The Couples Tool Kit
Working together as a team of three — by Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W., Specialist in Couples TherapyArchive for The Coupledom
A Smart Mother’s Day for The Coupledom
Your Mother, Her Day: May 13 is Mother’s Day and the material world is busy reminding us to commemorate our mothers with flowers, jewelry, breakfast in bed, and dinner out at a special restaurant. Though this tradition of honoring motherhood has ancient roots, the current version began in 1907 when Ana Jarvis, desirous to honor her deceased mother, proposed that one day a year be set aside to honor all mothers. And so it was that Woodrow Wilson designated the second Sunday in May as a national holiday for that purpose. The appellation was in the singular form, Mother’s Day, not the plural Mothers’ Day as it is sometimes used today, underscoring the very personal and specific focus on your mother, her day.
Many More Moms Than You Think: This all sounds pretty easy. But it is not always that easy. For instance, who is in charge of making sure that mom is celebrated? When the children are too young to shop or make French toast, the task usually falls to dad to ensure that mom feels special on her day. And that same man often has his mom and perhaps his in-law mom to factor in as well. There might even be a step-mom who expects some acknowledgement of her role for all those weekends together. Sisters are moms too. And here is the man, one man, three moms, some young children and a lot of confusion. How do you prioritize all these moms?
The Mother’s Day Irony: It is ironic that a day set aside over one hundred years ago for children to show honor and respect for their mothers has evolved into a task for husbands who are often at the helm of making the celebration reach a pleasurable conclusion for their wives. Hence, The Coupledom’s role deserves attention as we approach yet another Mother’s Day in the U.S.A.
Triangulating Mother’s Day: One sure-fire way to make a mess and misery out of mother’s day is to view it (often subconsciously) as a competition for “Most Important Mother Award.” Spouses, partners, everyone has a mother and most are alive and young enough to know if they are being sufficiently honored by their sons and daughters on that one day a year devoted to their loving sacrifices. Divorced families may add another twist when step-mom and step-grandma have played roles of maternal significance, and in so doing earn a place in the Mother’s Day roster of significant maternal figures. The permutations and combinations are endless and the potential for guilt, hurt and the resurgence of old wounds is palpable. Neither Hallmark, nor Macy’s, Target, 1-800-Flowers or any other merchandiser has figured out how to make all the moms feel satisfied and all the husbands, daughters and sons relieved. This goal falls into a different category of expertise.
In previous posts I have dealt with the tendency for The Coupledom to find themselves in a triangulated relationship that brings havoc to an otherwise happy home. Mother’s Day provides ample opportunity for just such triangles. Being pro-active as a couple to prevent this possibility means sitting down and talking about how to tackle potential complications with open minds, and the mom working hard not to personalize pragmatics while still feeling entitled to put her needs and preferences forward. This is a balancing act for all that takes some self-discipline, foresight, mutual respect and honesty.
A Developmental Approach To Mother’s Day: A useful perspective in assessing how to plan for the day is taking a look at the developmental stage that the particular mother is in. New mothers and those in the throes of raising young children really do need a break, as well as perhaps breakfast in bed. Feeling truly appreciated for her hard work may be best shown by doing some of the work for her and also providing an outlet outside the home for herself or The Coupledom to play and have fun without pressure or responsibility for the care of others. The mom of teens is probably still hankering for that break and the affirmation of her as a woman/wife that a husband can provide but women at both stages revel in the joy of being surrounded by children who are excited to show their appreciation. For the mom whose children are out of the house, everything shifts and the focus might be on efforts to bring all the children and grandchildren together. But here again, more than one generation of moms in the picture requires sensitive and thoughtful attention and communication on how to best honor each of them in ways that correspond to their stage of motherhood. Grandmothers are certainly important but the daughter or daughter-in-law who is in the trenches of caretaking children may be the mother most deserving of attention and consideration.
Husbands Are Sons Too: Obviously husbands as sons have pressures and obligations that pull on them as well. That is one of the reasons that it is crucial that the couple be honest and open with each other when making their Mother’s Day plans so that the day is just a day and a good day, not something that lingers as a bad smell or another grudge to haul out later to make a point.
