Marriage Help

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Every marriage goes through ups and downs. For some of us, these down times can persist leaving us feeling trapped, helpless and frustrated. Many conclude that the marriage is dead and that their only options are divorce or to live in misery.

Yet there is nearly always something you can do to alleviate your situation. …

SmartLoving Courses and Seminars

Research has shown that in many cases of marital stress, marriage education can be more effective and helpful to couples than counselling.

There are a number of excellent marriage education courses that couples can do that will help you improve your marriage.

  1. SmartLoving BreakThrough Online is a short course for use by individual spouses (not strictly a couple's course) with or without their spouse. It is also available as a live course in some places. The film above (Forgiveness) is from this course.
  2. The Marriage Kit online is is a short course for couples adapted from our secular platform (The Stick Kit). It is a solid marriage formation experience for couples at all life stages and is a good option for couples in stable relationships such as those who are rebuilding their relationship after recovering from a crisis. Although fully consistent with Catholic teaching, it is suitable for couples from diverse religious backgrounds.

SmartLoving also offers private coaching sessions to those enrolled in one or more of our courses.

When a Couple’s Course is NOT a good idea.

However, there are some situations where a couple's course might aggravate your situation. If any of the following apply to you we’d recommend you postpone your plans for marriage education while you pursue other alternatives:

  1. One spouse is vigorously opposed to attending the marriage education class. We’ve seen it many times in our courses; one spouse desperately wants to come and nags or manoeuvres the other spouse to get them there. It’s almost always a disaster – no one likes to be manipulated so please don’t do this. It is not fair to your spouse and will not help improve your marriage. Moreover, it will prejudice your spouse against marriage education in the future.
  2. One or both spouses has an addiction or mental illness. In this circumstance, you really need professional assistance to give you individual support. It doesn’t exclude the possibility of marriage education later and in fact, many counsellors will refer their recovering couples to a marriage education class once the relationship is stabilised.
  3. There is systematic physical or sexual abuse. If you are victim of violence, you need to get out before you can do anything for your marriage. When there is such an abuse of power in the relationship, professional help is needed to break the pattern before a marriage education class will help.
  4. There is an ongoing affair. When there is a third party operating in the marriage, working to undermine it, marriage education is not the first priority – reestablishing the boundaries to protect the marriage needs to happen first. Again, sometimes professional assistance may be required to stablize the marriage and reestablish these healthy boundaries.

General Counselling including telecounselling

Pastoral Solutions Institute | Catholic Counselors to help strengthen and support you on your spiritual and emotional journey.

Catholic Psych Institute | Catholic Psychologists with an integrated approach to therapy grounded in Catholic theology.

Forgiveness & Healing

International Forgiveness Institute | Healing Hearts, Building Peace. Resources for couples, families, adults, survivors.

Unbound (Deliverance Prayer Ministry) |  A safe, loving and effective prayer model for freedom in Christ.

Beginning Experience | Peer grief resolution for separated, divorced and widowed persons, and children of these losses.

Midlife

Survive Midlife | An online resource hub and course for husbands or wives whose spouse is in the grip of a midlife crisis

Infidelity

Extra-marital Affairs Resource Centre | An infidelity recovery service for couples, including print and digital publications.

Not Just Friends | A leading expert on infidelity in the modern age with practical advice on recovery for couples. 

Addictions

Faithful & True Ministries | Support for those with pornography addiction

Strive 21 | A 21 day detox program for men - Free

Covenant Eyes | Internet filtering and accountability program

For Your Marriage - Addictions | Tips on spotting trouble and dealing with it from the US Catholic Bishops. 

Fight the New Drug | Information and programs to help overcome porn addiction 

Magdala Ministries | A place of honesty, hope, and healing for women of faith struggling with sexual addiction. 

Connected: Recovery from Pornography | An online group counselling experience to help men recover from the obsessional use of pornography. Also, Reconnected for the spouse.

Divorce Alternatives

Alexander House | A Catholic, international apostolate dedicated to “proclaiming the beauty, goodness and truth” of God’s design for marriage 

Divorce Buster | A comprehensive website, including print and digital publications by world-renowned therapist, Michelle Weiner-Davis.

The Third Option | Most struggling couples see only two options: Painful marriage or divorce. But there is a Third Option: a way to a better, renewed marriage.

Retrouvaille | A program to help couples heal and renew their marriage.

Divorce & Annulment

Divorce and the Catholic Church | Q&A booklet from the Australian Catholic Bishops 

Rose Sweet | Coaching and resources for divorced Catholics

For Couples Struggling with Infertility 

Visit: smartloving.org/fertility-info

Posts from the SmartLoving Blog

Seven Deadly Habits

By Francine & Byron Pirola | January 7, 2015

Research by Dr. John Gottman and others has helped us to understand the specific behaviours which are so deadly for marriages. He is able to predict with high degree of accuracy whether a couple will divorce, by the way they argue.* You’ll want to avoid these Seven Deadly Habits that characterise marriages headed for bust.…

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By Francine & Byron Pirola | May 16, 2025

    Who would have thought espresso cups could cause such drama? Byron had discarded the unused ‘free’ cups a year earlier, without Francine even noticing their absence. After a frantic search when a guest requested an espresso, she discovered their fate. Despite this information, she experienced a kind of suspende d reality – she…

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By Francine & Byron Pirola | December 13, 2024

Saying sorry and asking for forgiveness are two very different factors in resolving arguments. Saying Sorry is Simple We were in the midst of yet another disagreement. We were both hurt, and we knew it was time to let go of our case and make up. But it’s hard to say sorry. It’s even harder…

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By Francine & Byron Pirola | December 15, 2023

We all understand how important it is to know that your spouse will be there to support you during the hard times. Having someone to rely on in difficult times gives couples a sense of security and confidence in their marriage. In fact, many a couple has come undone in the aftermath of a crisis…

#17 Accompanying The Abandoned

By Francine & Byron Pirola | October 6, 2023

When a marriage breaks down, it’s rarely by mutual agreement. More commonly, one spouse wants to leave and the other wants to rebuild. For the abandoned spouse, it is bewildering, traumatic and distressing. Yet the situation is complicated – both spouses are in pain. How can we, as a community and as individuals accompany the…

War and Peace on the Home Front

By Francine & Byron Pirola | April 25, 2025

Every nation remembers the sacrifice of their war veterans with a Memorial Day. Thinking about your marriage: is it more of a battlefield than the safe harbour it is intended to be? Through our work with couples, we often encounter those in embattled relationships. They’ve become trapped in a fractious pattern where almost every interaction…