The reasons of thinking about divorce in married couples who accept/ignore getting family counseling

In this study, decisions of the married couples who accepted to receive family counselling are investigated by considering the factors such as the reasons that led them to think about divorce, gender, age, education level, the length of marriage, having children or not, employment status, and whether they attended meetings as a couple or not. In this context, the study results were aimed at identifying the individuals who would prefer counselling depending on their personal status (age, gender, employment status, having children or not, main reasons of thinking about divorce, etc.) and the reasons why people rejected receiving family counselling, hence creating data that would be helpful for future studies concerning successful family functioning. The study was also aimed at increasing the awareness of individuals by canalizing them into professional services instead of seeking help for their family problems from traditional sources (getting advice from spouses, friends, and relatives), and contributing to the quality and prevalence of public services, especially the Ministry of Family and Social Policies. The population of the study consisted of the individuals who lived in İzmir and were thinking about divorce from July 2013 to October 2014. The registers of 281 married people, including 130 people attended the meetings with their partners and 115 people attended the meetings by themselves, who consulted Provincial Directorate of Family and Social Policies of İzmir and who were informed or directed by the family courts in turn have constituted the sample of the study. Document review techniques were used with the registers. The acquired data was classified under the subtitles of the acceptance or refusal of counselling, the reasons that led people to think about divorce, gender, age, education level, the length of marriage, having children or not, employment status, and attending meetings as couples or not. The data of frequency and percentage distribution was analysed with SPSS by using the methods of chi square test, which is one type of the correlation seeking statistics. As a finding of the study, among the individuals who had problems with their marriage, the biggest group consisted of the people who were in early divorce stage –the people that have not sued for divorce yet- defined their main problem as 'the problem of expectation and communication'. This group was followed the people who defined their main problem as 'marital conflict' in their early divorce stage. Among the people who were in the process of divorce –the people that sued for divorce- the main problem was defined as 'marital conflict'. This was followed by 'adultery'. Among the people who had problems with their marriage, the people who consulted as a couple were more likely to accept family counselling. The group of people who delayed their decision to 'assess' their situation followed this group. The group who 'refused' family counselling consisted a few people. Considering the length of marriage as a factor of divorce, the people who have been married for 1 to 5 years were the biggest group that had problems with their marriage. This finding is parallel with the data of TÜİK 2016. The group of people that were married either less than 1 year or more than 31 years was the smallest in number. The number of counselling has decreased in as much as the length of marriage has increased.