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Your marriage doesn't have to be in trouble to benefit from an objective, encouraging third party—a life coach.

"If couples are able to address an issue, goal, desire, or vision proactively, they can head off any number of potential crises," asserts Christopher McCluskey, a master certified Christian coach who works with couples around the world, objectively encouraging and helping them see paths to growth and success.

McCluskey, whose background is in psychotherapy, worked primarily in marriage and family therapy for 12 years prior to becoming a coach. In 1998, he founded Coaching for Christian Living (www.christian-living.com). He is also the director of the Christian track at the Institute for Life Coach Training, an accredited school with the only distinctly Christian life coach training program in the world.

In the last several years life coaching has become more prominent among couples. Here's what McCluskey had to say about the rewards a couple can attain through life coaching.

Why would a couple seek a life coach?

Because they want to grow their marriage or they want to pursue a stronger or clearer vision for their family.

One of the most frequent reasons is to enhance their level of intimacy. They have a good marriage but are plateauing. They may feel their lives are scattered and out of control. And they want help getting back on track, help clarifying and living out God's unique calling on their lives.

They may need help working through obstacles to get a spouse home from the work force or a job change, or they're preparing for empty nesting or graduate school.

Another reason is blended families. A primary conflict in a blended family is children. So rather than just hold your breath and hope for the best or wait for the inevitable conflict, many blended families will work with a coach to help them proactively develop a better vision for how to blend their family and to head off the problems before they take root.

I also work with couples as they move their families into the pre-teen and teen years. A lot of parents stumble through those years never nailing down a clear vision, and they wind up having the default vision of our Western culture: simply "surviving."

They wander through those years thinking, Where do the kids need to be now? What new activities are they involved in? How am I going to deal with this new mouthiness? What am I going to do about this new group of friends they're hanging with?

They're constantly reacting to every new "crisis." And so couples become like a steel ball in a pinball machine, bouncing off whatever's screaming for their attention. That's not an effective way to do family or marriage. They need to identify what they're going to say "yes" to in their family and what they're going to say "no" to.

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