A Marriage Therapist's Blog
Thoughts on Marriage Counseling
Archive for the ‘About Marriage Therapy’ Category
It’s no secret that some men are reluctant to attend marriage counseling. Some of those who do begin counseling only do so because their wives have talked them into it. How can we make the therapy process more male-friendly? Here’s what I recommend (and what I do in my practice):
- Consider a male therapist. A husband will believe that another man will understand him better than a female therapist would.
- Use a strategic approach. A man is likely to favor a specific plan that solves identifiable problems. What he probably doesn’t want is to spend hour after hour talking about feelings.
- Don’t dwell on the past. A man is less likely to want to go into details about his childhood years. He wants to work on what is happening now and what will happen in the near future.
My wife and I are celebrating 30 years of marriage today. We are still together and happy thanks to marriage counseling!
Sometimes I am baffled when people whose marriage is in trouble tell me that they can’t afford marriage counseling. I can’t think of anything more important to me than my marriage. If my wife and I needed counseling, we would do whatever we had to do in order to find a way to pay for it.
As corny as it may sound, if your marriage is in crisis, you can’t afford not to begin marriage counseling.
Here’s another way to look at it. If your car needed a new transmission, you would buy a new transmission, right? You need a car. Well, I happen to know that a few months of marriage counseling costs less than a new transmission! And just like you need a car, you need a happy marriage.
When I work with a couple who are recovering from the husband’s emotional affair, I almost always notice a striking difference between how the man wants to deal with the problem as opposed to how the woman wants to deal with it. The husband, having been caught and/or admitted to the affair, has apologized to his wife and wants to move on right away and put the affair in the past. The wife, on the other hand, says “not so fast, buster.” (OK, she doesn’t actually say that, but that’s what she’s thinking.)
Typically after a few counseling sessions in which the affair is discussed, the husband begins to get frustrated and wonder why we still need to talk about it. After all, he has apologized, right? He feels bad about it, it won’t happen again, etc., etc. What else does he need to do? I have to say to him (sometimes more than once per session) that his wife is not over what happened, that it’s going to take some time for her to recover, and that he needs to trust the counseling process.
So why is it that the man is so anxious to put the affair in the rear-view mirror and move on? Because men are problem-solvers by nature? Yes. Because men don’t like to talk about emotions as much as women do? Of course. But I believe the chief reason is defensive: the husband feels terrible about what he did and it’s painful for him to think about it, let alone talk about it.
Yes, these sessions are difficult for the husband. His wife is crying and talking about how betrayed she feels. My job is to help the husband be empathetic. He needs to understand what is wife is going through and to know how she feels. Ultimately, my goal is for the husband to absolutely convince his wife that he understands what she is going through. Then the healing can begin.
As I’m sure you are aware, most marriage counseling takes place with both the husband and the wife present. However, over the past year or so I have had a handful of cases in which only one spouse attended counseling because the other spouse refused to come. In almost every case, remarkable progress was made in the marriage as a result of the one spouse’s counseling experience.
I think that an individual who begins marriage counseling without his/her spouse in attendance shows true dedication and commitment. I would have expected that more often it would be the wife who would begin counseling alone, but in my experience it’s been about equally split between husbands and wives.
So how does it work? Obviously, I only get a firsthand report from one person. However, I also strive to figure out how the absent spouse feels about things. I do this by asking the attending individual what the absent spouse says (which would be counsidered inadmissable hearsay evidence in a court!) and then inferring what emotions are in play.
At this point I can begin making concrete suggestions to the attending individual regarding what he/she can do to make immediate improvements to the relationship.
The real payoff is when the absent spouse, impressed by the changes that the other person has made, begins to attend counseling.
I was recently interviewed for the “Workin’ It” website. I’m reposting the interview here:
1. What are the five most common problems that motivate couples to attend marriage counseling?
Here are the top five, but not in any particular order:
Blended family issues. This occurs most often when one of the spouses has been married before and has kids from that marriage. If the kids are at least 10 or so, there can be trouble between them and the stepparent which then becomes trouble in the marriage.
An Affair. One spouse has been caught or has admitted to cheating. This is devastating, of course, and sometimes ends the marriage. But some couples want to work through it, and so they come to counseling.
Porn addiction. This is becoming a bigger issue due to the easy availability of pornography on the Internet. Some men become addicted to porn. They sometimes can hide it for a while, but eventually the problem surfaces.