The Smart Mother’s Day: Have a smart mother’s day that avoids traps and triangles, with a Coupledom that actively collaborates on how to make it the best day for mom, even with some surprises. What you don’t want is the surprise of hurt or the toxic infusion of competition. The Coupledom should roll out of this year’s celebration with shared warmth and a strong working engine of love and respect.
Good luck and Happy Mother’s Day.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2012
A Divorcing Option: A Gracious Ending
The Possibility of Closure and Release: Once again Sunday’s The New York Times has offered an article that warrants attention. Briefly, as I am still on the road with my Coupledom, I want to draw your attention to Abby Ellin’s review of a new trend in divorced, divorcing or breaking-up Coupledoms. (I would say, former Coupledoms.) Entitled Untying the Knots, and Bonds, Of Marriage the author describes a trend among former couples who are finding solace, comfort, closure and release through the enactment of some agreed upon ceremony, moment, or exchange that marks, with grace, the end of their relationship, even if that ceremony occurs months or years after the legal demise or break up was factually finalized.
Still Sticky Stuff After All These Years: In a sense, what folks are striving to do is to remove the sticky goo that adheres to the person’s emotional skin like suntan lotion after a day at the beach, sticky with a film of gritty sand that doesn’t brush off.
In one of my earlier posts, The Divorcing Coupledom: the Art of Uncoupling, I focus on the importance of honoring what was once a chosen bond, a family, a shared life, though that life may have lost its way. As with all the significant passages in our lives, those of joy and those of sadness, those fraught with anger and conflict, something remains unfinished and knotted up if not provided with a ritual, a moment, a sharing. How wise it is to understand this: imperfect mortals as we all are, how can our vows be always perfect too? Can we, former lovers, become something new with a shared understanding of loss and free ourselves to move on without trashing, bashing or attempting to deny that once there was a love, and now there is something else? And to do so for the dignity of that former Coupledom, and for the children that may have emerged from its joining?
Crazy? Impossible? I don’t think so. Life is long. And options remain. Nothing feels better than letting go of goo and finding personal renewal, even when it may involve holding hands for just a moment with the past. What isn’t always clear in the wake of pain and profound disappointment is that when you try to sever a part of your life completely, you cut off a piece of your self.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2012
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Oldies but Goodies: The Passive-Aggressive Punch: The Silent Code of Anger In The Coupledom
Jill is taking a break from the blog this week. Here is one of her most popular posts from the past year or so.
Excerpt:
Withholding: A common form of passive-aggressive behavior is withholding: sex, affection, information, conversation. Someone in the Coupledom stops chatting, sharing details of family life; someone refrains from conveying essential data such as appointments, social events, school open houses, soccer games; someone “forgets” to share news about changes at work, relative illnesses……
You can read the full post here:
The Passive-Aggressive Punch: The Silent Code of Anger In The Coupledom
© Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2011
An Article Worth Sharing: Pre-Marital Cohabitation
This Merits a Perusal: I am about to take a journey with my spouse which will include an abundant amount of “quality time” together, some of it on the road. Hence I am sure that upon my return home, I will have ample material to ponder and share. I had no plans to post anything Coupledom related this week except the “Oldies But Goodies” of previous posts but The New York Times Sunday Review published an article by Meg Jay, a clinical psychologist at the University of Virginia which warrants sharing.
In her article entitled “The Downside of Cohabiting Before Marriage” Dr. Jay raised some very interesting questions for folks to consider on the subject.
No Conclusions Just Process: Cohabitation is here to stay but some research has correlated cohabitation prior to marriage with the likelihood of divorce. However the data does seem to be shifting, and suggests that how you cohabit – that is, how you make the decision to do so or to continue that lifestyle choice – seems to be the key to its being a satisfying path for The Coupledom or an indicator of divorce.
A Slide Or A Commitment: Dr. Jay provides useful language for couples to discuss and define the type of “living together” that each envisions or desires. For example, is your cohabiting the “slide” into convenience or the committed road to happily ever after? Dr. Jay recommends that couples clarify their motivation for setting up even the most casual of homes, in order to allow both partners the opportunity to understand their intentions and those of their partner. Once clarification is established regarding these variables, then cohabiting prior to wedding bells can ring true.
