I think it's a good way to force your feelings out for the other person, to help them understand, and vise versa.  It just helps you talk more openly when somebody is asking you the right questions, ya know?  I've only been to family therapy, but I bet if the relationship counselor is as good as the one I had with my family, it'd be a great idea.

I think it might be good for couples who aren't really incompatible, but simply have communication issues... Sometimes my boyfriend is really tight lipped when he's upset, but I can imagine if we were paying someone to listen, he'd probably open up without all the prodding, haha.

It just depends on why they need the therapy, really.

same goes for me. only if there were kids involved and/or over 5 years.

i'd go before marriage and during the marriage as well. i strongly believe that a relationship is hard work and will be hard work. i believe counseling can help a relationship and a marriage and i plan do take couples counseling. 

Absolutely. I believe that counseling can be a great tool for couples. When two people have trouble communicating with each other, it can be a godsend to have that impartial third party there. That way things don't get twisted and there can be some objective perspective put on things that are said.

For me, I would love the chance to attend counseling with my husband. He, unfortunately, doesn't want any part of that. I've spent six years of my life with a man who is walking away from me less than a year into our marriage. It sucks. Even more so because I just gave birth to our daughter three weeks ago. I want so badly to fix whatever went wrong between us for her, and for myself and my husband. I don't want to throw in the towel. I don't want to quit.

The thing that young people don't realize is that marriage is hard. Marriage is work. My husband is twenty-three. I'm twenty-five and obviously vastly more mature than he is. He didn't realize that marriage would be so hard. Suddenly, he's twenty-three years old and he's got a house and a wife and a baby on the way and it wasn't all smiles and sunshine like he thought it would be. Especially during pregnancy. But as hard as marriage is, as much work as it turned out to be, it's worth it to fight for it.

My boyfriend and I plan on doing pre-marital counseling through our church several months before we tie the knot....but he doesn't know that yet. ha!
But that's a couple years off anyway.

Idk..my friend is getting married in a week.  They're already going to marriage counseling.  I thought that was kinda weird. 

but if counseling means maintaining in a happy, healthy relationship longer, then I'm all for it.

Of course relationships are going to take work. Believing otherwise is probably the reason people need couples' therapy.

I don't think people need to have couples' therapy to be in a happy relationship. Some people can figure out how to not dump shit on each other, communicate, and support each other without spending money. I would argue, however, that that isn't most of us.

If a relationship is a constant struggle, it's usually suggestive of an underlying incompatibility. Two people of reasonable intelligence should be able to figure that out for themselves - but then perhaps emotional involvement in their own circumstances might impede their objective capacity to see the situation clearly as they might.

I think a fundamental flaw is that people characterize their marriage as an obligation and responsibility. They forget that love is also about allure and chemistry, and they surrender their expectations. In essence they surrender all the things that made them passionate about each other, that made their relationship thrive - and that's usually why their marriage fails. Because marriage is a relationship too. It has the same wants and needs. The tragic mistake is in thinking that it's different somehow.

My husband and I were required to do pre-marital counseling to be married by our pastor.  I really didn't like it.  I felt very awkward and felt that it benefited my husband more than myself.  As far as counseling after marriage, I think that if someone truly believes a marriage isn't going to work, or someone really wants out, then counseling isn't something that would benefit them.  If both parties are willing to try and make things work, then maybe counseling would be a good thing.

The only experience I've had with couples therapy was with Heidi and Spencer on the Hills.

...

Nevertheless, I think it's a wonderful idea

More often than not, it doesn`t work. Why? Because it`s used as a last resort, when the couple is basically coming to terms with the fact that the marriage can`t be saved.
Personally, I think couples therapy could be avoided by establishing good communication in the relationship. There would be no need for a third party intervention.