The Role of Marital Counseling Among Couples of Not More Than Ten Years in Marriage in ACK Pipeline Embakasi Parish of The Anglican Church of Kenya

Abstract

Marital counseling is a helping relationship between the counsellor and client which plays a facilitative role in helping couples adopt and cope with life challenges while at the same time promoting marital stability. This research focused on the role of marital counseling among married couples of not more than ten years in marriage in ACK Pipeline Embakasi Parish, Nairobi Diocese. The guiding research objectives were to assess the role of marital counseling in promoting marital communication among married couples in ACK Pipeline Embakasi Parish, Nairobi Diocese, to determine the role of marital counseling in promoting marital relationship among married couples in ACK Pipeline Embakasi Parish, Nairobi Diocese, and to establish the role of marital counseling in promoting marital adjustment in ACK Pipeline Embakasi Parish, Nairobi Diocese. The three objective results showed that marital stability was a desire for most married couples. The study used Family System Theory and Prevention Theory which helped in developing categories to assess marital counseling among married couples. This study embraced descriptive design and purposive sampling to sample population from the larger population. The raw data was collected from couples of not more than ten years in marriage. Simple random sampling was adopted in choosing the informants. The sample size included fifty informants who were strictly members of ACK Pipeline Embakasi Parish. The sample was embraced because it was more manageable than the whole population. A developed questionnaire served as research tool for collecting data. The data was analyzed by use of statistical package for social science (SPSS) version twenty four. The findings indicated that marital counselling among couples of not more than ten years in marriage is an effective way of preventing marital distress, separation and divorce, hence promoting marital stability. This data may enrich the existing data base on marital counselling. This study recommends that married couples should undertake marital counseling together because they are both actively involved in developing their marriage life and its stability. The study also recommends that counsellors should focus on strengthening marital communication, relationships, addressing adjustment issues, enhancing life skills, and helping to foster wellness and resiliency to cope with changes in marriage. Interventions that aim to increase communication skills and relationship building should be put in place to help promote marital stability. Also counsellors should provide a working approach which helps all couples with the decision-making process, and also help couples to understand themselves. Counsellors should psycho-educate individual couples through seminars, workshops and meetings on marital adjustment on marital stability, and lastly there is need to provide marital counselling training packages to individual couples that promote marital relationship and stability tailored to the cultural context of the society.