Questions Asked by Couples Before Starting Counseling

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When couples seek counseling they often have questions about my style of counseling as well as my beliefs about relationships and divorce.

I recently got asked what my stance is on divorce. Meaning am I for, neutral,  or against divorce.

  • My stance on divorce would depend on the specific couple. As a couples therapist, I like to think that there is hope for many couples to repair their marriages. The type of couples therapy I use in sessions, the Gottman Method, does provide a roadmap for most couples to do so. The Gottman Method can be used to help couples repair and move past many difficult relationship events (affairs, traumas, etc.). That being said, there are some circumstances that couples therapy is contraindicated such as cases where characterological domestic violence is present.
  • When two people are in a relationship, they will have a set of perpetual unsolvable problems that will continue to come up. Each person has to decide if they are able to live with the other’s unsolvable problems. If they are not, they should probably not be in a relationship together.

Can couples counseling be helpful for couples going through a divorce?

  • Absolutely. It looks a bit different than counseling for couples hoping to stay together. My goal as the therapist would be to reduce the same unhelpful patterns that I would in a couple hoping to continue being married and to help facilitate more productive conversations. Even though you are getting divorced, you still have to be able to exist in each other’s worlds (especially if children are involved). A divorce takes a huge psychological toll on people, and anger and sadness are normal and common emotions. You can be angry at one another without being demeaning, and you can be hurt without turning your relationship absolutely toxic.

How can I trust my partner after they’ve betrayed me?

  • When your partner is unfaithful, your whole sense of self is shattered and you begin to doubt yourself. The person you trusted is now untrustworthy. You doubt your own instincts.
  • A mistake that couples make where one person has been unfaithful is to try to make the unfaithful partner trustworthy again. This leads to the betrayed person checking up on the partner (checking their phone, credit card statements etc.).  Because they cannot trust themselves to trust their partner, the betrayed might make their partner call them every number of hours, send them pictures to make sure they say they are where they said they would be, etc.
  • Instead of focusing on making the other person trustworthy, focus on yourself and your own self-esteem/self-worth. Once you begin to trust yourself again, trusting your partner will come easier.

Hopefully these answers shed some light on the hard questions you may be wondering about before you consider therapy. Feel free to call or e-mail me if you have further questions.

 

Couple Counseling

Couples Counseling

 

The Importance of Emotional Connection During Everyday Activities

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It sounds so simple, right? Of course you should spend time with your significant other! You might spend a great deal of time together already! But ask yourself this, is it meaningful? Does it allow you and your partner to emotionally connect? John Gottman calls this “putting deposits in the emotional bank account” and this allows you to bounce back after the next big argument. Think back to the last time you and your partner spent time together. Was your partner emotionally “there” for you during the time? Were you emotionally “there” for your partner?

Take watching your favorite TV show together. Sure, you might both laugh at the same time at something funny that happens or you might both relate to what happened in that episode, but do you take the time to connect during or after the show or do you go your separate ways afterwards?

As people get more comfortable in their relationships and routines are in place, the emotional connection could decrease. I’m not saying that you stop spending time together (although you might!), but you may not be as emotionally present for one another as you were when you were first dating. Instead of reading and discussing the news, you may read the news silently. Instead of talking about the TV episode you watched, you may turn the TV off and go to bed.

To rectify this, in a therapy session I have couples identify what they currently do every day to connect with one another or their “rituals of connection” as John Gottman puts it. These can be simple, everyday occurrences such as making breakfast together, cuddling before waking up, greeting each other when you come home from work, or watching the evening news together. If you and your partner cannot think of any ways you connect throughout the day, you can think about what you used to do when you were first dating and why that was special to you. It is helpful to identify what you are currently doing to connect with one another and why it is meaningful to you. That way your partner knows that you value this activity and you keep doing it! Couples often surprise each other during this exercise. Often, one partner finds a great deal of meaning in something when the other had no idea!

