. If you were entire marriage counselors, it was like I have a better direction to go to help couples. Is that what I'm hearing?

Speaker 2: 2:04

Yes, that's correct. Now I will say, just like probably many professions, once you kind of see behind the curtain, there are parts of it.

Speaker 2: 2:14

There are parts of it that you maybe don't love quite as much, but I think it's like that for everything, and I do believe that the training and the education that you get as a marriage and family therapist is very good and it helps you to think in many different types of systems and many different types of ways of just approaching a situation, and there's definitely many different schools of thought that counselors can use as they approach situations, and so I believe all of those things are helpful. But and so it wasn't even that part of the marriage and family therapy degree that kind of took the the luster of it away from me. It was more so of realizing that there were, there were people in my cohort that there were people working with at the same time on the same degree cohort.

Speaker 2: 3:02

Right, yes, exactly. Who just weren't necessarily making wise choices in their own marriages, and I couldn't rectify in my mind that these were going to be the people helping other people with their marriages. And now that we've been in this profession for a while, we do see that there are many counselors who bring their own bias, even though you're not supposed to. We're all human. There's many counselors who bring their own bias of their own experiences and situations and their own divorce or marriage situations into their counseling setting, which is, you know, less than ideal.

Speaker 1: 3:42

Yeah, but it's a major premise in psychology that everybody's biased. And that our bias can affect our judgment, affect our actions, even if we are not conscious that it's our bias that does that.

Speaker 2: 3:56

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:56

So even me, for working people in our workshops, whatever. There's always potential bias, but when you're working with one person that you're trusting to be your guide and please don't misunderstand there's some amazingly great marriage counselors out there don't understand, don't misunderstand. Everybody has their bias, and so what you want to do, though, is find someone that can be a person to help you both feel good about the relationship. Typically, typically, what I hear from people when they say well, we've been a marriage counselor. They were coming to see you and remember, there are some marriage counselors out there that are awesome. There's actually some that we send people to Like you need to go see him or go see her, because we think they can really help you with that issue.

Speaker 1: 4:39

So don't think we're against them all. What we're against is going to a marriage counselor that has a set agenda. We also think it's not wise to go to a marriage counselor who sees one of you as the client rather than seeing your marriage as the client. Now, I've often told people Kimberly see if you agree, if you're going to go for counseling, ask for a few minutes up front on a phone call and, in that phone call, say, well, who would be the client Is it going to be me, my spouse are going to be the marriage. And if the counselor says what, what do you mean? The marriage? They thank you very much and move on, Because there are counselors out there who will actually tell you up front my client's the marriage. I'm not here to help you guys split up, Because if a person sees one of those two people as being the client, then they can help people go their own direction pretty quickly.

Speaker 2: 5:33

Well, if they're saying one or one or the other is the client, because then what they're trying to do is they're caring more about the feelings and outcome for one person than for the two people coming, than for the marriage, the two people coming together.

Speaker 2: 5:51

And that's what makes it incredibly difficult. It actually I mean a lot of counselors. If you don't come and start coming as a couple, then they will ethically say I can't see your marriage as a client. But unfortunately, what several counselors do is when they have, let's just say, a wife. If their wife is the one who comes into the counseling office, then, as the counselor, what we're taught is our goal is to help them process through their emotions, help them get to a better place, all of those things. And if that's my goal, then I, as the counselor, may see, based on what the wife tells me, that her husband is leading her to have, you know, negative self-esteem, feeling bad about herself, you know, and so I may begin to ask questions or probe or kind of give some ideas To her because I'm looking out for her well-being. That actually isn't for the good of the marriage and May not be for the good of her.

Speaker 2: 6:46

Well, absolutely and may not be for the for the good of her.

Speaker 2: 6:49

I.

Speaker 2: 6:49

It's so common now that people will say, well, my counselor recommended that we do a trial, separation Even if they're not seeing both people, or they recommend that I set these kinds of boundaries.

Speaker 2: 6:58

Or they told me that my spouse may be a narcissist, and those are just things that Once a counselor says it, it has weight to it and so the person will likely begin to act on those things. When, as the counselor, like you, we only get one side of the story, the council only gets one side of the story, and and so we. That's one of my frustrations with marriage counseling is, if you don't really understand and aren't skilled in Viewing the marriage as the client, even when the other spouse isn't there, then how are you actually doing things to help the marriage Get better, also realizing there may be some personal things that a that a just the wife does need to go through, but how do you make sure that in your counseling of her, you're not Really getting her to think more negatively about her husband, which seems, to be, based on Interactions you've recently had with some researchers, to be a growing problem?

Speaker 1: 7:55

Yes, not only will every counselor have some bias whoever here, she is, everybody on the planet but that also means that you have some bias. And so, if you go see a marriage counselor by yourself, you're gonna tell things from your perspective and, whether you realize it or not Maybe you do, maybe you don't you're biased and the information that you share and the information that you don't share, you're gonna leave things out. Okay, so, let's say, a couple decides then that they want to go see a counselor marriage counselor together and remember, we would recommend that you ask before ever make the first appointment. Well, you see the marriage as a client and, as I said a moment ago, if they say I don't even know what that means, they thank you very much. I'm moving on, because if you go in there and they think that their job or the way they're gonna focus it is, I'm gonna help you get as happy as I can, as fast as I can. Now, all kinds of things are gonna happen.

