Someone named Mr. Edwards asked me if his wife was “ready” for marital therapy because he didn’t think she was. The question puzzled me. Why does anyone have to be ready? You just do it.
Like the time, when I was about 8 years old in summer camp and I stood in diver’s pose ready to dive head first into the water… for a half hour. I didn’t have the nerve to just do it. Finally, I just did it – and it was wonderful! So exciting, so exhilarating!
But we often let fear stop us from doing wonderful things.
Fear was implanted within us to be used in moderation, like eating delicious food should be done in moderation, or even sleeping needs to be done in moderation (unless you’re sick). In moderation, it keys us up a bit before a performance, a speech, a talk with the boss. This is good. The flow of adrenaline creates a state of alertness that we wouldn’t otherwise have.
By narrowing the blood vessels, adrenaline increases blood pressure. This, in turn, speeds up heart rate. It also expands the lungs, brings calories to the muscles, and even dilates the eyes’ pupils a bit. All these are useful before a test and before a debate.
But therapy is neither a test nor a debate. It is not a performance and there is no boss, either.
So what is the fear about?
We are often afraid of what our spouse will say about us. That may be our second biggest fear. But one of the more frightening aspects of therapy is the possibility of being known by this stranger, this therapist from whom we would rather hide. That may be the biggest fear.
We are used to our spouse. We have let our hair down in front of them so many times, it’s old. But the therapist, who is a stranger? Ah, that’s different. We don’t want to look like a fool or a fraud in front of them. We don’t want to look evil or empty, either.
But when you stop and think about it, that really makes no sense.
After all, who is this stranger to matter to us? Think, instead, of therapists more like a conduit, a bridge, to get from here to there. True, you do form a bit of a relationship, but they really are here only to serve the purpose of helping you on your journey. They are not supposed to be judgmental anyway; every code of ethics for every therapy profession forbids judgmentalism.
Think about it this way: A man that comes hobbling into the hospital for help, leaning heavily on his crutches is not to be blamed for his broken leg. The hospital’s job is to set the bone right and send him on his way.
Now, it could happen that the therapist is immature and makes foolish judgments about the person coming in the door, and worse, shares them with that person. Frankly, this is a reflection only on one person – the therapist. For that, you are entitled to make a complaint to the professional organization that he belongs to, whether psychology, social work, mental health counseling, or marriage and family therapy.
So there is absolutely no reason for fear of the therapist.
People are often afraid of even a bigger “adversary” – themselves. They often spend a good deal of time beating themselves up and they are justifiably afraid that in therapy, they will have to face those characteristics in themselves that they would rather not look at.
But the reality is that they’re already hating themselves because of these imagined flaws and the best thing they can do for themselves is shine a spotlight on them to see how innocuous they really are.
And even if you think I’m wrong – that these flaws are not at all innocent but rather terrible – there is always a good reason for their existence in your makeup. You created them as a means of survival at a time in your life when you knew no other thing. And they worked – they enabled you to survive.
So, you see, there is really no reason to be afraid of facing yourself, either.
If this is true, then how did this person who confronted me come to the conclusion that his wife was not “ready”? Is there a difference between marital therapy and regular, old, individual therapy?
Perhaps that is what this person thought. I can only guess. If we get back to the issue of fear, perhaps he thought that his wife was not “ready” to hear “the truth” about her from his lips.
Ah! Now that is a line I’ve heard before!
Someone believes he has the unvarnished truth “about” his spouse and is bursting to share it because once the spouse “knows” and hears it in the neutral, safe space of the therapy office, then all problems will magically be resolved.
I wish.
There is no such thing as “truth.” Only God has the Truth. And we have our biases! One spouse never can objectively share information about the other because he or she is not objective!
Now, Mr. Edwards will argue that “facts are facts.” That is true. But people have a funny way of presenting only the facts that make their point and leaving out others. Today, I was talking to Mr. Edwards (all names and stories are made up) and he told me that his wife went into a panic three times during the weekend, thinking she’d lost her phone, when the phone was in the bottom of her purse each time. One of those times, they were driving in traffic and she wanted him to stop the car, turn on the light, and let her search for the missing phone.
When he told her he was pulling to the side of the road and “Try to calm down,” she got….What? You tell me, what do you think she got?…
Madder. Of course. And he knows it. He knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that when someone’s amygdala (part of the brain that reacts to potential fearful situations with full sirens blasting) has been aroused, the last thing to calm that poor amygdala is to say, “Calm down.”
So I pointed out to him that his reaction probably wasn’t too helpful. He admitted it but said he was at the end of his rope. Well, I can understand that. Living with a highly anxious person who is not doing her homework to become centered and calm can be, indeed, stressful.
But here’s the thing: Mr. Edwards does not have the goods any more than Mrs. Edwards does.
They each have
- their side, their version of things
- their own not-so-helpful reactions to the things their spouse does
- their biases that their reactions are justified and therefore we don’t need to look at them.
So I gently ask Mr. Edwards to focus on his own reactions and see what he can do better by using the tools that I have given them. Then of course, I do the same with his wife.
So what is there to be “ready” for in marital counseling? Each person has to be willing to look at themselves whether it’s individual or marital therapy, and each person has to be willing to fall in love with themselves, too. To do that, looking at themselves must be followed by fixing the things about themselves that they don’t like.
It’s only when you love yourself that you have the capacity to love another.
So maybe that’s the answer. Maybe that man wasn’t ready to love himself and he found it convenient to say his wife wasn’t “ready.” I admit it is harder sometimes to love yourself than to tear yourself apart. But which feels better? Which makes more sense? Which do you want?
Give me a call and we will talk about what you really want. Together, of course. https://drdeb.com/book.