Hi! Little background info. My husband and I have been together just under a year, married for 6 months. He has been gone on a deployment for 3 months and will not be home until sometime next year. We have some issues in our marriage. Most of them are mine, I have severe depression and anxiety, major insecurities and trust issues (emotionally and mentally abusive parents). But he has some as well, namely he has a lot of walls up because of an ex. I’m not exactly sure about the details, it’s only in the last few days that we’ve been talking about this. Because my dad used to mock me for being vulnerable, it’s taken me this long to open up fully to my husband about some things. One of those things is dissatisfaction with our sex life.

Now we both believe that communication is essential to a successful marriage, but neither of us is very good at it. So I’m wondering if marriage counseling would be beneficial to us. Both of us have been in therapy (I still am), and we both are willing to do just about anything to make this work. What are your experiences with marriage counseling? Does it sound like we’ll do okay on our own? I’m mostly concerned because we’re dealing with these issues with a literal ocean between us. It’s difficult to handle this sort of stuff via email. Thanks!