In or Out

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As the New Year dawns there are those among us who are now facing the deepest question and ultimate personal challenge.  Do I stay in my relationship/marriage or do I leave?  The uncertainty is hugely destabilizing – but then, how can it not be, with so much on the line and no clear answer?  I want to share a conversation I had recently with a man seeking couples counseling to get out of his marriage (to get help breaking the news).  He was sure that he wanted out, but when he talked about the reasons he had come to this conclusion, I kept thinking to myself, “Wow!  I’ve worked successfully with couples to overcome that issue.”  I often tell couples I am counseling, who are in distress, that when people get swept up in their continuous cycle of conflict and frustration, if left to their own devices, they will probably blow apart.  I realized in the conversation that I feel pretty confident about helping distressed couples turn a corner to reconnect and deepen their bond.  So I asked him, “If I could tell you with complete confidence that if you worked on your marriage with me you could reconnect with your partner and have the kind of relationship you long for….would you want to do that with this person?”  I have asked that question before and sometimes I receive an answer along the lines of, “I’m excited about that….though doubtful.”  That’s something to work with…even if the person is very doubtful.  However, if you sleep on that notion and conclude that you don’t want to have that with this particular person, even if it can be achieved, that seems like a pretty telling answer.

In a way, it’s a “trust your gut” question.  I have written an earlier post about the divorce decision and viewing it as an impermeable barrier that, once you cross it, you really can’t return.  This is another view of the question from a different angle.  Asking yourself the question above may help you know.  I hope this is of some small help because I know the limbo of uncertainty is a dreadful place to be.

Merry Christmas

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Fox News is again awash with outrage over the “War on Christmas.”  The latest installment has Megyn Kelly proclaiming that Santa Claus and Jesus are indisputably white.  While I am hard pressed to have sympathy for anything broadcast on Fox, I must admit to a sadness that “Merry Christmas” has morphed into “Happy Holidays.”

I’m Jewish and as a kid I loved Christmas.  I believed in Santa with all my might and when told he was fictional, my little heart broke.   I was in a choir and year after year I experienced great joy in singing those lovely carols about the silent night and three kings of orient.  Christmas was a time of joy all around me.  There was honest good will and magic was in the air.  It wasn’t a solstice celebration or the big holiday at the end of the year (that coincided with Hannukah).  It was Christmas.   Christmas is  the holiday of Ebeneezer Scrooge’s  character transformation and the vindication of the goodness of James Stewart’s George Bailey.  Of all the holidays in the calendar, Christmas  is the only one that celebrates man’s essential kindness, charity and warmth.  It is the holiday which honors the birth of the Prince of Peace, and, indeed,  peace permeates our homes and spirits.  So I am inclined to say “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays.”  ( And while we are at it, how about Bill O’Reilly and his comrades shower those of us who secularize the holiday with a little “peace and good will toward men.”)

The Weight of Depression

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Those of us who have suffered with depression isolate.  We cannot bear contact with others.  It’s as if our brains are exquisitely sensitive to touch.  Nobody can understand the depth and the utter truth of our dark, endless despair.  When we are in an intimate relationship the complications can magnify.  We can’t really isolate.  In the depth of a depressive episode, we maintain such a focus on our horrible inner pain that the very notion that we have an impact on another is hard to fathom – well, we easily see ourselves as a burden on others – but we don’t understand the depression as something other than ourselves.  Depression is an illness that challenges the relationship.  It is not the depressed person who challenges the relationship.   A good web article on this subject may be found here:    Depression and intimate relationships  My wish for all depression sufferers who struggle in your marriages is that you embrace the reality that this darkness is not you and that with treatment you can come to know that the pain is not permanent – it can pass and you can recover a life that allows kindness, peace and joy to touch your heart.  Having a loving partner who will join with you is among your greatest gifts.

Walk Away Wife Syndrome

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Michelle Wiener Davis is one of the stars of the psychotherapy circuit.  She has enjoyed a long, and well-regarded, career as a couples therapist.  Back in the early ’90’s she came up with an approach to salvaging frayed marriages, wrote a book called “Divorce Busting” and a cottage industry was born.   Among her excellent insights was the notion of the “walk away wife syndrome.”  I love it because it so accurately describes a dynamic I have seen in my office many times over the years.  It works like this:

A woman in a marriage or intimate relationship is feeling disconnected from her partner.  This distance is extremely lonely.  She will reach out to him, trying to get him to understand her distress.  He doesn’t get it, in her view.  Over time, she becomes frustrated and even a bit desperate.  This incredible, and legitimate, need she experiences may never be acknowledged and touched.  She may become more critical in her distress.  He just withdraws.

