A Marriage Therapist's Blog
Thoughts on Marriage Counseling
Posts Tagged ‘trust’
Some couples who come in for counseling have severe “trust issues.” I see this most often in younger couples who are not married. The couple may not have been together for very long, and most likely were in previous relationships where one or both had experienced a cheating partner.
In the most severe cases, a person may be obsessing over whether or not their partner is cheating, even if there is no evidence or reason to suspect. A nightly checking of the partner’s cell phone to scroll through the text messages, or looking for multiple calls to an unrecognized phone number, or breaking into the partner’s email account to look for any incriminating emails are all things some partners do to convince themselves that no cheating is going on.
There are a couple of questions to address here:
- What can be done when a person is obsessing over his/her partner’s trustworthiness? In this case, traditional treatments for obsessions, such as the “thought stopping” technique, can be valuable. Three simple methods to use are:
- Thought Replacement: when an unwanted thought enters your mind, immediately replace it with a healthy, rational thought. You can only think about one thing at at time, so crowd out the “bad” thought.
- Thought Stopping: when you catch yourself with the unwanted thought, immediately shout Stop! either aloud or only in the mind. Continue to shout Stop! until the unwanted thought ceases.
- Thought Disputing: Challenge the unwanted thoughts that come into your mind, asking: “Is this a rational thought? If not, what is irrational about it? What do I need to do to change this idea?”
- How can I really learn to trust the person I love? (I am assuming, of course, that the person really does deserve your trust, in other words, that they are not cheating.) Trust can be defined as “a measure of belief in the honesty, benevolence and competence of the other party.” How can you expect to spend the rest of your life with someone you will always suspect? Some believe that when you enter into a new relationship, you are starting all over again and can leave the baggage from a previous relationships behind. While that may be possible, it doesn’t always happen. The fact is that when you move onto a new relationship, hurts from the past are still present. Give yourself and your relationship time to build trust. If we have spent enough time with our partner to develop strong feelings for them, trust should be part of that. Do some research on the topic of trust: what does it really mean and how can each of us reach the goal of trusting together?
Trust is a vitally important part of any relationship. If you feel the need to do any of the checking mentioned above, how about trying some of these ways to start trusting your partner?
When there has been infidelity in a couple who is in marriage therapy, questions about rigorous honesty and disclosure usually arise. This is because the unfaithful spouse has been keeping secrets and telling lies. In some cases, he (I’ll assume it’s the husband who was unfaithful) may even have been living a double life, sometimes the good husband/father, but at other times the drinking/flirting/sneaking cheater.
Part of the healing process is to restore honesty, openness, and transparency. Confession is part of this. However, hearing the truth can be very painful to the aggrieved spouse. Handling this disclosure process in marriage therapy can be tricky.
I ask the wife how much detail she wants to know. I find that some wives want to know only in general what happened, while others want to know all the details. But by letting her decide how much material will be shared, I am able to give her a small sense of power in this situation in which she may feel powerless and helpless.
If there have been many acts of infidelity, it’s typical for the unfaithful spouse to only admit to as few as he thinks he can get away with revealing. I know this in advance, and I tell him that it will be much better for the health of the relationship if he comes clean right away with everything that he did. Only admitting part of it, then maybe a little more later on, then a little more as necessary, is called staggered disclosure, and it’s much more damaging to the aggrieved spouse, because she is never sure if she has heard everything yet. This makes it more difficult to rebuild trust in the relationship.
All marriage & family therapists (MFTs) in California are licensed to perform marriage therapy. Yet, surprisingly, the typical MFT has limited training in working with couples and finds such work difficult. A few MFTs, however, choose marriage therapy as a specialty and pursue advanced training in the field. This distinction between a typical MFT and an MFT who is a marriage therapist is important, because the skills required to be a good marriage therapist are quite different than the skills learned and practiced by therapists who work with individuals. For example, an individual therapist helps people to understand and process their feelings, identify and correct faulty ways of thinking, and come to terms with problems experienced in childhood.
On the other hand, a marriage therapist focuses on the relationship between two people. If a couple is in crisis, there usually is not a lot of time to look at family-of-origin issues right away (although that could come later when some stability has been achieved). The marriage therapist looks to see what levels of fondness and admiration the partners have for one another, and whether any feelings of love remain. The marriage therapist is also very interested in how a couple handles conflict. Who starts a conflict discussion? And is it a harsh or a soft start? How does the other partner react? How long does the conflict last? Who tries to repair the relationship?
It is not unusual for there to trust problems in a marriage, and the therapist must be able to help the couple to work through the healing and forgiveness that are required to restore the marriage to a position of strength. With a good marriage therapist, and with time and hard work, some couples emerge from the crisis of infidelity when an even stronger relationship than they had before the affair came to light.
The marriage therapist is also a teacher. Many couples do not know how to handle conflict discussions in a way that prevents them from spiraling out of control. The therapist can give a couple the proper tools to keep disagreements at a calm emotional level.
All of these facets of couples counseling are performed by a marriage therapist. I offer marriage therapy in my San Ramon, Livermore, and Walnut Creek offices. Nearby cities include Pleasanton, Danville, Dublin, Concord, Pleasant Hill, Clayton, Antioch, Brentwood, Sunol, Mountain House, and Tracy. Call me at 925-351-8447 to schedule a no-charge introductory consultation.
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