Don’t miss this quick read. Clicking on the link above may help you to prevent future disappointments in love and life choices.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2012
Oldies but Goodies: Can You Say No To A Narcissist? Co-Narcissism and The Coupledom
Jill is taking a break from the blog this week. Here is one of her most popular posts from the past year or so.
Excerpt:
Do You Often Feel Invisible in The Coupledom? Healthy narcissism is a good thing. We need to care enough about ourselves to stay healthy, strive to achieve, pick caring partners, and teach our children the same. However, the line drawn in the sand is how the needs and feelings of others factor in to the equation. In the intimacy of a marriage or committed partnership, if one member is primarily caught up with trying to please the other, to manage their partner’s moods, and screen all experience through the lens of the effect on their partner, then you have a Coupledom in the throes of reactivity to unhealthy narcissism.
You can read the full post here:
Can You Say No To A Narcissist? Co-Narcissism and The Coupledom
Healing The Coupledom: Neurobiology and Couples Therapy
The Refuge of Stories: Steve Almond, the son of therapists, author and writing workshop teacher, described in a New York Times Sunday magazine article the mushrooming popularity of today’s writing workshops, which he views as a version of the old “talk therapy”, so popular prior to the psychopharmacological and managed care revolutions in mental health. To be a student in a creative writing workshop today, according to Almond, does not carry the “stigmatizing” or “covert” nature of psychotherapy, yet it can serve a similar purpose as “talk therapy”: that of providing a sanctuary of sorts to tell an individual’s personal story. In his article, Why Talk Therapy is on the Wane and Writing Workshops On The Rise, Mr. Almond describes how “telling a story” is “the most reliable path to meaning” and cites as examples, the world-class fiction authors Kurt Vonnegut, William Faulkner and J.D. Salinger as examples of writers who found a “refuge” for, as Faulkner puts it, “the human heart in conflict with itself.” To underscore his point Almond cites as evidence Vonnegut’s response to a question posed shortly before his death, “What was the central topic of his works?” Mr. Vonnegut’s answer, “I write again and again about my family.” In one way or another, so do we all.
Telling Your Life Story Together: As a couples therapist, I have witnessed the powerful healing force that comes when individuals tell their personal stories, powerful anecdotes or snippets of momentous moments in their past, to me in the presence of their partner. To do the deep work of change that relationships in trouble often need, personal history is critical. And though couples share much of what they construe as the most relevant data about their past with their partner through the years, it is startling how much is missing. There are many reasons for the absence of shared, emotionally significant data; one most frequent is that many of the most profound memories remain submerged in a file hidden from day-to-day conscious awareness. However, in the safety of the therapy office, a place where archaeological digs psychological in nature are the expected and accepted format, stories unfold with imagery so true and uncensored that veils are lifted and vision returns to allow individuals to see themselves and each other in the touching and compassionate light of vulnerability that is at the core of human experience. Stories shared can shift perceptions and open new pathways for intimacy that are not about the marriage or even the courtship but center on earlier experiences that have shaped the adult next to you and are subterraneously impacting your relationship each day.
When Couples Share: Halting the “he said, she said, they said” counterpoint of many a couples session by digging into the history and the memory of the individual, while the other sits and listens, is an extraordinarily powerful tool for both partners, if the light of hope and a flicker of love remains in their Coupledom. Then something transformational and ultimately healing can occur with the reliving of experience through stories of conflict, pain, joy, celebration and confusion related in the presence of a partner, yet not about that partner. “Who I was then and am in part now is what you are hearing. But I am not telling the story because of you or for you. I am telling this story because the therapist asked me to.” Listening is possible, hearing and being heard can take place, because the threat is reduced. When adrenaline is pumping, triggered by the fight/flight state, our empathic listening device is turned off. When the story is not about “you” the hearing device with its attunement dial turned up can be a sensitive instrument indeed.