Then one day, it happens.  She decides she is done.  She says to herself, “I am leaving when ________________.”  Fill in the blank – “when I get a job”….”when the last child is out of the house”….”when I finish school.”  Sometimes it might be, “when I find another man.”  Once she has made that decision, though, she stops being so angry and frustrated…..because she….is…..done.  The criticism stops.  Things overtly are more peaceful around the house.  He, of course, thinks he has died and gone to heaven.  Friends as how his marriage is and he’ll say, “Great.”

Then the even she has waited for occurs.  And with that, she leaves.  He is shell-shocked.  “What happened?” he asks.  “How could this happen?  We were doing so well.”   As Weiner-Davis notes, this may be the first time he really, really gets the level of her desperation.  He understands what he needs to do.  However, usually it’s too late.  She has moved on emotionally.  She is done fire that represents her emotionally commitment to this relationship is extinguished.  It is over.  She has walked away.

The Curse of the Zealous Advocate

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Back when, in the early part of the last century, lawyers’ Code of Ethics required “zealous advocacy” in support of a client’s cause.  This historical roots for this demand can be found in this excellent article in the American Bar Association’s Litigation magazine.   It is often said that such aggressive and intense commitment to one’s client’s interests, only, may have a place in the world of criminal defense (and a few other places) the world of divorce is a poor forum for this kind of “my client and no other” myopia.

Lawyers’ Stress

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A recent article in the Louisville Courier-Journal discusses a disturbingupward trend in attorney suicides.  This is not an altogether new concern.  More than 25 years ago, Dr. Andy Benjamin and his colleagues identified legal education and the resulting culture that has been created as leading to serious mental distress among attorneys, as reflected in much higher than normal rates of substance abuse and depression.  There are many causes for this, generally unacknowledged, problem.  Perhaps the greatest is that it is unacknowledged.  Lawyers are trained from the inception of their education, and are probably self-selected as well, to eschew emotion at the expense of reason. I came across the inpatient rehab near me when I was researching more about this topic, and the number of attorneys admitted in it was staggering to me. I recall at the beginning of law school we would exalt the ARM (the Average Reasonable Man).  No greater disdain exists than that heaped by lawyers upon anything that is “touchy feely.”  No wonder that lawyers (who are human beings, after all – with active limbic systems that generate the normal amount of fear, caution, anger and grief over loss) will erect concrete mental defenses against acknowledging  their fear, caution, anger and grief….well, not anger.  That emotion gets a pass.  It’s easy to protect oneself against appearing vulnerable with the expression of anger.  When we are forced to protect ourselves from judgment – which is leveled at our natural thoughts and feelings – life can become exhausting and alienating.  I see this even among my colleagues in the collaborative law community.  These are a group of lawyers (and other professionals) who are striving to make the experience of law healing, rather than damaging, for those who encounter it.  Yet these lawyers, too, avoid disclosure of personal doubt, worry, sadness or fear.  These precise feelings that are universal and which can form the real basis of a bonded community are dismissed as inappropriate within this professional world.  More’s the pity.

Guys and Letting It Go

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man.letting.goOne of the big goals in relationship work is to help shift people who are intimately bonded from a place of defensiveness and anger to one of connection and safety.  It’s a process and requires patience, but it is a goal many have achieved.  One of the steps along the journey occurs when one partner will shift, if just for a moment, from that hard, self-protective, space and reach out to the other.  The gesture may be a glimpse of vulnerability, or word of tenderness.  It is what Gottman calls a “repair attempt” and when a couple is clicking, these repair attempts are acknowledged and reciprocated and the temperature lowers to safe levels.

However, one thing I have noticed over time is that men, more than women, tend to respond to the softening from their partner with a continued recitation of old hurts and past insults.  I often wonder at this tenacious grip on earlier pains in the face of (what seems to me at least to be) ardent attempts by their partner to reach out.  It seems to me that what these men are saying is that they still don’t think their partners really, deeply, understand the pain they experienced (and if my partner doesn’t understand the depth of the pain I experienced, how can I believe and trust that they will not strike out again).  This dilemma points to one important goal in any successful couples therapy, which is to help the partner understand that when he brings up these old wounds it is not because he wants to continue fighting.  He just desperately needs assurance that his partner is safe for him and she gets how their conflict just knocks him off his feet.  He needs to hear that she does not want to hurt him so deeply and will be very careful – even if she is, herself, hurt or frightened.   It may be a slow, halting process, but once that trust begins to settle in he will almost always find himself free to be who he has always wanted to be in this complex, rich, intimate dance.

