Notes on Couples Therapy When Considering Divorce
|
|
|
Beth Strong, MA, LPC
Marriage Counseling or Divorce Counseling?
As a therapist specializing in couples therapy, I have seen more couples than I’d like who choose to get counseling only after one of them has taken a serious step toward ending the marriage. However, even at this late stage, I’ve seen couples reassess their relationship, with the help of a qualified therapist, and shift in one of two directions: they either decide to stay together and work on their relationship, or they find that with counseling, they are able to create what I call a “good divorce.” Often, regardless of what you call it, counseling helps a couple decide whether to stay married or not, and helps them move through the stages of divorce if that is their decision.
Family Life Continues Even After a Divorce
If children are involved, it’s likely that both of you will continue to have some kind of relationship throughout your lives, as you both relate to your growing (and grown) children and their needs. How you handle this pivotal time will set the tone for how each of you is able to move into the next part of your life. It will also leave an indelible mark on how your children perceive endings of relationships. While we as humans are by definition resilient, we carry with us the unresolved hurts of our past. Hurts don’t ruin our lives by themselves, and when we learn how to resolve our hurts well, we actually grow tremendously from them. But unresolved hurts stay with us, often hidden in the recesses of our memories, and come out years later when another crisis triggers an older hurt. It’s always beneficial to work it through now.
Is Your Relationship As Important to You as Your Car?
Another trend I’ve seen over the years is that women are typically more open to couples therapy in the earlier stages of distress, and men more open when it looks like it’s really over. Men, you might say you value your wife over your car, but think about how much energy you put into the maintenance of oil changes, tires and transmissions. Too often I’ve seen people think of the need for counseling as an indictment of weakness or worse: something is “wrong with me.” But do you think there’s something wrong with your car when it needs an oil change? How about this: how well would your car be running if you felt as resistant to getting your oil changed as you might be about couples therapy?
A Different Kind of Guarantee
Couples therapy doesn’t come with a guarantee to save a failing marriage, but it almost always comes through with offering a much greater understanding of what went wrong. You may be surprised to find out that most of the time, it’s not about one person being at fault, but rather, there are predictable stages of relationship that come with their own sets of predictable snags. There are also ways of shifting how we communicate that fairly easily bring even the most conflict avoidant (or hostile and aggressive) couples to be able to find resolution. In the end, people often experience therapy as pointing them to the silver lining in the storm.
Back to Articles
|
|
|
|
|
Proud Member of
Tom Martino's
Troubleshooter Network
Listen to one of our satisfied clients
on the Tom Martino Show here! |
Colorado does not
certify attorneys as
specialists in any field
|
|