Stage-of-life crisis. I see this more often in women than in men, believe it or not. The most common case is that of a woman who was a stay-at-home mom but who has something of an identity crisis when the youngest child leaves home. She frequently makes some significant life changes at this point and may re-evaluate whether or not she wants to stay married.
Communication problems. Many couples don’t know how to express their feelings to each other in a healthy way. At one extreme, they may argue constantly. At the other extreme, both people keep their feelings to themselves. Neither option is good.
2. Is it sometimes obvious to you after a session or two that the couple you’re treating would be better off apart?
Yes. For example, if I find out that the husband is physically abusing his wife or is extremely controlling of her and that he is not willing to try to change, then I think it’s better for the wife to leave him. I spent a year working as an intern counselor at a domestic violence shelter, so I am quite familiar with this pattern of behavior on the man’s part. Sometimes the man will claim that he had ‘no choice’ but to hit his wife because she ‘provoked’ him. Or I might find out that the wife has to let her husband know where she is at all times and that she is not ‘allowed’ to go certain places or see her friends. These are all red flags to me.
3. What problems do you sometimes see that can’t be solved through the counseling process?
Occasionally I will get a couple where one spouse has announced that he/she wants out of the marriage. The other spouse doesn’t want the marriage to end and has convinced the unhappy partner to attend counseling in an attempt to patch things up before agreeing to separation or divorce. Unfortunately, by this time it is usually too late to fix things because the unhappy spouse has been unsatisfied for years and already has one foot out the door. This is a case in which the couple should have begun counseling several years earlier.
4. Do couples have to be married to engage your services?
No. I see unmarried couples as well as married ones. This includes young couples who are planning to be married as well as older couples who have no plans to marry. Although many relationship problems are common to both married and unmarried couples, I have noticed that unmarried couples are more likely to have “trust issues.” They suspect that their partner is cheating on them and so will be spying on them by reading their email, checking their phone, looking at their MySpace page, etc. A lot of times people with trust issues have been cheated on in previous relationships so it’s not hard to understand why they fear that it will happen again.
5. Do you occasionally get couples with very minor problems that can be worked out quickly, but simply need an intermediary?
Yes. A couple may be generally happy and satisfied with their relationship but be stuck on one particular issue. It might be something to do with job choice, a financial decision, or a major decision involving children. When this happens they may come to me for a few sessions just to have an impartial third party engender a healthy discussion and point out options that may not have been considered.
6. Do you find that people are often surprised by what is said by their partners during a counseling session?
Yes, this happens sometimes. For example, sometimes a person will ’save’ an issue for the next counseling session rather than bringing it up at home. This is because he/she feels safer discussing the issue with me in the room; I won’t let the discussion get nasty or out of control.
7. What general advice can you give to couples who want a long, successful partnership?
Try to see things from one another’s points of view. I’ve written about this recently on my blog. It sounds easy, but in fact it’s not easy at all and requires some concentration. If you can put yourself in your spouse’s shoes and feel things as if you were in his/her position, you go a long way toward being able to understand him/her. When both spouses understand each other at this level, conflict goes way down.
The sad fact is that many couples will argue just for the sake of trying to convince each other of who is right and who is wrong. They completely gloss over the hurt feelings that caused the argument to begin in the first place. They should really be talking about the hurt feelings and not who is right and who is wrong.
8. How many jobs have you held in your life?
Fast food worker, warehouse clerk, landscaper, radio station engineer, electrical engineer and therapist. I guess that’s six.
I ran across an online article entitled Why Marriage Counseling Doesn’t Work Anymore which was, not surprisingly, very critical of marriage counseling. The article made many claims that I think are just plain wrong. Here are a few of them of them, along my comments:
“When you turn to marriage counseling, the focus is on behavior, action and doing.”
Not true, at least not in my office. I practice Emotionally Focused Therapy which goes beneath behavior and gets at lower level emotions in order to make lasting changes in a relationship. Making positive behavioral changes is not a bad thing, but they usually don’t last. When you get at the root of the problem, the chances of the changes “sticking” are greatly improved; satisfaction goes up because each partner feels heard and understood.
“Did you know that most marriage counselors do not believe your marriage is valuable?”
This is an outlandish claim! I believe strongly in the value of marriage, and I’ve never met a marriage counselor who feels otherwise. How could a marriage counselor not believe in the value of marriage? Does a medical doctor not believe that wellness is valuable?