And today, through MRI and EEG imaging, we have scientific data that supports the long-held perception that interpersonal relationships influence the mind, the brain, the entire well-being of the individual and their relationship with the other.
Daniel Siegel and Interpersonal Neurobiology: Last weekend I attended a conference at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City entitled presented by Dr. Daniel Siegel, who is a clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA School of Medicine, a man with so many areas of expertise that a quick synopsis here does an injustice to the depth and breadth of his knowledge about human experience. His work in attachment experiences, his continuing search for a definition of the “mind”, which he has achieved to his satisfaction, and his study of the neurobiology of health and interpersonal relations makes Dr. Siegel uniquely qualified to discuss how we humans impact each other in ways that affect the health of our brains (which is inclusive of our entire bodies) and our relational and natural world. With the availability of sophisticated brain imaging instruments, Dr. Siegel’s findings have been supported by hard science.
Rigidity and Chaos: Dr. Siegel aptly subsumes all illness as a consequence of and manifested by either chaos or rigidity in physical (neurological and all body systems) and emotional functioning (the two are inseparable.) Psychotic behavior is the most extreme example of chaos and Obsessional Compulsive Disorder an easily identifiable example of rigidity. Linkage and integration of all parts of body and being bestow health. Blockages and disconnections subvert health. The neurobiological findings of current scientific investigation support this model of how human functioning operates.
How Does Psychotherapy Work? These tenets of health, which include self-awareness, or as Dr. Siegel puts “How someone makes sense of their life” and their interconnectedness with another, couldn’t be more obvious or significant to me as a psychotherapist as when I am watching a couple pause in their “I” moments of fight/flight defensiveness to engage in the telling of or the listening to their partner’s story. The process of story telling offers a deepening personal awareness for the story teller, to quote Mr. Almond, who in telling, will find “the most reliable path to meaning” for themselves and an opportunity for linkage to the listening other who is integrating their partner’s “story” in a mind altering manner.
Impacting Each Other Through Our Brains: Studies show that psychotherapy as well as meditation and many other practices that increase awareness and allow for integration of self enhance brain functioning, peacefulness and health. And research studies over the years that have compared different schools of psychotherapy (such as psychoanalytic, psychodynamic or cognitive therapy) reveal that what heals and changes the individual for the better is not dependent on a particular philosophy or methodology at work, but the relationship between the psychotherapist and patient; the relationship is the healing tool.
The Healing Tool: Therefore, drawing from this hard data, it is clear that the healing tool(s) of couples therapy can draw from multiple sources: the relationship between patient and therapist; the relationship with the self through the awareness that comes from “story telling” which is facilitated by the patient/therapist bond; and the relationship between partners through knowing the other by their stories. Siegel defines integration as health, which occurs when blockages are opened up (for The Coupledom, that would mean rigid ways of knowing self and the other are no more) and chaos is reduced by allowing the linkages that now open to form a safe foundation of self with another “when present, flexibility and harmony result.”
The Unique Power and Potential of Couples Therapy: Couples that allocate both time, resources and courage to this expansive learning and healing process, from my experience, do something impressive and long lasting; they allow their vulnerabilities and histories to be voiced and heard together to form a cornerstone of intimacy, of being separate yet known, that supports a lifetime of “healthy love” and opens neural pathways of mutual caring. This is powerful stuff, believe me.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2012
News, and a Special Opportunity for My Readers
Dear Readers, as you well know, it has always been my intention to use my journey as a parent whose special needs child was “aging out of the system” to help others who were not yet on that path, or even as perspective for those who were. This was primarily because there are few, if any, guidebooks for a journey like this. (In fact, within days of my beginning these posts, Parade magazine carried an article about “aging out of the system”, recognizing it as a relatively new and increasing reality for so many of us.)
At some point along the journey, I began to be asked, “Are you planning on turning this into a book?” And while that was certainly not my intention when I started out, it began to grow on me that if I wanted to help others, a book made a lot of sense.
I am currently in the process of gathering these posts into a book. The final form is still under development, but it will be an e-Book, available for Kindle, Nook and iBooks, with a print-on-demand capability so that people or organizations that want hard copies can have them.
