Predicting the Future: Why It Should Be Left Up To The Psychics
Six months ago, a couple walked into my office for marital therapy as their "last stop on the way to the divorce attorney..." and I have to admit, even I was cynical. If I was a betting woman, (and it is a good thing I am not) I think I would have all but abandoned my usual steadfast belief in the transformative power of Marital Reconciliation Therapy, and put all of my money on Divorce. This couple's future did not look good. Everything about them screamed "hopeless case." But I dug down into my deepest commitments to the profession and to making a difference, and agreed to work with them.
The interactions between these two people were brittle with acrimony. Even in ten years of private practice, I had never experienced such brutal and toxic hostility. The wife resented her husband's very existence, huffing, puffing and scoffing at every word he had the insolence to articulate. The husband described his despair over yet another failed marriage and his dread over the prospect of having to survive a second divorce. They each spent most of our first hour together casting blame, defending their own positions, and refusing to consider the other's perspective as even potentially valid. As I said, a pretty bleak situation.
But as I always do with the couples who find themselves slumped down on my couch (or in this case, my two separate couches), I began our work together with this question: "Are you willing to put aside the discussion regarding divorce for a distinct period of time, during which you would each wholly commit yourselves to exploring whatever might need to be explored, to resolve the anger and resentment that has obviously poisoned any opportunity for the two of you to even be in the same room with each other?"
They hemmed and hawwed. They presented me with all of their reasons for their mistrust of the other and their total lack of ability to believe in the possibility of a future worth living out together. And after I had spent enough time building a rapport with each one, I challenged them to consider an important reality: they would be in each others' lives forever, thanks to the four dependent little beings they brought into the world together, who were anxiously waiting to be picked up at the babysitter's house. I asked them to imagine what the future would look like together — married OR divorced — if they continued to do more of the same with each other. I suggested that if they decided to work with me, they would need to have willingness to let go absolutely, of the need to try and "predict the future" about their relationship, since the only thing they would have to base their predictions on would be the past — and we knew where THAT led them — right onto a Marriage Therapist's couches! They surprised me, and agreed to take the chance. I remember the moment vividly when the wife looked up at me and said, "Liza, I want to know I tried everything for my kids' sake. If I don't try this, I will always wonder if I could have done something to prevent the pain I know they will go through if we get divorced." At this, the husband was able to suddenly lighten up, and responded, "Well shoot, we know how to do 'this' already. There really is very little risk. I mean, if it doesn't work out, we can always just go back to this." They left my office with a commitment. It was a start.
Fast forward to now. We have waded through months of intense and usually-grueling weekly therapy sessions, and I must now admit that this couple has completely dumbfounded me beyond all of my wildest imaginings. They have courageously unravelled a colossal amount of pain, disappointments, miscommunications, broken agreements, resentments and unfulfilled expectations. Through their generous willingness to risk, I have had the profound privelege of coaching them through learning to interrupt and eventually halt the lethal communication patterns that had them so paralyzed on that first day. It has been mind-numbingly hard work for them at times, and I am consistently awestruck by their persistence. In the last few weeks, this couple who only six months earlier faced a highly predictable future of vindictive court battles, custody fights, visitation schedules and consequentially nasty step-family fallout, has accomplished the Miraculous. They saved their marriage.
Recently, the wife staggered me with a report they are having the best sex she has ever had in her life! With a devlish smile, she described the emotional and physical intimacy, and subsequent eroticism that has sprung up out of nowhere. She described that her husband, who has never been a verbally expressive person, now regularly communicates his gratitude for her, his admiration of her beauty, and his ongoing devotion to her. They appear to be falling in love, ostensibly for the very first time. And the Love that is now possible, on the other side of the abyss they have managed to claw their way out of, is a Love that could never have been possible before. She explained that she never believed this kind of Love was possible with any man — but especially not with the man she had been so angry with on the day they first met me. She also acknowledged that this new way of being together is obviously very tenuous, as it is so new and because they have a lot more years of practice, as she put it, "doing it the crazy way." So it will take constant vigilance and continued hard work to continue building this new life together. And she recognized that. As she described the way her children are responding to the love and fulfillment that is finally present in her once-chaotic home, I did not even try to hide my tears. The hard work this couple courageously took on in therapy made it possible for them to learn new ways of communicating and "being with" each other. Prior to this, those children had been doomed to a future of "more of the same" communication breakdowns, hurt feelings, and dysfunctional relationship patterns — whether or not their parents reconciled their marriage. Now, they had a chance. Today was a day that defined my career... My purpose, fulfilled.
But if the future for this couple had been left up to the ordinary, predictable world, what is occuring in this family's life today would never have been possible. Today, I truly know the impact that a therapist's own position on what's possible for a marriage can have on the future of a family. Thank God I am not a betting woman. And cheers to Possibility...