“Many of them [marriage counselors] have already divorced”
Since it’s a fact that 50% of marriages end in divorce, I’m sure there are some divorced marriage counselors out there, but what constitutes many? I’ve never been divorced; my wife and I will celebrate our 30th anniversary in August. Of all the therapists (marriage and otherwise) I am personally acquainted with, I would estimate 15% are divorced. Is that many?
“They [marriage counselors] believe marriage is simply expendable and that the kids will be ok.”
Certainly not. Marriage is worth saving, and the negative effects of divorce on kids are well-documented.
“Many of the couples I’ve worked with over the years who have attended marriage counseling told me that their marriage counselor actually advised them to divorce!”
This probably does happen once in a while. However, in my practice, it is very, very rare for me to advise a couple to divorce. One exception to this would be if there is ongoing violence which a man is refusing to address. Then I might recommend divorce, or at least separation, for the safety of the woman and/or children.
“marriage counselors need to take a good look at their massive failure rate and realize that they’re doing more harm than good.”
Wrong. The Journal of Marital and Family Therapy reported a study where clients of 526 marriage counselors were surveyed; 91.2% of the clients said they were satisfied with the amount of help they received.
“they [marriage counselors] prefer to work with each person individually, instead of as a couple.”
Wrong again. I prefer to work with the couple, because the problem is usually not with one of the individuals. The problem is in the relationship, and both people need to be present to work on that.
“Our marriage counselor took sides and made my spouse angry.”
Marriage counselors usually avoid taking sides because it is counterproductive to long-term counseling success. As I mentioned above, the “client” is the relationship, not one or the other of the individuals. That said, if I feel one partner needs to make a change in a particular area, I’ll say so.
“Counselors throw a wrench into the works of marriage by encouraging you to talk about problems”
How do you solve a problem if you don’t talk about it and address it? Would you ignore a problem at work and not talk about it? It’s important to talk about problems early in therapy. It’s how we get at the underlying emotions. Once we get to that point, however, the focus is off the problems and instead is on solutions and using emotions to heal the relationship.
I think it’s safe to say that a large portion of the people bashing marriage counseling are doing so because they want you to buy their book or CDs on how to fix your marriage. Unfortunately, a lot of these folks are unlicensed and/or underqualified.
Once in a while I have a couple in marriage counseling who are so used to arguing with each other that they think they can just continue to fight while they are in my office. They’ll come in for their first session and while one of them is telling me his/her point of view, the other will interrupt to try and tell me the other side. Pretty soon they are no longer talking to me, but instead are arguing with one another, as if I weren’t even there. They must think that this is healthy, a good idea, and that I won’t mind.
Wrong.
I intervene pretty quickly and tell them that if they want to argue with one another, they can save a lot of money by doing it for free at home rather than paying me to listen to it. That usually gets their attention. Sometimes I have to repeat this process a few times before it really “sticks” with them, but eventually most couples learn that I’m not going to allow them to play the blame game while they are in my office. We then start working on healthy communication right away.
I’ve had a few couples who simply could not stop blaming one another during marriage counseling sessions, no matter how many times I intervened. When this happens, I stop seeing them together and start seeing them separately in individual sessions. We work on communication individually and get that down before we start meeting together again.
And no, I don’t give couples foam bats to hit each other with!
Recently during a marriage therapy session, a young couple was telling me about the issues that had been causing them to be in intense conflict. It was a typical session for me until the couple mentioned a particular problem with an extended family member. Unfortunately for me as their therapist, that particular issue was very similar to a problem that had caused some strife several years ago in my own marriage. At that point in the therapy session I had to summon the self-discipline to stay in the moment with my clients and to block out thoughts and emotions regarding what had happened to me a few years back.
If you and your spouse have ever been to marriage therapy, you know what it’s like. As the clients, you sit on the therapist’s office couch and talk about your roles as husband and wife, your communication problems, and your areas of disagreement. Usually you and your spouse are doing most of the talking. The therapist occasionally interjects observations and asks some probing questions in order to help you better understand yourselves and the issues that are afflicting your marriage. Some therapists may also at times engage in “psychoeducation,” in which they take on more of a teaching role rather than the usual listening and observing roles. No matter what the details of your therapy sessions are, you presumably view your therapist as a professional, an expert in the field of relationships and psychotherapy, perhaps even someone who will impart some wisdom to you and your spouse.
