Does marriage counseling work?

It can work only if both sides go into it willingly and WANT it to work.

People don’t get up in the morning with the intention of having an affair…it just happens.  You can have a friendly friendship for years and then one day something may occur like a breakup, finances, family issues, and a frustrated libido and suddenly an innocent situation could escalate to a point where your relationship has reached the danger zone. 
 
So why risk it?  Establishing boundaries or “building a fence” around your marriage will help you build a better relationship with your spouse.  These boundaries help protect your relationship from any potential threats by unwanted intruders and may keep you away from unnecessary temptations that could destroy your marriage. 
 
Your ultimate goal is to protect your marriage against outside influences so that you will experience a happy and healthy life together.  There aren’t any real rules in how to establish boundaries, every relationship is different, and so how you build your fences will depend on you and your spouse.  This may mean giving up some behaviors that you find enjoyable, like flirting or going to lunch with an opposite sex friend, but at least you will be assured that you are protecting the most important part of your life, your marriage.
 
What if communications have broken down and you feel like your marriage is on the rocks? There are a few steps you can take to improve your marriage before seeking professional help.
Keep communication channels open by talk, talk, talking and listen, listen, listening.
Set some ground rules for arguing, avoiding name calling, dredging up past mistakes and placing blame.
Schedule activities away from kids and work.
Keep your marriage alive by rediscovering what attracted you to them in the first place.  Often we forget the romantic gestures of love and appreciation we made to our spouse while in the “date mode”.   Make at least one romantic gesture to your spouse each day and plan a night out each week to take your special girl/guy out on a “real” date.  
 

It can all depend on two things how good is the counseler is and will he listen to what you say. As he/she has attended a good psycology collage and his record. Of saved marriages. Then it's 50 -50 if it will work your best bet is get an attorney who is also a marriage counsler. But the stats are in most cases it dont work the advice they give you is in a general fourm as most just listen and you have to work out your own problems your self and that you can do with out paying for it. If that is your choice and it takes the two of you working for the same goal to save your marriage. LOL.

Marriage counseling, like any other counseling, can work very well, when there is a good match between the counselor and the person or people being counseled and everyone involved is willing to put effort into the counseling in order to resolve the issues at hand. All three of you have to agree on the goals of the therapy and work on meeting those goals in order to get anywhere. So if, say, one of you is working on salvaging the marriage, and another is working on arranging an amicable divorce, there's no way the therapist can possibly help you do anything but maybe come to an agreement about the goals of the counseling.

I would think any amount of money would be well spent to try and save your marriage .  Ultimately no one can answer your question but you and your wife . Any counseling is only as good as the effort that is put in to it. There must be total honesty and a willingness to lay it all out on the table .  Both parties have to want to try and save the marriage , they have to want to be there . If you or your wife are not 100% in to trying to save the marriage all the counseling in the world is not going to change the fact the one of you wants out of the marriage . I wish you the best and hope you can save your marriage .

Read this book: How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It