Marriage Counselor: 11 Signs Your Relationship is in Trouble

(Bethesda, MD August 14, 2012) Marriage counseling expert Dr. Joe James has revealed 11 signs that a marriage or relationship is in need of professional assistance or may be headed towards divorce.

The 11 signs are as follows:

1) Communication seems like it is going in circles
2) S/he seems unwilling to compromise
3) Your personalities seem incompatible
4) His/Her family seem to get in the way
5) You stonewall one another
6) Fighting never seems to reach resolution or become physical
7) You feel a sense of disdain towards one another
8) You rarely or never have sex
9) You can’t agree on how to raise or discipline your children
10) You make contemptuous remarks to one another
11) You have discussed or fantasized about divorce
 
“Its very rare that a couple in crisis has only one or two of these signs” explains Dr. James,  “in fact, many of the couples I see can put a check mark next to each one of these signs of crisis”.
 
Interestingly, even though many couples will acknowledge that their marriage in crisis the vast majority are initially hesitant to seek help.  According to Dr. James “Research indicates that the average couple waits roughly six years after the onset of problems before seeking therapy. They’ll talk about how miserable their marriage is but won’t do anything about it until they are on the verge of divorce”. 
 
Dr. James believes this hesitancy to seek help is due to either the stigma of seeing a therapist or the underlying feeling that counseling will not be helpful. “Oftentimes early on problems are very easily treatable but the longer a couple waits for therapy the more entrenched their problems become. The irony is that the longer a couple hesitates because of concerns that therapy will be ineffective the more they are creating a self -fulfilling prophecy of their problems becoming more difficult to treat.”

For more information please visit http://www.MarriageCounselorMaryland.com

Contact Information

Dr. Joe James

Psychologist

Joseph W. James, Ph.D., P.C.

(1) (301) 657-1144

drjoe@drjoejames.com