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When it comes to couples counseling, it's best to seek help sooner rather than later.When celebrity couples announce that they go to marriage counseling for "tune ups," we of the self-proclaimed relationship generation have to muse on how much we paved the way for such enlightened thinking ... and how sometimes we don't heed our own advice.

Often, by the time a couple gets to counseling, there's likely been years of silence, yelling, waffling about divorce — maybe even an affair. More commonly, it's a slow disengagement from each other's affection that signals that a couple has become completely out of touch with each other.

As many therapists know, by the time a husband or wife has endlessly begged for professional help, the anger at that alone can have eroded the relationship to the point of no return. Sometimes all a marriage counselor can do is close the lid on the coffin.

"There is a point where, even with work, there really is too much damage to repair," Michael Murphy, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who does couples and individual counseling in Brentwood, Tennessee, says.

A Critical Window

But is there a time then in a marriage when a confluence of frustration and vulnerability forms a kind of sweet spot during which counseling could be effective? Murphy says there is.

Feelings of boredom, "go nowhere" arguments, an awareness of avoidance of conflict or unresolved issues, she says, are a few of the early-warning signs that can be implemented in the process of re-routing a marriage before too much repair is needed.

"If it's before that point of no return, those things are always a good time to get into therapy," Murphy says. "The quality of contact is the key thing. Some couples have excellent quality of contact, but they are a little bit bored, and they are frightened about that boredom."

Avoidance of an issue, she adds, resulting in one partner having to walk on eggshells is another sign that the sensitive one is troubled. That period is also a good time to seek help.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Renowned marriage and family therapist, Dr. John. M. Gottman, outlines in his book "Why Marriages Succeed or Fail" what he terms The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: contempt, criticism, defensiveness and stonewalling.

"Any one of them is bad, but in combination it will just get worse and worse," Murphy says, adding that individually each corrosive behavior is a signal that the relationship could stand some outside help. However, she is quick to defend "good" conflict as a means to wholeness. "Good conflict is like a growth hormone for a relationship, because you get to know each other better and better,' Murphy says. "Conflict leads to intimacy."

Sitting down with one's partner (committed to not becoming defensive) and telling him or her that because you hold the relationship in such a high regard that its survival is important, is a good way to broach the subject, Murphy says.

Tune-ups? Those are fine for people who already have a solid foundation of therapy under their belt.

"I might not be in their inner solar system, but I am in their constellation," Murphy says. "They know I am here, so they will come in, and because they have already developed skills in relating and communicating, they can resolve what they need to resolve."

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