Once you settle down into married life, you and your spouse may hit rocky patches. Until you got married you were both used to dealing with problems on your own. Now, you have problems that you have to deal with together.

People don't automatically have these skills, and even small problems can seem much bigger if you can't sort them out. Marriage counselling may be a help. How can it get you back on track?

1. Work Out Where You Are

Marriage counselling gives you a chance to take a step back and evaluate your relationship. Guided by an experienced counsellor, you and your spouse can talk about how you feel about your marriage and each other right now.

This can cover many different things. For example, you can talk about how your expectations of married life have translated into reality. You can discuss problems that may be making you unhappy in a safe and controlled environment.

The fact that you'll both have equal input helps you build a fuller picture of how your marriage is or isn't working for both of you. You get a more complete overview of where you are.

2. Work Out Where You Want to Be

Once you understand where you are in your marriage, you can think about where you want to be.  You'll both have needs from the relationship. You both need certain things to happen to be happy together in the future.

These needs can be practically or emotionally based. For example, you may feel that your partner doesn't pull their weight in the marriage at the moment. They may leave you to run the house and your joint finances and take no responsibility. To make things feel more equal, you need this to change.

Or, you may feel that your spouse isn't as emotionally committed to the marriage as you are. They may still want to live a single kind of life while you want to settle down. During this stage of the process, you can talk to each other about what you need to happen in the future.

3. Work Out How to Get There

The final stage of the process gives you both the chance to embrace any changes that you need to make to fix your problems. Your counsellor can help you negotiate how to manage this process.

If you think that marriage counselling might be useful, contact local counselling services. It may be worth having an exploratory session to see if you'll both benefit from this kind of help.