Category Archives: Couples Counseling

Couples Communication -What’s Old Can Be Used in the Present

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As a Marriage and Family Therapist, I have seen many couples over the years. Not surprisingly, the ones that come to my office have conflicts with their partner. The issue that needs most work is  how the couple can communicate better.    One of the   patterns that couples repeat is reactive communication.  Through our sessions, we get to figure out why one or both of the partners are reacting so strongly.  Eric Berne, a psychologist, in the 1960’s, developed a type of therapy called Transactional Analysis.  Berne suggests that it is the transactions between people that get them to react in communications.  He hypothesized that all people had 3 internal states-Parent, Adult, Child and that these are triggered in couples communications.

Nick Davies, a  psychologist in Australia, does a great job of explaining these internal states in the following video:

Let’s take a look at the following slides to see specifically how this works: [click on the slideshare button in the lower left hand corner to hear the narration]

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Get help if you are unsure of your marriage or relationship

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You have been married for many years. You begin to recognize that you are not as happy as you used to be. You start examining the pros and cons of the relationship. Your partner has many pluses and a few chunky negatives. You are unsure of what to do. Follow this advice for some good ideas about your next steps.

Do

Don’t

Do seek counseling

You need a sounding board to air out your thoughts and feelings. As you go through this process, you may also change your mind on a regular basis. A good therapist will help you with both your feelings and with your decision making process. If your partner is willing to attend counseling, then both of you can go through this change process together. If he or she is unwilling, go to counseling by yourself. It can only help.

Do work on identifying your goals

Most people get married and stop identifying what they want. Some people become very partner driven and forget about their own needs and wants. It’s important to identify what you want and what’s most important to you. Do you want security, independence, happiness, partnership, a friend? Can you be OK by yourself?

Identify what’s a need versus what’s a preference.

Do keep yourself in good shape

Your decision making process is largely a mental and emotional event. Make sure you keep up your physical part since mental and emotional stress will drain your physical self. It’s not uncommon to lose weight or feel tired and dragging during this process. Make sure that you exercise, eat healthy, get sleep, and minimize your use of caffeine and alcohol in order to have the energy you need to make a good healthy decision.

Do connect with others

If you are going to go through this major process, you are going to need support. Who are your support people? Consider talking to friends, relatives, etc. Find your go to people and share your thoughts and feelings with them. Ideally, find people who have stayed and those that have left. Seek out a support group. There are some amazing message boards where you can be totally anonymous and hear and learn from others’ experiences.

Do consult with an attorney

Find an attorney who specializes in family law. Since knowledge is power, get empowered. Find out the rules of the game. How does alimony and child support work? Learn about the business of divorce while you are sorting out your emotions. Sometimes knowing that it is possible to get a divorce opens what was thought to be a closed door. By contrast, knowing what a divorce might do to you and the family might get you closer to working on the marriage.

Do not get into another relationship

When people are in the decision process, they are most vulnerable. It’s easy to share pain with another person who has similar pain. The misery loves company approach seems to work to find the fix to the problem. Due to their newness, these extra relationships just seeks to cause more confusion and ultimately more pain.

Do not nag, scold, or complain to your partner

When a person is unhappy in their marriage, the person they want to tell is their partner. However, how many times does the partner need to hear about the unhappiness? I’m guessing that unless that person is hearing impaired, lacking mental capacity, or suffering from neurological damages, that number is not a high one. Why add to your own frustration by being a broken record?

Do not try to fix your partner

It’s been said many times, “If only he would stop drinking…”, “If only he would get a job…”, or “If only she wasn’t so depressed things would be so much better.” When you love someone, you want them to get better. But you can’t fix them. Encourage them to find solutions to their own problems.

Do not medicate your pain

When confusion, fear, sadness, and anger are the feelings that predominate, who wants to feel these? No one. The easiest way to get rid of these is to use quick fix band aids like drinking, drugging, shopping, spending, eating, sex, relationships and work. They all work, kind of, but ultimately cause other and bigger problems. Short term pleasure usually leads to long term pain.

Do not isolate

Sometimes you see that many other people have their lives together. They are either happily married or successfully divorced. As a result, you think that you are the only one in this state of limbo. This constant stay or go makes you want to tell no one, and keep all of your pain inside. If you do this, your pain will only grow bigger and develop into a bigger problem. You really don’t need more problems, do you?

Summary

Making a decision about changing a relationship is one of the hardest things that people do. When there are kids involved, that decision making process is even harder. Give yourself the time that you need to identify your goals, identify your actions, and ultimately make yourself happy. Although there will be some tough days, you will make the right decision. Remember change is possible.

 

 

ExpertBeacon. Expert advice for the everyday crisis

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Best Reasons to Avoid Couples Counseling

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Here is a list of the Best Reasons to Avoid Couples Counseling

  1. We’re not married yet, if we go to Couples Therapy we are doomed.
  2. The therapist is not going to tell me anything I don’t already know.
  3. It’s not going to work.
  4. People who go to Couple Therapy get divorced -Why go?.
  5. It’s too expensive.
  6. I need to work this out on my own.
  7. We don’t have the time.
  8. How would we explain this to the family?
  9. We don’t have anyone to watch the kids.
  10. We’re going to argue way more after we do this.