Speaker 1: 8:50

We've had people. Well, as a matter of fact, I'm remembering a woman right now who said in our very first session, by the time we got to the end, my husband and I my husband and telling him how much in love he was with this other woman, how much he wanted to be with her. And so the counselor looked at me and said I don't need you to come back, because in my mind You're the other woman. Now the wife is the other woman because he's in love with the other person now. Obviously then that's the client, the guy and and it's not the marriage right.

Speaker 1: 9:16

And what this counselor would do in that situation is Help that man. It's better. Sometimes they'll even tell you this I'll help you figure out how to have the best, the best divorce possible, right, and then I'll help you with a new relationship. Right now, our view is that sometimes divorce is going to occur and it makes sense, but that if you start with that premise that the easiest way to make people happy is to end the turmoil there and now and send them on their way, then marriages are all gonna split up, because every marriage has turmoil, not every day, but it always has turmoil. And if somebody's saying, oh well, the easiest way to make you happy is just to move you out, and Then, Kimberly, think about the arrogance, this, this sub, you, my all separation thing.

Speaker 1: 10:00

I know often it's done like this Okay, what you got separate for the next six, nine months and I'll see each one of you individually and then I'll tell you when to get back together. Am I wrong? I think that's arrogant arrogance.

Speaker 2: 10:15

One word for it, idiotic, maybe a bit stronger word, I. It's definitely not the approach that we would use and Our research says we have quite a higher success rate than marriage counseling.

Speaker 1: 10:27

Even the research about that. If you separate, then you have just increased the likelihood of the divorce occurring absolutely because couples who separate thinking I'm gonna work on the marriage.

Speaker 2: 10:39

Yeah about 80% of them get divorced yeah and you know it's not, it would not be uncalled for and, in fact, something that I would encourage people yes, do what you said and in try and see if you can talk to them before, see how they're, what they're gonna view the marriage as in the client and all of that.

Speaker 2: 10:55

But also it's not inappropriate in your first session with a counselor to say, to set your boundaries with the counselor Mm-hmm, and to say you know, if you're there for something specific, for cognitive behavioral therapy or for EMDR or something to say and I'm not interested in in talking about these certain things.

Speaker 2: 11:12

I know when I went, I've I mean, I've had my own fair, my own fair share of bad marriage counseling experiences with someone else as my counselor. And so when I went a couple of years ago to EMDR and she would start trying to ask me about my marriage and I was like I don't know, I don't, I'm not here to talk to you about my marriage, like I'm here to talk about other things, and so I would just say to her like we're good, what I actually need more help with is is over here, because I knew One of the Temptations was gonna be to kind of go down that road and start asking me questions in such a way that I may be Be begin to to think, to be frustrated in areas I wasn't there to be frustrated about so things that weren't bothering you.

Speaker 1: 11:54

Exactly start bothering you because they're being probed into.

Speaker 2: 11:59

Absolutely, absolutely, and so it's. And so it's also okay, if you're going as a couple, to then say we are not interested in separation, or to go in as you can set your got your boundaries with your counselor of what you are not okay with and what you Don't want to go into, and they should honor that and so you might even want, if you're going as a couple, to up front, make some things clear to your spouse, like we're not going in there to learn how to hate each other.

Speaker 1: 12:28

We're not going in there to learn how to disparage each other. We're going in there to see if we can figure out how to make this thing work.

Speaker 2: 12:34

Yeah, so we're to just uncover the past and talk about everything we have against each other.

Speaker 1: 12:38

But let's just say up front we're not going in there to learn how to separate. Yeah, we're going there to see if there's a possibility of how to keep this marriage together. And People sometimes may ask what do you think there's ever a case where people should separate? Sure, if somebody's in danger, you have to. If she's afraid he's gonna kill her and he's been beating her up, she needs to get out of that house until something can happen right.

Speaker 1: 13:03

But when you start hearing things from marriage counselor or any kind of counselor, even your best friend or even your mama that will say things like he's no good, she's no good, the only way you'll ever be happy is to kick them to the curb. Blah, blah, blah. All of those people are making judgments about what you should do. Even if it's your mama and I know you'll ever release, I expect that you do that. They're now making decisions for your life. We don't tell people what to do. Let me give you the basic reason. We don't have to live with the consequences. Whatever decision you make, there will be consequences good, medium and bad and it therefore needs to be your decision, not mine, because I can tell you what to do, because I don't have to live with the consequences. You do so, kimberly, while we do think there's some great marriage counselors out there and, like I said, we refer people to them.

