8 relationship secrets your therapist won’t tell you.
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I’ve been a marriage and family therapist for more than 40 years. During much of that time my advice, though well meaning, often led to divorce. It also contributed to the ending of my first marriage and my second marriage. My present wife, Carlin, and I have been married for 35 years. Unlike many mid-life and older couples we know, we are more in love now than ever before and we’re convinced the best is yet to come. Too many couples seek marriage counseling to help their distressed relationship, but end up going their separate ways. It’s time to break the silence and tell the truth about why marriage counseling often leads to divorce:
Most counselors are trained to focus on the individual.
When I was in graduate school there were three divisions of practice: Casework, group work, and community organization. Casework was another name for individual counseling. This was the era where individual happiness was the focus and personal independence was the goal. This view was well summarized by Fritz Perls, the founder of Gestalt Therapy:
- I do my thing and you do your thing.
- I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
- And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
- You are you, and I am I,
- and if by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful.
- If not, it can’t be helped.
Though most therapist and counselors say they do “marriage and family counseling,” most have a bias towards helping the individual. It was assumed that if the therapist helped one person achieve success, it would help the partner as well. This assumption was wrong.
Most counselors have been divorced themselves and are biased in favor of divorce.
Like most therapists (and most people these days), I’ve been married and divorced before. I told myself that my own divorce didn’t bias me towards divorce as a solution to a couples problems, but I realized that it did. It’s difficult to accept that we may have made a mistake it our own relationships. It’s easier to believe that we made the right choice. So if our client says, “I’m no longer ‘in love’ with you, I want to leave,” we unconsciously lean towards that solution.
We have a “short-term” view of love.
Shortly after my first wife and I were married, we went to hear the world-renowned therapist Carl Rogers (along with Abraham Maslow, Rogers pioneered the field of humanistic psychology) talk about love and marriage. He had lots of good information from his many years as a therapist, but what touched me deeply was his personal sharing about the long-term relationship he had with his wife, who was with him at the talk.
At one point he turned to her and said,
“Remember when we had that difficult time in our relationship and we wondered whether we would get through it?”
I remember thinking to myself at the time, “Wow, even one of the greatest therapists in the world has problems.” I also thought, “How long could their problem have lasted, two seeks, six months, a year?” I literally couldn’t comprehend what he shared next.
“Those ten years were so difficult.”
Ten years? Why would anyone stay in a relationship that wasn’t working for ten years? At the time that made no sense to me, even though they seemed to be happy now and had been together for more than fifty years. Most of us have acquired a short-term view of marriage and bale out too soon.
We live in a trade-me-in culture.
In a culture based on the commerce of impermanence we go through our things rather quickly. We trade in our cars for the latest model. We give away perfectly good clothes that have “gone out of style.” We want the latest electronic gadget and demand the latest computer and software.
We don’t think consciously that “if it’s good to trade in my car, my clothes, or my computer for the latest model, why not trade in my wife/husband for one that I’d be happier with?” But its built into our way of thinking and acting.
Most counseling focuses on improved communication and problem solving.
The first question I was trained to ask was, “What is your problem?” The answer was usually some sort of communication problem.
- “My wife/husband doesn’t listen me.”
- “We can’t seem to communicate about sex.”
- “Every time we talk about money, we get in a fight.”
I’ve learned that communication is not the problem and focusing on problems actually leads to feelings of despair and hopelessness rather than greater joy and connection.
Most counseling takes place in an office where the therapist and client(s) talk.
In the time of Sigmund Freud patients would lie on a couch and talk to the doctor sitting behind in a chair. Modern day therapy practice has the counselor sitting in a comfortable chair opposite his/her clients and they talk. But talk isn’t the only way to heal. In ancient times, we would do things like dance and do ritual when there were problems in the life of the tribe or with couples in the tribe.