Then the couple identifies activities that they would like to do in the future in which they would like their partner to be more emotionally “there” for them. This is an important activity to do. Even if you have been together for 40 years, your partner cannot read your mind! Keep in mind this is not an activity that allows you to criticize your partner for all of the things you are not doing together; it is one that allows you to say “I love you so much, I want your full emotional presence when we do X” or “I love doing this activity and I really want you emotionally there to share it with me.” It also allows you to know ahead of time what activities are important to your partner and which activities they would be hoping you were more emotionally present for. This allows you to prevent a “withdrawal” from the emotional bank account in the future and could even lead to a deposit!

Remember, every interaction can be made into a way to have a deeper emotional connection with your partner. In doing so, this helps keep the friendship strong, which is the foundation of a supportive and healthy relationship.

Happy connecting, everyone!

 

Tired of Arguing About Nothing in Your Relationship?

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There are thousands of different ways we ask for attention from our partner or significant other. Some of us may resort to calling each other on the phone or greeting each other with a “Hey, I’m home” when we get home from work. These days it might be through a text message, a “like” on Facebook or a “tweet” on Twitter. No matter how we reach out to our partner, the reason behind it is still the same — we are seeking attention and affirmation.

John Gottman calls these moments “bids for attention.” These little bids might not seem like a big deal, but they add up after a while and can be the difference between feeling supported and cared for by your partner or feeling unhappy and alone in your relationship. In his research, he discusses how arguments or fights are usually started over one person getting upset because the other did not “answer their bid” or give them attention when they reached out for it.

Why do these failed bids result in arguments? Most bids are not delivered overtly;  they are subtle and can often be missed. Bids also may not be delivered so sweetly. A “Hi, I’m home and I want attention after my long day” is more often than not delivered in a “My day at work was horrible! I had back-to-back meetings and am so tired I can’t even think!” If I heard that from my partner, I certainly would not think that my partner wanted my attention!

People also make bids by exhibiting actions or behaviors. These are often very hard to ascertain. They could be made in the presence of a partner with a direct action such as sitting closer to him or her, holding the partner’s hand, hugging him or her or doing something less overt such as sighing. Bids can also be made in advance.  An example would be performing actions that would be helpful for the relationship or partner, such as making dinner, cleaning up, going to the store to get milk, planning a “date night” etc. What results in the arguments is the person that made the bid then gets angry when his or her efforts go unnoticed. Some people make their action bids more well known by throwing a “did you notice I unloaded the dishwasher?” question out there, but usually, nothing is said and those failed bids just keep piling up. These failed bids add up to consequences where the partner who is not getting his or her bids answered becomes more sensitive to the failed bids and usually picks a fight over something they normally wouldn’t pick a fight about. This is when I usually hear the “our fights come out of nowhere” comment from couples.  The fights do not come out of nowhere; they result from one person not getting attention when they bid for it.

An even trickier bid for attention, and in my opinion, the most likely bids to result in an argument, are those bids that we make when we try to get attention by making our partner jealous. If you are not getting attention from your partner, you might be more aware of getting attention elsewhere. Just like the “did you notice I unloaded the dishwasher” comment, one might also point out to a partner “a good-looking woman hit on me today and asked for my number.” What do both of these comments have in common? Both have hidden meanings. Both are saying “I want attention from you.” Why bring up the attention from someone else if you did not want the comment to result in an increase in attention from your partner? Granted, the latter might bring on the emotion of jealousy that clouds the ability to recognize the bid for attention. Just like that bid was not delivered sweetly, the attention from the partner might not be delivered so sweetly either. After all, getting angry at your partner is a form of attention. So the bid did result in attention, but not the kind that was probably wanted.

Why are so many bids (especially bids that involve jealousy) missed? Is it because admitting that we want attention and affirmation from our partners leaves us vulnerable or sounding weak? Is it because simply asking our partner for attention seems silly or childish?

I would argue that if more people started flat out saying to their partners “I want attention” that this would result in the partner answering that bid and giving attention. Try it sometime when you notice your bid is not getting “answered.” Instead of starting an argument, say what you are really desiring, attention.