Maybe you have wondered if your therapist has ever been in your place, that is, if your therapist and his or her spouse have ever been the clients of another marriage therapist, talking about their own problems with some other expert counselor. Can you imagine your therapist as a client? It may be difficult. (Try to visualize Freud lying on another analyst’s couch while having his own dreams analyzed!)
The next time you’re in a therapy session, you might ask your therapist if he or she has ever been in therapy. This question may well catch your therapist off guard, and he or she may even get a bit uncomfortable or defensive and ask you why you would want to know that information. Of course, you have a very good answer to that question: you want to know if your marriage therapist knows what it’s like to be in pain, to be a damaged relationship, and to be seeking help from a third party. This may well be more information than your therapist is willing to reveal to a client. (I’m sure that Freud wouldn’t have shared that information!)
Regardless of whether or not your therapist fesses up, the question remains: can someone be a good marriage therapist without ever having been in marriage therapy as a client? Yes or no? I’m going to take the “no” position. Why? Because in therapy, the most important factor for success is the quality of the relationship, the rapport, between the clients and their therapist. The clients have to believe that their therapist “gets” them, that he knows exactly how they feel. If clients don’t feel heard and understood, the therapy won’t be very effective. And it’s so much easier for therapists to understand how spouses in therapy feel if those same therapists have themselves been therapy.
Some powerful people agree with me that counselors should be in counseling. In California, marriage and family therapists who are in training internships are strongly encouraged to seek their own therapy. They are even rewarded for doing so by the licensing board in a unique and powerful way: every hour, up to a maximum of 100 hours, that an intern spends in his or her own therapy is counted as three hours of experience toward the 3000 hours of total experience required during the internship. That’s a strong motivation for an intern therapist, and it speaks to how strongly the licensing board believes that therapists in training should be in therapy themselves. I took full advantage of this when I was an intern.
Here’s another way to look at it: therapists should fully understand their own minds, their own emotions, defenses, and beliefs, before helping someone else to do the same thing. Furthermore, marriage therapists should understand their relationships, both past and present, including the ups, downs, strengths, and weaknesses, so that they can better help their clients to mend their own relationships.
Therapists also need to be able to deal with the feelings that they experience while listening to their clients speak. This phenomenon of the therapeutic process engendering feelings in the therapist is called “countertransference,” and it is an unavoidable aspect of therapy. It’s important, therefore, that therapists are well-prepared to handle these feelings, and this preparation is enhanced when therapists have already been through their own therapy.
A marriage therapist works with many couples and over the years will hear innumerable different relationship crisis stories. Sooner or later, probably sooner, and probably when it’s least expected, all therapists find themselves listening to a client describing a situation that parallels the worst relationship event in the therapist’s life. What will happen at that point? If the therapist has not worked through that crisis in his or her own personal therapy, the result may be a welling up of emotion – grief or anger, for example - and result in the therapist becoming much less effective as a helper, not only in that session, but in future sessions with the same clients when the therapist is again reminded of the painful events of the past.
Remember my clients and their extended family problem that was so similar to my own issue? Fortunately, I was able to handle that situation well. I didn’t get emotional, and I remained focused on my clients. How was I able to do that? Because I’d already worked through that issue in my own personal therapy.
So the next time you’re looking for a marriage therapist, I suggest you look for one who has experienced marriage therapy from both sides of the room: from the client’s couch as well as from the therapist’s chair.
You know about preventative maintainence for your car, right? You take it in for factory service every 15,000 miles or so, and you have your oil changed every 3000 miles. Right? You do, right? Good. Your car be happy and will take you wherever you want to go for a long, long time.
What about preventative maintenance for your marriage? How about doing it before you get married? That’s what we call premarital counseling, and it’s becoming more and more popular. In fact, many churches require a couple to attend premarital counseling before they can be married in the church.
How does premarital counseling work? Typically, we meet for 6 sessions. We spend a lot of time talking about communication styles. We also look at expectations, goals, and shared dreams. It’s usually a lot of fun.
Of course, it’s possible that some glaring issue could arise during premarital counseling - something that the couple hadn’t realized was a problem. That sounds bad - but isn’t it better to find out about it before you tie the knot? Yes it is. On the other hand, you may learn in premarital counseling that the two of you are made for each other!
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