Today, some therapist believe that “talk therapy” may not be the best way to help a relationship. Patricia Love (how can you go wrong with when your last name is “love”) and Steven Stosny have written a wonderful book, How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It. They say,
“Even with the best of intentions, talking about your relationship doesn’t bring you together, and it will eventually drive you apart.”
Most counseling is geared towards the way women communicate.
Most marriage counseling is initiated by women. Men often come reluctantly. We think of the format of counseling as being gender neutral, but it’s not. Women, as a group, tend to be more comfortable with face-to-face communication. Men, as a group, are more comfortable with side-to-side communication. Women are more comfortable with words, while men are more comfortable with actions. The counseling format is one that favors women’s comfort level.
The result is a setting that creates discomfort and conflict for the man. Counselors may conclude that the conflict is because the couple is just not compatible. The real problem may be the context of the counseling is not compatible with the needs of both women and men. Homosexual couples share these problems and also often work with counselors that may not truly understand their issues.
Women are assumed to have more “mental health” problems than men.
Most counselors believe that women have more mental health problems than men. Many studies over the last thirty years, for instance, have shown that women experience depression at twice the rate of men. The truth is that men and women are equal in having mental health problems. They just express their problems differently.
As a result we tend to see women as “sicker.” This causes counselors to focus too much on women’s mental health issues and too little on men’s. Telling the truth about our biases towards divorce can help us all improve our success rates in saving marriages that need to be saved. Let me know what you think and what your experiences have been with marriage counseling.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Our visits with the “SO CALLED” Marriage CounselorhCounselorhad me shaking my head and wondering what the he’ll is going on here? She definitely was all for what my wife wanted, even to go so far as to say that she should be able to stay Friends with the Guy she was cheating on me with. This of course have my wife the green light to not only continue degrading me by continuing her affair/friendship with this guy but to eventually her going on to another Affair and abandoning our family (Our 2 daughters and me)and moving in with the later… Read more »
I was bitterly disappointed with our marriage counselling as I felt the counsellor was very biased against me even to the point of seeing me breakdown in tears and yet continue the same line of questioning. I was called out for many things but my husband wasn’t at all even though the counsellor knew my husband had been physically abusive to me.
As a man, one thing I need to be able to do in counseling is to be allowed to yell, or at least be “allowed” to sound as angry and frustrated as I feel. So much of the counseling format goes against this. I also think it would be great if counselors were “allowed” to actually give advice. I’m all for talking and getting a paradigm shift, but I don’t go to a tax preparer so I can solve my own tax problems. I don’t go hire a contractor so I can learn to remodel the kitchen myself. Why can’t… Read more »
I hired a counselor who had my wife and I do a survey online. After the survey was complete, the councilor advised my wife to leave me (I hired this person). Prior to that, she was seeing a therapist on her own. That therapist advised my wife to keep a journal of events. I did not know my wife was keeping this journal until she told me to leave our home. Apparently, she has been keeping track of every argument we had for 5 years.
Anyhow, therapy has been awful! I will never go again.
Jed, You have hit the nail on the head once a gain. I generally agree with at least 90% of what you write and this time you hit 100%. Thank you for writing this piece and I’ll be posting and sending it out. Cheers.
We have been married for almost 18 yrs. My spouse moved out last year for 7 months. His choice. I am a fighter and have been fighting tooth and nail to save my marriage. We have 3 teen kids. We don’t fight, hardly. Have great sex do “house” well, still love each other etc.. He came home right before Christmas because he thought wanted to try again.. 2.5 months later he is back to be done. I am, of course, very frustrated and hurt. There does seem to be a lack of respect in our relationship. He played a roll… Read more »
This was a very interesting article. While my husband and I aren’t in any sort of relationship distress, we’ve not ruled out the idea of seeking counseling in the future to work on issues I have stemming from a previously violent relationship, as well as family counseling to deal with the difficulty we’ve had in raising my son from that same relationship. I had not considered any of the things you wrote here when I was contemplating therapy. I’m definitely going to be checking out the book you recommended. We both have made great strides in communicating with one another… Read more »
Kelly, As I said, counseling can be helpful if we recognize that old ways may be harmful. I always work with my clients to build deep trust individually and as a couple and family. We can all learn to make more enlightened choices in support of our relationships. I’ve been counseling for more than 40 years and see people in my office, as well as by phone with men and women all over the world. People want deeply to have relationships that last, but our present approaches, too often, pull people apart. That can change.
