Angels can
fly…
Because
they choose to travel light
-
Unknown
Many times
in couple therapy, the partners are unable to reach a common hypothesis of what
went wrong, even after long deliberations. Around a year ago, a couple I was
seeing dropped out of therapy, after a similar dead-lock.
They had
been quarreling since 3 years now and things had gone from bad to worse.
Everything appeared gloomy and hopeless. 3 weeks back, the sister of the guy
was able to convince him to start therapy again. They seemed to agree that
healing the marriage ought to be the highest priority at this point in time.
He chose to
come alone and work on his own-self first. We had 2 long sessions in a single
day, totaling around 4 and half hours of therapy. Later we came to know, his
wife was ringing him repeatedly during therapy to ask for my contact number.
She believed she had had enough and wanted to confirm with someone whether it
was a right decision for her to take divorce or not?
One week
later when we all met, she asked me, “Is he following any strategy?” In that 1
week, the kind of behaviour her husband was demonstrating, she had never
experienced in the past 3 years. She was finding it too good to be true. I
couldn’t believe what I was hearing either. Because in the session, he had only
partially agreed to the misinterpretations I had pointed out. And then we had
some discussion on was there any unintentional mistake from his side as well and
is it possible that her complains were also valid to some extent? That was
it.
In this
session, there was lot of crying over hurts of the past 3 years. But I was
euphoric J We did a lot of clarifying and all;
but bottom-line is that it has been 3 weeks now and the atmosphere in their
home is still jovial... They have been able to see the fallacies in some of the
past grudges they had nurtured. They have been planning vacations…finally they
did have an argument yesterday – but managed to end it fast and to remind
themselves that things said in anger ought to be ignored.
I am no
longer naive enough to get complacent with initial breakthroughs. However I am
sure, they have successfully navigated the most difficult turns. The
psychiatrist in me is happy – quality of life for this 1 couple is going to be
different J
So what are
the important lessons I learnt?
1
1) Most of the couples I have worked
with, don’t show such dramatic response. So I cant claim it was majorly because
of my efficiency. Usually both partners believe that its essentially their
partner who has a problem and they cant tolerate him/her any longer. They don’t
take suggestions about where they themselves need to change very kindly. Here
also there was a lot of negativity on both sides. But here, 1 partner showed
the courage to acknowledge his unintentional mistake without expecting any
counter apologies from the other side. He also made an effort to understand the
reasons which were leading to his partner’s abusive behaviour and large
heartedly chose to forgive that. Because of the clear apology, it was easy for
the partner also to forgive graciously and inturn see her part of the
misinterpretations.
Usually either because of a tendency to feel guilty or because of an
assumed fear that partner will keep accusing them, people hesitate to fully
acknowledge their mistake. This precludes the necessary corrective action and
problems fester. I guess this openness to suggestions about ‘where I myself
need to change my perspective’ made all the difference. The more we cultivate
this quality in ourselves, more would be the growth and joy in our life.
2) Though typically we do couple
therapy together, few individual sessions with each partner separately, may
help a lot in certain cases.
3) When valid needs are not expressed
or responded to for a long time, violent expressions and blaming over silly
things invariably starts. So we must voice our hurts & expectations in a
respectful way in time; even if it feels very awkward. Not discussing them
openly creates negative prejudices in our own mind and that hurts the
relationship much more than expressing our feelings. (And ofcourse, we must
thank our partner for expressing; rather than take an offense)
4) If rather than trying to find ‘who
went wrong’, if we try to find ‘what went wrong’ – accurate diagnosis is much
faster. And with the right diagnosis, a complex mess of emotions can also melt
away completely.
5) Yes, therapy is expensive. But it
would still amount to less than 5% of marriage cost in most cases. So if
discussing amongst self, with friends and with relatives doesn’t seem to be
helping, one must consider going for therapy before the hearts are permanently
scarred.
I pray to
God to give all of us the ego strength to focus on our own mistakes J
Thanks for
reading!
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