Shaublog

 

Over the last year, I have felt my practice moving away from divorce law and toward helping people maintain their relationships.   I began to realize that the great majority of couples I help in mediation did not have to get divorced.  (Now that’s a bit more complicated than this simple statement suggests, because by the time they go to a lawyer or divorce mediation, one of them, at least, has withdrawn from the marriage.  For them the marriage is over and any effort to get them to change their mind will just be futile –more on that in another post.)  Still, had these poor stressed and wounded people gotten some help on their relationship before the threshold to dissolution had been crossed, a relationship felt to be beyond repair could rise from the ashes.  John Gottman, Ph.D. famously observed that studies suggest that, on average, couples wait six years after they know there are serious problems with their relationship, to see a counselor.  That’s why any couples counselor has got to expect people to be hurt, angry, polarized and emotionally reactive when they first come in.  Yet conflict and pain – even that which has endured for a few years – need not bring hopelessness.  I have seen people re-establish connections and heal old wounds.  It’s just a shame that so many couples I have worked with in the divorce arena never got that help in time. 

I attended a wonderful conference on brief therapy a couple of years ago and concentrated on the folks who were presenting about marital/couples therapy. Thus inspired, I had dinner with an old friend and his second wife (also, now, a dear friend). Their union was very connected and sweet, and definitely had benefited from years of work. (They say a good marriage is work and whoever “they” are, you’d best believe them.) I had listened to my friend describe his first marriage and a mismatch which had produced his beloved daughter. The way he described the relationship, I had to come away with the belief that it was a good thing he had gotten divorce. So over dinner, I regaled him with my new-found commitment to the idea that any marriage can be saved and that divorce is an avoidable trauma – necessary only in cases of abuse (emotional, physical, sexual). My dear friend looked at me like I was nuts. He assured me that his first marriage would have resulted in years of despair for (probably) his wife and (certainly) for him. They were young. They were mis-matched.
In my years of helping people disentangle from painful marriages, I know very well that for one partner, the time comes that their emotional commitment to the marriage is simply gone. At some point there is no reviving a person’s commitment to a marriage. That person knows that the marriage is over in their heart. It is a very painful truth.
While it is definitely possible to stop this erosion of emotional commitment to a marriage before that line is crossed – once that last step is taken my observation from years of working with divorcing people is – there’s not going back. Sadly – wrenchingly – it’s over. There comes a time when our energies need to shift from holding onto a marriage that has emotionally ended for one person to recovering emotionally from the grief and loss of this transition and finding a new path that will, over time, bring fulfillment and love.

Our fights sometimes have the feel of a couple of siblings in the back of the car on an endless road trip. “Johnny, Susie, stop fighting!” The inevitable response is something like: Susie – “He hit me first!” Johnnie – “I did not! She kicked me.” Susie – “That’s because he took my pencil.” Johnny – “Did not!” Susie – “Did too!” Etc. Now this is not to say that the hurt and anger we feel when we are locked in painful conflict with our partner is child-like or immature. Quite the contrary – it seems to go to the core of who we are sometimes. That’s not the point here. If you look at the above scene, you’ll see a circular argument in which each person believes the other person started it…that the other person is the cause of the distress. Of course, the other person thinks that it started with you. In law, partners who are locked into this conflict will go and hire lawyers, who in turn will try to convince a judge that their side is right and the cause of the problem is the other person. I promise you, that in every case that a judge says one person is the cause of the problem, that decision will never, ever, ever convince the other disputant. He or she will just feel screwed – unheard – misunderstood. For good reason, too, because our ongoing conflicts are ultimately circular in causation. We ultimately react to the other person who ultimately reacts to us. By the time the circle is joined, the conflict has a life of its own and the start is about as obscure as trying to find the missing link in the fog of antiquity. The key isn’t who is right. Rather the key is, how can we disengage from this cycle and stop hurting each other and get back on track. Helping with this often difficult task is, by the way, one of the great services a skilled marital therapist can provide.

Lots of marriages have run aground over the depression of one of the partners. Most frequently, it has been the man. I think we have a mistaken assumption that depression means that someone doesn’t get out of bed or is basically non-functional. Most people who are depressed have families, go to work and generally do what they gotta do. It’s just that the color is drained from their lives. Depressed people don’t find enjoyment in the things that used to please them. In the face of suggestions about change, their common response is a variant of “What difference does it make?” While you may be successful in your job, this task uses up about all of your reserves of energy. You feel there’s nothing left when you come home. Certainly not for dealing with the challenges that go along with maintaining a strong relationship. The partner of the depressed person feels alone. Any negative comment directed at the depressed spouse is taken in deeply by the depressed mind as a global criticism and they withdraw. The good news is that treatment approaches for depression abound. A marriage doesn’t have to end over one spouse’s depression. The approaches of David Burns, Aaron Beck, Michael Yapko and Martin Seligman all point the way out of the (falsely) inescapable darkness of depression. Finding the works of any of these people on Amazon cannot steer you wrong.

We sat around with some good friends this past weekend and, perhaps inspired by the wine, one of us looked at our neighbor and said, “What words or phrases would you use to describe your mother?” There were 3 women and 2 men. We went around the circle and each of us uncovered our little nuggets – the first words that came to mind. Here in this group of fairly satisfied, positive people in their 50′s, the power of our parents in our psyches rose up luminous. Some associations were painful – “angry” “frustrated” – others were romantic – “brilliant” “loving” – but none were flat. “Mother” and “Father” have the capacity to evoke our deepest feelings, well into middle age and (I’m guessing) beyond. Handling all that in therapy is interesting and tricky. Truly our families of origin have an enormous molding influence on our lives, but as a wise friend likes to say, “It’s fine to look at that past, just don’t stare.” I like that one. I think therapists need to carefully balance acknowledgment of the past that brings a hurting person into our office, with a deep appreciation (honestly conveyed) of its impact – yet at the same time our lives are most definitely in the present and it will be in the future. People who come to us and are hurting are experiencing a painful present and if we are able to work well together, a positive, productive, less painful future is the goal. I heard a therapist say this weekend that people come in oftentimes with the attitude, “I will not be happy until my parents were nicer to me as a child.” The power of this past can never be underappreciated. Yet dwelling on this past in the hope, somehow, of understanding something that will set us free, I believe, is like trying to get some sunshine by heading for the Canadian North in December. Ain’t going to happen. Freedom comes in mastering our lives today – in whatever form that takes for each of us.