Every spring marks the launch of the wedding season, which means that every spring our refrigerator door fills with Save-the-Dates, and my husband prepares to officiate some of them. I always look forward to each of these happy occasions, but I especially anticipate the weddings my husband performs. For one thing, as he stands before the congregation looking tall and handsome in his suit, I am reminded of our own beautiful wedding day. But more important, I look forward to his charge to the bride and groom, since it is often a reflection of what God has been teaching him through our marriage. This year was no different.

At the end of May my husband officiated a wedding at which he spoke about wisdom. Referencing Proverbs, he noted the important scriptural distinction between the wise person and the fool. As he explained, the wise person is not marked by the possession of wisdom, per se, but by her openness to wisdom. She seeks after it. And as Proverbs tells us, the wise person does not believe she is wise unto herself, but instead finds wisdom in the presence of many counselors.

My husband added that this biblical teaching is one reason we, as a couple, go to marriage counseling.

for the majority of our marriage, my husband and I have seen a marriage counselor. We made the decision to incorporate this practice into our married life before we ever got married, for two reasons. First, my husband comes from a broken home and he did not want his own family to experience the same brokenness. Second, given the high rate of divorce in our nation, we didn't want to "hope for the best." We wanted to work toward it.

And what is the divorce rate today? Most of us have heard the oft-cited statistic that "half of all marriages in our country fail." However, that number depends on a few things. Sociologist Mark Regnerus recently explained that while the ratio of marriages to divorces was 2.05 to 1 in 2000, by 2010 it had shifted to the worse ratio of 1.89 to 1.

There is more to this statistic than meets the eye. As Regnerus explains, the divorce rate in our country has actually decreased by 10 percent in the past 10 years, while the rate of marriage has decreased by 17 percent. This means that the current ratio is not the result of an increase in divorce, but a more rapid decrease in the rate of new marriages.

Complicating the statistics further is the reality that divorce rates vary depending on location, socioeconomic status, and other demographics. Regnerus notes that in Mississippi, for example, there are almost as many marriages as there are divorces. What's more, college-educated couples are less likely to divorce, whereas low-income couples are more likely to divorce.

All those nuances aside, the fact remains that the divorce rate is very high. While the marriage/divorce ratio in our nation is roughly 2 to 1, Regnerus adds that between 1950 and 1970, the ratio was 4 to 1. That shift is large enough to impact families regardless of education or income. Even though I belong to a demographic that is more conducive to lasting marriage, I have many friends and family members who divorced before they even reached their 30s. Most of them were also committed Christians.

When it comes to marriage, the statistics are not on our side, so my husband and I have chosen not to be passive in our response. Divorce is now an integral part of how our culture thinks about marital options, and my husband and I belong to that culture. We therefore decided to install safeguards to help us navigate the obstacles of marriage today. Marriage counseling is one of those safeguards.

That is not to say that marriage counseling is by any means a marital panacea. However, we have found it benefits us in two key ways. First, it enables us to address problems early on. I should point out here that we did not choose marriage counseling because of a major problem. We chose it because we did not want to have major problems. We both noticed that when an issue is allowed to fester in a marriage, the couple is less likely to tackle it together. That is to say, conflict breeds division and raises barriers. If too much time passes before an issue is addressed in counseling, the unity of the marriage has already been compromised and a couple is less able to work together. We therefore wanted to confront conflict long before our barriers were up.

Second, marriage counseling has equipped us with skills for enhancing our communication. Our counselor has provided us with numerous practical tips to navigate difficult conversations. And while the techniques themselves are helpful, it also speaks volumes to me when my husband merely attempts to use them. If we find ourselves in a disagreement and my husband actively draws on a method that we learned in counseling, one that is designed to help me feel safe and understood, I am immediately disarmed. I know he desires reconciliation and wholeness between us, and I am encouraged to reciprocate.

My husband and I belong to a generation of young people who do not know how to do marriage well, which is why this latter benefit is so important to us. In a culture of instant gratification and entitlement, many couples feel duped and unprepared when they realize they must work hard to make marriage succeed. Marriage counseling has helped us on that front, and in very practical ways.

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There is more to marital success than marriage counseling. The couple's commitment to Christ and membership in a community of believers are primary. However, marriage counseling is a tremendous resource at a time when Christian marriage is in as much distress as the world around us. We are a generation that must re-learn how to do marriage well, and counseling has aided us in that effort.

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