Great article! Lots of interesting ideas. I too have been to counseling and I have been divorced. There is a less common group of therapists called LMFTs or Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists. I wish I had known of this category of therapists earlier in life. Here’s what I have come to believe. (Just one guy’s opinion mind you.) If you need a therapist for your marriage our couples relationship, find an LMFT. As far as I can tell, they believe that any relationship is operating within the network of surrounding relationships we all reside in. A very freeing and… Read more »
Mark, My degrees are in social work, MSW, LCSW, and later a PhD degree in International Health. I’ve found that the most important thing in picking a therapist isn’t their degree, but how skilled they are in helping heal three levels of relationship: Our relationship to ourselves, our relationship to the other member of the couple, and our relationship to our families (and beyond that to the larger community of life). Its also good to have someone who isn’t afraid to share their own experiences with marriage and divorce, their own biases, and what they’ve learned that will be helpful… Read more »
We were “fired” by our marriage counsellor for being unfixable. We have a young family, and one spouse has chronic depression. There is no violence, infidelity or other major problems. – we’re just tired and stressed. I was pretty shocked to earn she thought there was no helping us…
Em,
Sounds like the response of a stressed and overworked therapist. I’ve never found anyone that couldn’t be helped. Marriage is the graduate school for learning lessons about life and love. Marriage counseling is a kind of graduate school for therapists that we don’t learn in school.
As a counselor in training, I find your points very interesting. One question I did have though is why were you giving “advice” per say? One of the major tenants that I have been taught in my program so far is being non -directional with your clients, acknowledging your own biases, and doing everything possible to limit them from entering in to the therapeutic relationship.
Nicholas, I’ve learned over the years that we all have biases and we need to be aware of them and open and honest about them. Sometimes I’ve found that advice is wanted and needed. Other times, its good to listen and help the client find their own answers without the therapist offering their observations and guidance. As we work in the field, we learn to be more subtle in the ways we handle issues, and hopefully more skilled. I’m doing a training program for clinicians who are interested in learning to counsel in the emerging field of gender medicine and… Read more »
So if that is the case, what does one do about it contemplating counseling? We are headed in a few and it is a last ditch effort to see if there is anything less. Personally I am ready to work at it for years if need be.. my spouse..not so much. He’s afraid to leave and afraid to stay…
I would also like to know this. We have so many things we need to work on – so what do we do?
R.K. and Amber, I’m am a counselor in training and am currently about mid way through my master’s in counseling. I think the author make’s some very interesting points. However, I would encourage you to remember that all counselors differ substantially in both their theoretical orientation as well as counseling style. They are also influenced by their type of training and when they received it. I’m not saying the author is wrong or ineffective in his approach, rather just trying to highlight that each counselor is different. It is important not to generalize the author’s experience to all of counseling.… Read more »
R.K., I’m not suggesting people not do counseling. I’m just suggesting they be clear about their needs and seek a counselor who is aware of her/her own biases and has dealt with them sufficiently to be supportive of what you really want.
Great article Dr. Diamond. It has been said that “A Woman marries a man for who she thinks he can be and expects him to change, while a man marries a woman for exactly who she is and expect her not to … and both are sorely disappointed.” You can make that comment gender and preference neutral but the point remains, when we have notions about what our partner is “supposed to be” we are in for disappointment and upset. Unless we find peace, presence and acceptance within ourselves, we will never find true peace with a partner. And unless… Read more »
Fascinating article. I have never thought about these points, have always advocated for counselling.
This article is EXCELLENT, Jed! On Point!