One thing the book allows me to do is to incorporate artwork and collages throughout that were created by our daughter. She is quite the artist, and the collage we have chosen for the cover is, in the words of one person involved in the project, “Better and more evocative than anything we could have asked an illustrator to come up with.”
My blogger guy and marketing guru has suggested that it is appropriate to offer you, my dear readers who have come along on this journey with me, the opportunity to buy the book at a discount, and I think that is a great idea. We don’t know how much the book will sell for yet, and we certainly are not ready to offer it for sale.
But with this series of posts ending, he felt that we should tell you about it before you moved on and we all lost touch with each other.
If you would like to be notified when the book is available, and to be given a discount on the book, please email me and let me know. And when we’re ready, I will send you an email letting you know the details.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2012
The Un-Romantic Bed
Bill Maher: If ever there were an unromantic guy, it is Bill Maher with his surgeon-like skill to slice away all artifice and get to the earthy or seamy underbelly of so much of life, political and otherwise. Recently, he made a comment about sleep which got me thinking about the unromantic aspect of sleeping together or apart.
But first, his comment. Mr. Maher, in an interview with guest Dr. Drew Pinsky on his HBO talk show Real Time while discussing the demise of Whitney Houston, made this observation about celebrities and drugs “…one thing you can’t command, any of us, is sleep.” In Maher’s opinion, “A lot of these deaths (referring to celebrity deaths) are about sleep.” In that context Mr. Maher reached as far back as Elvis, who, he believes, died in pursuit of a good night’s sleep. Mr. Maher and Dr. Drew were in agreement that prescription drugs, readily available to the rich and powerful, are often the pathway to untimely and tragic death. Why? Mega stars have entourages, including physicians whose role is to gratify their clients every whim. In Mr. Maher’s view, no one has the magic spell that brings “on demand” the elusive state of sleep without relying on a potentially lethal potion of chemicals and alcohol that ultimately can make sleep permanent. And no one can guess, neither those who may provide the drugs or drink, nor the imbibers, when that potion might take the lethal turn.
Sleep Over Romance: Mr. Maher speaks the truth when he says, ”No one can command sleep.” But almost anything can interrupt it for many. It is this conundrum of shared bedding that often puts even the best of compatible Coupledoms in a quandary over how to stay intimate and spoon in the double, queen or king-size realm, and still get a decent night’s sleep. Snoring, insomnia, spouses who talk or groan in their sleep, toss and turn and even strike out an arm or a leg sometimes smacking their unsuspecting partner, steal sheets, need the T.V. on, turn on a light to read, leave the bed several times to pee, get hot flashes and rip off the covers or their PJ’s in middle of the night, fight over windows open or closed: these are just some of the interruptions that can lead to serious sleep deprivation. Those are challenges enough to Coupledom sleep compatibility without adding the great sleep challenge that child rearing brings to the art of achieving a peaceful night’s sleep “together.” (See my previously published post on the subject, Musical Beds: Bedtime And The Coupledom).
In a blog published in the Wall Street Journal in 2009, the “sleeping separately” solution for those who cannot achieve sleep while sharing a bed with their partner is outed and normalized as a reasonable alternative to serious sleep deprivation. Perhaps a different issue than the celebrity search for a restful night, which may be complicated by serious emotional issues, a lifestyle of erratic hours, and drug dependency, the typical Coupledom may be suffering from the social pressure to appear “happily married” by co-existing nightly under the same set of sheets at the price of sleep loss, a potentially serious medical threat to one’s health and a surefire way to reduce emotional tolerance in any relationship.
Sex, Vacations and Visitors: We are a culture that tries to conform to conventional images that portray happiness and health. Isn’t that what advertising is all about? Happy couples in separate beds or bedrooms have not been pictured in catalogs, movies or television shows since Lucy and Desi. Yet, despite media displays of marital bliss as one bed, two spooning bodies, many couples sleep apart not because they are alienated from each other, but because they cannot forgo another night of sleep without losing all pleasure in living. When on vacation these same couples are challenged to find affordable options for separate rooms, and when visitors come to their home, they are faced with revealing this “anomaly” of coupling or spending a few nights back in the sack together sleepless again. That sexual contact is associated with sharing a bed is countered by anecdotes from many a couple who remain in the same bed while experiencing serious emotional and sexual alienation even to the point of seeing a divorce attorney. Bedding down together each night is no guarantee that intimacy of any kind is actually taking place.
