Dragging your spouse into therapy?

You've tried everything. He insists that therapy is useless, or that the time has passed. Maybe he's just willing to go if it will get you to accept what he feels is inevitable. (This works for "she," too.)

Look, if your marriage were good enough to just require a few tweaks, you probably wouldn't need my skill set. I am trained for the extreme cases. So bring it on. If every couple came in for "marriage enrichment," my life would be boring.

The thing is, if you can get both of you here, you are already on your way back from the brink, because however small, that is engagement. Extensive research by therapist John Gottman showed that the only conflict that predicts divorce is when engagement ends--when there is no more arguing, just "stonewalling."

There are many different ways to argue, but what I do is get arguments to be productive. In fact, a fair negotiation is the only way to work hard things out. Arguments aren't a bad thing for a marriage unless they are done poorly. In the therapist's office, I can guide arguments to be productive, and you guys go home with skills to handle future conflicts without freaking out.