Couples Therapy: One Contradictory Challenge That Can Work

What makes couples therapy successful?

It can certainly vary. But I’ve found one thing that works well, or can – even with couples that seem near the breaking point.

 

What is couples therapy usually about? 

There are several different problems that often are the premise or source of what a couple comes in to talk about.

Communication problems. Addiction issues, everything these days from scrolling and screen addictions to porn to spending to food or to exercise. Affairs, sexual or emotional.  Lack of intimacy, sexual or emotional. Loneliness. Lack of feeling appreciated. Lack of excitement or even enjoyment. Lack of laughter. And of course, there are the children. And let’s not forget money.

It can seem overwhelming.

Sometimes the underlying problem is that someone has one foot out the door but isn’t ready to tell the other that fact. So they come in and you can tell usually the one who’s about to exit… they don’t typically want to talk about deeper emotions. Their body language reads rigid or non-affectionate. They talk a lot about resentments.

The other, sensing their partner’s distance, is often working very hard to somehow engage them. But also is gradually figuring things out, even if they vehemently don’t want to divorce.

One thing that can help a couple out of a rut… 

Then there’s the couple that comes in and both are very demoralized about themselves. They’ve moved past a lot of the blaming each other – which can be difficult (but very necessary) to do if you’re going to get any real change or healing done.

What do I mean, “demoralized about themselves?”

They recognize that their anger has been a huge problem or that their oversized reactivity had caused chaos for the entire family. Or they realize they’ve been very passive, sat back way too often and knew they were growing huge resentment. They’ve been taking all the blame or avoiding it like the plague. They’ve been overworking or really checked out.

But both of them can see their role in creating the problems they have.

The challenge in couples therapy…

My job is to help them believe that they can change. First, as individuals. Then, change is much more likely to occur in the relationship.

So I give them a challenge, very early on in our work together.

Five things:

• Address your demoralization, you’re feeling hopeless about your own change, first.
• Take your focus off your partner and focus on your own choices and behaviors. That’s what you have – in fact, it’s the only thing you have control over.
• Define in writing what will move you toward achieving a sense of competence as a marital partner. Literally, what would you be doing, saying, feeling, thinking, acting? How do you define “competence” for yourself?
• Make a commitment to be very aware and decide to invest in those changes in yourself.
• Stop talking about divorce. Set a time limit on this first phase of therapy. One month, three months. We’ll take each person’s and the relationship’s the pulse relationship at the end of the period of time you both have set.

So, why can this work for couples in therapy?

• You divide the work. One person is going to work on “their” thing. The other, on theirs.
• You stop fueling the reality of “divorce” with your words.
• You make a commitment first to yourself. (After all, you’re probably angry or distrustful of your partner). And you focus on you – on feeling more competent and better about you.

What I try to guide the couple toward is this:

If they stay together, they’ll have known and experienced that the first step toward healing or change is to focus on what you’re doing or not doing.

If they don’t, neither will be able to look back and say, “I didn’t try hard enough.” And hopefully, the therapy itself will have helped them see their partner’s struggles (and theirs) more clearly. And help them coparent better – or have some trust in their ex.

By the way… 

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