A Marriage Coaching Experiment Reflection

Relationship Design


Photo courtesy tygerlyl

A few months back I offered two couples the opportunity to experience three free sessions of marriage coaching. I was very pleased with the response. 18 couples responded by throwing their name in the hat, and when I asked each couple to send a bit more information about the areas they wanted to work on in order to help narrow down the choice, 12 followed up with this info.
From this information two couples were chosen and the coaching commenced, at least in theory.
One couple was completely on board and began the sessions almost immediately after being chosen. In fact, if you’d like to see their reaction to the whole experience, go here.
What surprised me was the difficulty the second couple had getting started. It turned out that the second couple had too much going on with work and life so the slot was offered to another couple. Same response.
Interestingly, the couples who were too busy to participate in the sessions are the ones that may have benefited most.
It seems from the reaction to this experiment and through discussions about this experiment with friends and other Tweeters, people are far more likely to seek assistance when the marriage is in crisis than work to improve the marriage while things are going well.
Why is this?
Do things really have to go bad before you’re willing to work on it?
What’s your reaction?