Speaker 1: 13:52

It's like every profession on the planet, there are people who are great at it, people who are mediocre and people who are not good at all, and those people, if you go see them, I can help destroy your marriage even when hope is there. So, okay, I'm not trying to run people away from marriage counselors. We're just saying Use good judgment and finding one. So marriage counselors actually come to us for training and you know that I occasionally Counselors have to have so many continuing education units per year, every two years, to keep their licenses, to keep their licenses, and you know that I've gone to counseling centers and spent a whole day teaching so that they could get their CEUs. So we're not against counselors whatsoever there's some awesome people out there but why would our workshop and we've had tons of counselors come to our workshops- yeah who now send people to our workshops.

Speaker 2: 14:44

Mm-hmm. Wow, oh because of exactly what I experienced when I was in my MFT program. There's amazing turnaround that happens in those couples. In three days that one counselor told us it would take the equivalent of six to nine months of weekly counseling sessions to get a couple to that place.

Speaker 1: 15:05

To move that much.

Speaker 2: 15:06

To move that much, and even then it's a hope and a prayer, like hopefully they would have made that much movement. The group dynamic aspect of our workshop is incredibly powerful, because one of the difficult parts that is just impossible to overcome in marriage counseling is that there's typically one person in that room. If it's the husband and wife, there's typically one of them who doesn't wanna be there as much as someone else, and so it can be easy to get defensive or to shut down or XYZ. But when you're in a room of 20 other people, 30 other people, whatever you begin to realize I'm not alone. And this isn't directed at me, I am not the problem here.

Speaker 1: 15:52

I don't have to become defensive.

Speaker 2: 15:54

Right. Exactly Not everything they're saying is about me, where you probably would feel that way in counseling. And so people let their guard down a bit more, which can help them to just soak in the information better and have a better experience overall. And so over the three days that we have together, amazing movement can happen, because it's a very safe environment.

Speaker 2: 16:16

Even with what we were just talking about, those rules we organically put in. We're not gonna tell you to do XY or Z your choice, all of these things are your choice. But we're also not going to encourage any of those things. We're not gonna ask questions in such a way that it gets you to think about the negative. We're gonna.

Speaker 2: 16:35

We do a lot of things where we just focus about the positive, the positives of the past and the positives of the future, and that's just not something that counseling typically does. In fact, there's one part of our workshop when we finally get there. This is like the middle of the third day and we finally get there and we say this is where counseling starts. But we've had two and a half days to get you to the point of where the counseling conversations should start about, because there is in the process of saving your marriage and putting it back together. There is a short stint where you do need to look back for a brief period of time, but it's for a reason and you use it for something going forward, and that's part of what we teach in our reconciliation process.

Speaker 1: 17:14

And just by its very nature, counseling typically is what are you unhappy about Now? What are you unhappy about? And quite often what happens in those conversations is that you start really putting your spouse down Let me tell you when he did that, let me tell you when she did that and people become defensive, they get hurt, they feel like the council takes sides or, at the very least, like I'm being, I'm being disrespected here or whatever it might be. Or that hour we just spent in there was a manmade hell because all we did was hurt the whole hour long by talking about problems. So that's what's came, really saying we believe there is a place where you do that, but we start way earlier than that and then there finally comes a time to do that. And so I'm not putting counselors down. I mean, they've only got a limited number of sessions with you or whatever, because your insurance is only gonna pay so much and they have to kind of get into that.

Speaker 1: 18:07

But that touches your bias, your spouse's bias and the counselor's bias, whereas if you can be in a group of people where we're talking about principles, would the folks working for us have bias? Sure they will. But one of our biases is every marriage can be safe. We actually have that bias and that people are good people even if they do bad things. Now, are there some bad people? I'm sure there are, but we start from the premise Nope, a good person can do some really rotten stuff and so we're gonna treat you like good people. So, kimberly, how could they find out? I know we're not against your marriage counselor. As a matter of fact, if you have a marriage counselor and you come to one of our three day workshops, we don't try to take you away from the marriage counselor. We send you back to that marriage counselor. We don't wanna do anything unethical. So they wanna know more about the workshop. How can they do that?

Speaker 2: 18:55

You can speak with one of our intake specialists. They will have a conversation with you and see which one of our workshops is the best fit, or if our workshop is a best fit for you in moving forward. But you can do that by scheduling a time to speak with them, by booking a call, by going to marriagehelpercom slash apply and then the number three. So it's marriagehelpercom slash apply A-P-P-L-Y three.

Speaker 1: 19:21

So no spacing or dash or anything like that.

Speaker 2: 19:23

No spacing, no dash. You can also get the link in the show notes on YouTube or in the podcast, wherever you're watching or listening to this. And if you're wondering why a three? Because that's what the marketing team gave me, so it is apply three.

Speaker 1: 19:38

We hope that you do. We'd love to help. And if you continue to marriage council or want to start marriage counseling, as Kimberly said, set some standards, set some boundaries when you first go in there, and if they're good people, trained well, they can help you. If they start leading in the wrong direction, don't, please don't let that happen. We'll do anything we can to help and we look forward to seeing you on the next episode of Relationship Radio.