By Shanon Roberts, PHD, LMHC

For years I worked with married couples in my practice resulting in personal frustration. They wouldn’t stay for the course and quit before the momentum finally offered them relief, they got better only to see them boomerang back in six months, or there was just too much pain to commit to the process without ensuring a proper payoff. I even considered stopping working with married couples altogether.

“Do couples just fall out of love? Is it true that marriages CAN last a lifetime? Do people just naturally grow apart? Can marriages REALLY get back on track and find romance again after stagnation, pain, or worse yet, indifference?” These were the nagging questions from my clients and, worse yet, in my own head!

I made a decision right then and there that I was going to figure out this whole “marriage recovery thing.” This process that would allow married couples to be as in love as the day they said “I Do” - even if it killed me. I researched, found the evidenced-based intervention that was seeing UNHEARD of results that hadn’t been seen in traditional counseling settings, went through the extensive training, incorporated the spiritual interventions necessary for God’s design of marriage, tested the intervention for my PhD dissertation body of research, and designed the Marriage Made Whole: Falling in Love All Over Again program for marriage counseling.

I watched my couples SKY ROCKET back to life, their sense of connection deepen, their wounds heal, and their confidence and understanding of one another transform.

This is what I learned about why traditional marriage counseling is INEFFECTIVE! Some counselors do not have a distinct model of intervention especially designed for marriage counseling, have not been specifically trained in a model for couples counseling or do not have a distinct system that has steps to move them from beginning to ending. The intervention used by some counselors doesn’t have science to back it up. If the clients are faith-based or Christian, counselors are not trained to incorporate the spiritual component into the model, allowing the sensitivity and design for marriage that they are most comfortable. Traditional, one-hour a week, outpatient setting is outdated and doesn’t work. Too much time is wasted coming in and out of only a one-hour box. Life stressors happen in-between sessions that prevent the session from getting to core issues - only focusing on just the surface fires. Lastly, a lack of relief in a short amount of time leads to discouragement and low motivation of follow through.

Having the right framework, with a definitive structure approach, honoring the belief sets of the client in a two or three day one-on-one intensive setting is KEY! A couple can see dramatic change in this amount of time that traditional outpatient counseling would take months to achieve.

Imagine rediscovering that the love of your life is very possibly the person you said yes to once upon a time. That you, too, can have the marriage of unending love, commitment, fun and passion you always wanted and have dreamed of since your wedding day and as God-designed; and you can have it in a matter of days!

If you are interested in learning more or want to see if a marital intensive is a right fit for you, book your free 30-minute live consultation with me, Dr. Shanon, by clicking HERE. 

I look forward to working with you as I have many others just like you who make their marital relationship top priority.