Serving couples and individuals in Roseville, Shoreview, Lauderdale, Saint Paul, Falcon Heights, New Brighton, Little Canada, Arden Hills, and anywhere in the Twin Cities

Myth: Marriage Counseling is Anti-Male

Marriage counseling for men

In our culture women have a lot of expectations put upon them. These include being the "relationship expert", family liason, social planner, and emotional one. There can be a lot of approaches women teach each other on how to "get the husband" to do what they want.

Men also come with a lot of cultural expectations. Men often have less practice expressing how they feel because process their friendships and relationships differently with each other. This can sometimes lead to women seeming more expressive, thoughtful, or quicker at talking about relationships.

The problem across our culture is the notion that for a man to improve in his relationship he needs to become more like a woman. Few people aspire to be told how they should act, think, and feel based on something they have no ability to control. Gender is powerful but in my therapy office men will not be told if they were more feminine, all the relationship problems would go away. Nothing is that simple.

Male-friendly marriage counseling

Neither gender is served if one's experience or opinion is valued more highly than the other's. Similarly neither gender is served by forcing one to behave more like the other.

As a marriage counselor I am "biased" towards each side of the relationship equally. My role is to help both people to get beneath the surface and see things in new ways. I often find both people surprised to learn how similar they are once we can strip out some of the cultural baggage and get to the real situation at hand.

Related Myths:

Counseling is all work and no fun

Therapy gives you fancier ways of nagging

Counseling is endless talking