In a time when marriages are experiencing increased stress from financial worries, many divorce firms are reporting that couples are waiting to move forwards with their divorces, because they can’t afford to separate. It used to be that financing a divorce was easy, selling property to free up surplus equity. Now couples might find that one partner is unemployed, their house difficult to sell, and even if they could, they don’t have the funds to establish two homes.

That’s when my good friend Rod Kochtitzky asked me if I ever looked at a map before I went on a long journey. “You can think of couples therapy as the road” he said. “But the Imago couples retreat shows you where you are going.”

The reason this jumped out of me was because after an exciting two days of tracking a few leading blogs about couples counseling and relationships, and even reading Oprah magazine, I came to the conclusion that an awful lot is being written about very little. Remember I’m over 50 now, so I’m permitted to crustily announce to anyone within earshot, or cyber-shot, that the world is becoming depressingly shallow. And if studying 79 students is enough evidence to pronounce that depth is the traveling companion of bliss, then misery loves company as long as it doesn’t challenge its brain cells too much.

This seems to be the point in my blogging career when I need to admit that I live in the same world as one Jerry Seinfeld, formerly knife sharp observer of human foibles, who has now turned the spectacle of marital conflict into public entertainment which reminds me of the moral murkiness of spending saturday afternoon watching gladiators kill each other in the Colliseum. Seinfeld is fairly clear about the entertainment value of his TV show The Marriage Ref. “This is not a therapy show, it’s a comedy show. After nine years of marriage, I have discovered that the comedic potential of this subject is quite rich.” Couples counseling as comedy. At least they walk away physically unharmed.

Imago’s new “marriage counseling” Avatar doesn’t have a blue face and run around jungles. She lives in your computer screen, and provides penetrating insights into your marriage or relationship.

This is the new face of online relationship help, dreamed

Imago Couples Retreats can be a wonderful experience. Karen Schacther attended one recently, and it inspired her to write this guest post, that extends the lessons of the workshop to her work with healthy eating and lifestyles. I found this article on the web, and am grateful to have permission to reproduce it here.

Scott Stanley pointed out that much of the research published recently appears to be reaching completely different conclusions. Just last week I wrote a blog post “Is Marriage bad for Couples Therapists” about British survey that showed how cohabitation with the arch-enemy of long-term relationships, and pointing out the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) didn’t necessarily agree. Then just yesterday the CDC released a report picked by USA today: “Cohabiting has little effect on couple’s success in marriage”.

When I first had marital problems, I hated the idea of seeing a marriage counselor.  Even when my divorce lawyer gave me a card for marriage counseling services I threw it away as soon as possible.  So what was it I had against marriage counselors? In my mind I imagined sitting with my hostile wife [...]