With such patients, marriage counselors don’t stand a chance. But that would be true for other health care professionals treating all kinds of illnesses. Cancer specialists, for example, would be considered ineffective if they only treated patients who were in the final stages of the disease — they would not be able to help the vast majority. Instead, to avoid high failure rates, the medical profession spends a lot of time and money telling us about the early symptoms of illnesses, and recommends that we see our doctor at the first sign of these symptoms. Identifying the early symptoms has saved a lot of lives, not to mention making the medical profession look pretty good.
Reading the early warning signs is just as critical for a marriage. Take a careful look at all aspects of your relationship and focus on the things that make you uncomfortable, annoyed, or resentful. If you have an issue, even if it seems minor, and you and your partner can’t come up with a solution together, go for outside help. Marriage counseling has a much better chance of working if you don’t wait until your relationship is on the ropes. You will also find it best not to let small problems fester, because as we said, small problems often become bigger problems later on and can destroy even the healthy parts of your relationship.