The interactions between these two people were brittle with acrimony. Even in ten years of private practice, I had never experienced such brutal and toxic hostility. The wife resented her husband's very existence, huffing, puffing and scoffing at every word he had the insolence to articulate. The husband described his despair over yet another failed marriage and his dread over the prospect of having to survive a second divorce. They each spent most of our first hour together casting blame, defending their own positions, and refusing to consider the other's perspective as even potentially valid. As I said, a pretty bleak situation.
But as I always do with the couples who find themselves slumped down on my couch (or in this case, my two separate couches), I began our work together with this question: "Are you willing to put aside the discussion regarding divorce for a distinct period of time, during which you would each wholly commit yourselves to exploring whatever might need to be explored, to resolve the anger and resentment that has obviously poisoned any opportunity for the two of you to even be in the same room with each other?"
They hemmed and hawwed. They presented me with all of their reasons for their mistrust of the other and their total lack of ability to believe in the possibility of a future worth living out together. And after I had spent enough time building a rapport with each one, I challenged them to consider an important reality: they would be in each others' lives forever, thanks to the four dependent little beings they brought into the world together, who were anxiously waiting to be picked up at the babysitter's house. I asked them to imagine what the future would look like together — married OR divorced — if they continued to do more of the same with each other. I suggested that if they decided to work with me, they would need to have willingness to let go absolutely, of the need to try and "predict the future" about their relationship, since the only thing they would have to base their predictions on would be the past — and we knew where THAT led them — right onto a Marriage Therapist's couches! They surprised me, and agreed to take the chance. I remember the moment vividly when the wife looked up at me and said, "Liza, I want to know I tried everything for my kids' sake. If I don't try this, I will always wonder if I could have done something to prevent the pain I know they will go through if we get divorced." At this, the husband was able to suddenly lighten up, and responded, "Well shoot, we know how to do 'this' already. There really is very little risk. I mean, if it doesn't work out, we can always just go back to this." They left my office with a commitment. It was a start.
Fast forward to now. We have waded through months of intense and usually-grueling weekly therapy sessions, and I must now admit that this couple has completely dumbfounded me beyond all of my wildest imaginings. They have courageously unravelled a colossal amount of pain, disappointments, miscommunications, broken agreements, resentments and unfulfilled expectations. Through their generous willingness to risk, I have had the profound privelege of coaching them through learning to interrupt and eventually halt the lethal communication patterns that had them so paralyzed on that first day. It has been mind-numbingly hard work for them at times, and I am consistently awestruck by their persistence. In the last few weeks, this couple who only six months earlier faced a highly predictable future of vindictive court battles, custody fights, visitation schedules and consequentially nasty step-family fallout, has accomplished the Miraculous. They saved their marriage.
Recently, the wife staggered me with a report they are having the best sex she has ever had in her life! With a devlish smile, she described the emotional and physical intimacy, and subsequent eroticism that has sprung up out of nowhere. She described that her husband, who has never been a verbally expressive person, now regularly communicates his gratitude for her, his admiration of her beauty, and his ongoing devotion to her. They appear to be falling in love, ostensibly for the very first time. And the Love that is now possible, on the other side of the abyss they have managed to claw their way out of, is a Love that could never have been possible before. She explained that she never believed this kind of Love was possible with any man — but especially not with the man she had been so angry with on the day they first met me. She also acknowledged that this new way of being together is obviously very tenuous, as it is so new and because they have a lot more years of practice, as she put it, "doing it the crazy way." So it will take constant vigilance and continued hard work to continue building this new life together. And she recognized that. As she described the way her children are responding to the love and fulfillment that is finally present in her once-chaotic home, I did not even try to hide my tears. The hard work this couple courageously took on in therapy made it possible for them to learn new ways of communicating and "being with" each other. Prior to this, those children had been doomed to a future of "more of the same" communication breakdowns, hurt feelings, and dysfunctional relationship patterns — whether or not their parents reconciled their marriage. Now, they had a chance. Today was a day that defined my career... My purpose, fulfilled.
But if the future for this couple had been left up to the ordinary, predictable world, what is occuring in this family's life today would never have been possible. Today, I truly know the impact that a therapist's own position on what's possible for a marriage can have on the future of a family. Thank God I am not a betting woman. And cheers to Possibility...
Posted by Liza M. Shaw at 8/25/2009 8:37 PM 
Categories: Thriving Relationships
Tags: miracle marriage counseling miracles therapy conselling happy marriage divorce prevention happiness love councilling marital success relationships family therapy joy therapist counseling loving your spouse agreements sex satisfaction don't get divorced freedom
Categories: Thriving Relationships
Tags: miracle marriage counseling miracles therapy conselling happy marriage divorce prevention happiness love councilling marital success relationships family therapy joy therapist counseling loving your spouse agreements sex satisfaction don't get divorced freedom
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