Please add your reasons for not going to Couples Therapy to this list.

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Betterman

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It’s amazing what I hear while driving in my car:

In hearing this song last night driving home, I was struck by the number people I’ve worked with over the years that this song could apply to. These men or women are in addicted/abusive/unhealthy relationships,and think that they “can’t find a better man”(or woman). These people who like the person in the song “practice their speech”, but rarely say anything to their partner about their needs. Over time, because they haven’t expressed their needs, they don’t have needs, and decide that they “can’t find a betterman, oh”.

How does this happen? In my experience, many of the people I’ve worked with come from families who have the same addiction/abuse/chaos and dysfunction. It’s what they know, so therefore they can’t find that “betterman” because they have no idea what he or she might look like. All they can find is the repeat of their family of origin. They probably have stated at least to themselves, that they hate the behavior of family members (or the family members themselves), and when they get married, there is no way in hell, that they will marry a person who acts this way. When they meet that special one, and decide to cement the partnership, it’s no surprise (to me) that they do exactly the opposite of their goal–they repeat exactly what they hate!!!? Later in the relationship, as the dysfunction grows to be destructive, “she loves him, she don’t want leave this way, she feeds him, that’s why she’ll be back again” is the day to day refrain of the relationship–the person knows nothing else.

With all of this stuck, rigid, predictble day-to-day mess, how does this person end up in my office? This is one of the most exciting and interesting parts of my day. How does the person find the courage to talk about all of this stuff when arguably they’ve never talked to anyone in their life? (“no one else needs to know, she tells herself”) What prompts them to pick up that “10,000 pound phone” and say “I need to make an appointment”? Some people come in because of other issues– anxiety, depression, their own addictive behaviors, others ask a trusted friend, “what should I do?” Some people, miraculously as it seems to me, find their way because they are “sick and tired of being sick and tired”.

The first part of the journey is their own awareness that they don’t have to feel the way they do. They have other options. They can work on having feelings and validating them. They can identify their own personal boundaries of what is acceptable and what is not. They can work on communicating the feelings and the boundaries. They can work on self care!!!–how to care about my needs, my wants, and feel like a real person. This is a long process, but a rather doable one. Each step of the way is highlighted by the person examining their own behaviors, motives, and feelings to “rewire” the dysfunctional family of origin wiring, and replace it with new, healthy, self care wiring. In the end, they can find a betterman(or woman) to complement their own growth,and their own happiness.
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We have met the enemy and it is us

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The original concept behind a week in the life was to identify a common theme that occurred in my office and write about it. It was to be a kind of therapy diary—an opportunity to share my ideas with others. This topic goes back to the roots of the idea.

Many times people coming into therapy are upset with others around them–their spouses, employers, kids, family members, etc. Their anger, hurt, sadness, and fear is directed to those people, and how they have been treated unfairly. There have been people that I have seen over the years in which that’s all we talked about. For them, it’s what they needed – a chance to vent these feelings without carrying them around. This was helpful because it improved the quality of their life. Recently, a bunch of people have come in and have stated the standard “they are doing this to me” etc. However, in the session, something remarkable occurred. These people stated that they were responsible for other people’s reactions to them!!! They were asking “What role do I play in this?” “How have I contributed to my own unhappiness?” “What do I have to do to be better?”

It is exactly:

It’s amazing to me when this occurs–particularly with people who are coming to therapy for the first time. To have an insight like this is something that happens later in the therapy process. It is an “acquired taste”, which usually develops after the emotionality has decreased. For these new therapy entrants to ask the very insightful “what role do I play in this?” was very exciting and very energizing. It’s a statement of I want to work on ME– on my pain, on my issues.

The most interesting part of their insights was that it happened several times in the week. These were all different people with different sets of issues. I asked the very same question–”What’s my role in this?” I was probably more stumped than they were!!! Had I magically transformed my therapeutic skill to be able to direct people to insightful declarations earlier in therapy. Had I done something differently with these people than I have done over 26 years of being a therapist? Was this a function of too much snow in NJ in the months of January and February?

My conclusion to this stumper of a question was my belief in the power of change. People will change: when they are ready to change, have the right ingredients for change, and have the motivation for change. That was my role in this–I produced some of the right ingredients for the change process. People felt safe and not judged. They felt that they could open up and probe into themselves. They felt validated and understood. They were able to handle a little therapeutic “nudging” to push them a little further. Therapy is like a good recipe–the tastiness of the dish is not brought about by doing the exact same thing over and over. The tastiness occurs by adding a little of this or taking out a little of that. The end result is a good tasting meal. I’m going to keep “cooking” with my clients each and every session to keep making tasty dishes of change.

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