Couples Counseling and the High Funtioning Woman

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Many (most) women who come into my office with their partners  to work on their troubled relationships are quite high functioning.  At least from my observations, these woman really display a skill in multi-tasking.  Sometimes, this remarkable functionality keeps her busy – so busy that I get the impression that she’s racing to keep ahead of something.  While I am not a fan of long dissections of our childhood to get at what is going on now, I also believe its impossible to understand that now without some flavor of the past.  Our families of origin are where we learn our earliest and most indelible lessons.  True or false – here is where we first learn about ourselves in the world.   Are intimate relationships safe?  Am I worthy of love?  How do others really see me?

The highly effective woman will often come into my office with the most poignant, powerful dilemma.  On the one hand, she has gotten it done throughout her life – often in the face of an utter absence of love and support from her important caretaker(s).  She grew up believing that there was nobody she could ever really lean on.  In fact, the idea of really leaning on anyone is so frightening – What if they can’t or don’t want to be there for me.  What if my need is an imposition or a reason for them to judge and dismiss me as not worthy of love.  Better I take care of myself.

Yet that is exactly what a close, bonded, adult attachment relationship is – Knowing that you will be there to catch me if I fall.  There is nothing wrong with wanting to be taken care of.  There are lots of ways that can happen for us.  Guys need it in their ways.  He may think of it in terms of sex or as being okay and still loved even if he screws something up.  She may just need to know that she can collapse every once in a while – to be exhausted or overwhelmed or scared and it’ll be okay.  She will be okay.  She will still be seen as strong, worthy, desired – still be loved.

Adult Attachment

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How comfortable are we being close in our intimate relationships?   Do our internal alarm bells go off frequently as we feel our partner pulling away from us?  Or is it the opposite – we begin to sweat when they seek to be too close.  Do our partners describe us as “clingy” or “aloof?”

Many of us struggle to one degree or another with connections.  We often repeat the same dramas and frustrations in our relationships, if we allow ourselves to get close enough to risk the pain or aggravation to begin with – a risk that we willingly take for the love, comfort and companionship we gain.  As with so much in life, there is nothing inherently wrong with our tendencies in one direction or another.  The trouble, and pain, often arise when, as we so often will, find ourselves bonding with someone who has a contrasting style.  Our need for space will feel to our partner like heartlessness and even contempt.  (It’s hard to feel contempt from our partner and not freak out.)  On the other side, our need for assurance will feel to our partner as clinginess. (It’s hard to feel that intensity and not close up and withdraw.)  However, as is usually the case one person is not contemptuous and the other isn’t clingy.  It’s the terribly painful cycle that gets triggered.  There is an interesting test available on the web here:   Adult Attachment Style which can give you and your partner some insight into your tendencies and where the gaps may be which you can fill in with understanding and compassion.

In Praise of Naps (and other couples therapy verites)

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I have frequently said that a turning point in my marriage came when my on-the-go wife accepted my naps.  For the first couple of years my afternoon fade into crankiness bucked up against her “How can you waste perfectly good day time,” plea.  Eventually, to the blessed relief of my amygdala and the balance of life in the cosmos, weekend naps were accorded their rightful place in our home.  I came across another confirmation in Slate today – an article which describes how lack of sleep contributes to heightened couple conflict.

Fatigue isn’t the only other stressor that may tax a couple.  I have worked with couples who have no time with each other and haven’t since their first of three children came along or who have suffered with financial setbacks that have necessitated pulling back on a previously comfortable lifestyle or who have opened their home to one’s parents.  While the heart of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy is the exploration and calming of attachment-related anxieties and wounds inflicted in the whipsaw-like cycle which grabs the couple, we can never ignore the presence of stressors which attack and challenge connection we all hope to maintain in our relationships.  Many years ago, Holmes and Rahe engaged in a study which attempted to identify and rate the intensity of various life stressors.  A review of these events is an excellent summary of the kinds of external “psycho-social stressors” which can put pressure on a relationship and result in conflict over repeated issues – which may just be seen as symptomatic of the stress as much as (or more than) anything else.  These include: trouble with the law, bankruptcy, illness, trouble with in-laws, beginning or ending a job, a child leaving home (or hitting adolescence), change in residence, change in work situation and loss of a close friend, among others.  This is why, in any assessment of intimate stress, we must always ask, “What is happening now in your lives?  Has anything changed recently?”