How to Make Your Spouse Participate in Divorce Counseling

The most challenging thing during divorce is communication between partners. 

When things go down the hill, the comfort level is lessened, and situations become awkward. This is because, at one point, things become intolerable, and we want to break apart. But on the other hand, we fear to hurt the other person we share one of the closest bonds with.

This is when divorce counseling comes into the scene and makes the talking and listening between partners a lot easier. There are many benefits of divorce counseling, as it helps the couple take a determined path.

Benefits of divorce counseling

Some of the advantages are:

• Helps to be decisive

Counseling helps to understand what exactly the couple wants. It helps the couple be more confident about the decision and what path to take. That is, whether the couple wats to work on the marriage or wishes to part ways.

• Helps to relieve stress

The counselor will help you with the stress-reducing strategies. Emotions like anxiety, depression, and anger are a part of a rocky marriage. The therapist will help you with these mental health issues.

• Helps family cope up with the changed structure

Whether it’s the children or the extended family, family therapy will help them understand how they will be affected by the changed dimensions and ways to cope with the same. Children, especially, go through a lot of emotional trauma and psychotherapy helps them with it.

• Helps in personal growth and self-awareness

Counseling can give you the idea of what to expect from marriage and if you are getting what you deserve. It paves the way for self-growth and helps you realize your worth.

Divorce counseling for couples is an excellent idea, but many find it very hard to make their spouse participate in counseling.

On the other hand, there are those married couples that look perfect, and you can never see them fight. You think there is nothing wrong in their relationship, but suddenly they say, “We are going to get a divorce”. Their divorce will probably go smoothly even without spouse counseling, but the couples unable to fix their problems peacefully will have to go for divorce counseling for couples.

Knowing that the divorce is not a very friendly deed to do is often very problematic for one of the partners. So much so, that the partner who doesn’t want to divorce, refuses to see a divorce counselor or opt for divorce counseling for couples.

How to make your spouse participate?

Divorce is not easy, and if your partner doesn’t want to come to divorce therapy with you because it’s unimportant for him, be sure that when the divorce happens, it will be much harder.

• Don’t be scared

Never show your partner that the divorce or the divorce counseling for couples is scaring you. If you show fear and insecurity about it, the other person will always feel like he or she doesn’t have to do what you ask. 

The reason for this, among the others, is that the other person is also scared. No one likes getting divorced. It is so because no one got into marriage, thinking about how marriage counseling and divorce will look like in the first place. So when it comes to divorce counseling for couples, everyone is scared.

• Know your partner well

Be sure that the actions you take towards him will be effective. For example, If you are a woman and your partner is a “macho” flirting man, make sure you find a divorce coach that is an attractive woman. 

Sure, this may sound sexist, or look like you are only going more in-depth with problems in your marriage, but therapists are professionals and have probably worked with more complicated people. The roaring lion will be tamed and become a kitty with time.

• Try to reason with them

The good method, of course, must be sought. It will probably be difficult since your partner rejects your idea of divorce therapy for couples, but try to reason with them anyway. “Dear, you must see that we have problems which we can’t resolve on our own, let a professional help us”.

Rarely a marriage gets to divorce because only one of the partners was not committed enough to the relationship, so be sure that your partner doesn’t see you like you are the best of both worlds. It doesn’t matter if you can’t see any flaws in yourself. Use this sentence to persuade: “I’m part of the problem too. Let’s find a solution together”.

Tactical approach

If positive methods fail, try a more tactical approach.

Explain how divorce counseling for couples is extremely important, not for you but for the kids. If you don’t have kids, use a little imagination, and find a good reason to make your spouse believe that divorce counseling for couples needs to be done. “Honey, put our problems aside, we need to do this for the kids. You love little Mickey, don’t you?” – is a good persuasive sentence and is not even far from the truth. The kids are the most important.

In the video below, Susan L. Adler presents the idea that if we nourish our relationships we become a team and build the trust and goodwill that we’ll need to get us through the difficult times. She offers three tools that can help make relationships happier and lasting. Watch the video below:

In the end, if nothing works and you think that divorce is inevitable, don’t lose hope. There is also the facility of marriage counseling for one spouse. So, see a therapist on your own for divorce or counseling. There are plenty of methods of counseling for divorce for men and women alone, and counseling for mixed-agenda couples is now done on a regular basis.

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The Marriage.com Editorial Team is a group of experienced relationship writers, experts, and mental health professionals. We provide practical and research-backed advice on relationships. Our content is thoroughly reviewed by experts... Read more to ensure that we offer high-quality and reliable relationship advice. Read less