A Marriage Therapist's Blog

 

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Archive for November, 2007


Nov 01

Marriage Therapists Shouldn’t Always Think Analytically!

By Jay Slupesky
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How to Confuse a Marriage Therapist

Unhappy Couple (before marriage counseling!)Here’s something I hear every so often during marriage therapy sessions: “I love him, but I’m not in love with him.” Typically this is said during the very first marital therapy session, after I ask both the husband and the wife to tell me if they still love one another.

The first few times I heard that statement, I didn’t understand what the wife was trying to tell me. In fact, the statement struck me as a contradiction. Here’s what I mean: if someone said to you something like, “I’m happy, but I’m not happy,” or “I’m Jennifer, but I’m not Jennifer,” wouldn’t you would start to question whether or not that person was even thinking clearly?

But then I realized that I was thinking about the statement logically, as a software engineer (which I used to be) would analyze it. So I decided to dig a little deeper in an effort to determine the true meaning; what information is she trying to convey to me? After all, my job as a marriage therapist is to understand exactly how both the husband and the wife feel.

Here’s what I have concluded. In the first part of the sentence, the “I love him” part, the wife is saying several things. She still respects and admires (perhaps even deeply) her husband. She appreciates many things that he has done and may still be doing for her and for their children (if they have any). She fondly remembers much of their history together. She considers him a very good friend. She wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to him.

However, she’s no longer “in love with him.” She doesn’t have the romantic feelings for him that she once had. She doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life with him. She doesn’t feel excited to be with him anymore. She may not care whether he loves her or not. She may think she made a bad decision in marrying him.

And of course, they have decided to begin marriage therapy in an effort to rekindle the old feelings, the “in love with him” feelings.

So that’s what I’ve decided. If you disagree, shoot me an email and set me straight!