Children: I have yet to find scholarly research on the impact on children of parents sleeping either in separate beds or bedrooms. Emphasis in blog posts and articles is on the relationship between spouses while they are awake ,which more fully tells their children the story of their parents’ relationship than who sleeps where. It is also useful to be clear why separate bedrooms work if the child raises the topic or has some questions. Children are not particularly eager to hear about their parents’ sex life, so a general sense that all is well is conveyed by affectionate displays and real life observations that their parents enjoy each other’s company, rather than grunts and groans heard through bedroom walls.
However, I did come across an article for parents who are getting divorced that includes an easy guide to understanding from a developmental perspective how children of different ages view their familial world, published by North Carolina State University. Understanding the stages of child awareness at all ages can help parents separate fears from facts.
The Un-Romantic Bed: My unromantic poster boy, Bill Maher, has the knack for flushing out hidden shame on many subjects. That sleep is important is not a new idea. But that in the search for a peaceful sleep, some succumb to the temptations that an “elixir” of sorts can, like the long sought fountain of youth, bring eternal happiness is exposed for the ruse that it is. And that “shameful fact” that many couples cannot achieve nocturnal bliss side-by-side should be outed as well, rather than guffawed over or sneered at as some skeleton in the marital closet. Perhaps Mr. Maher can out that fact as well? With all Coupledom issues, what is healthy is truth, earthy, often unromantic but not shameful. A good night’s sleep for each partner makes for a better Coupledom.
Have That Conversation. It is very personal but it is also very practical.
Sweet dreams.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2012
Couples Counseling: A Tool For Life?
Checking In: When a couple comes in for counseling, they are motivated by a personal crisis, either within The Coupledom or one pressing on the Coupledom. Typical triggers are a particularly volatile fight, an encounter with relatives/in-laws that leads to a clash of attitudes, a financial crisis, a child’s acting-out, loss, an affair, a suspected affair, addiction or illness, sexual discontent, an impending retirement, or other significant life changes. I have worked with couples on the eve of their wedding where one questions the decision to marry. Couples, only a few months post-wedding, where one member of The Coupledom is behaving in a most “unmarried” fashion. And the therapy can last for several months or several years. But what really makes for the greatest certainty of sustained improvement is when couples use therapy whenever one or both see themselves stuck at an important crossroad or drifting apart with ever-widening chasms between them. The “return” to a trusted couples psychotherapist who is familiar with the individuals and their history can be an enormous asset to any marriage.
Undermining Attitudes: I am often puzzled by the association many in our society continue to make when considering professional help with marital issues (or any relational or psychological challenge). Despite the fact that psychotherapy and counseling are everyday terms in today’s culture, with television and radio shows providing therapeutic interventions to openly distressed individuals within view of wide audiences, in the private sector there remains a belief that asking for help signals crisis, catastrophe, humiliating weakness, or a first step to divorce. Frequently a spouse will call to inquire about counseling with the caveat “my husband/wife doesn’t know I am making this call” because they anticipate that the spouse will be alarmed and resistant. Often the first appointment or first few appointments are focused on helping the spouse find the courage and the skills to have the conversation that will lead their partner to the needed couples therapy.
Improvement as Incentive: All psychotherapy, to be useful, requires a gradual lowering of one’s guard, defenses or whatever armor we all use to appear invulnerable to others or to reassure ourselves that we are in control. Couples therapy provides witnesses to this shedding of layers of protective covering, not just in the presence of a stranger, the therapist, but also someone very familiar, with whom one lives: the spouse. These are powerful dynamics and can lead to powerful and positive changes for the relationship. When a couple emerges from their first round of therapy, feeling a sense of relief and renewed intimacy, what prevents them from returning when old habits sneak back in? Or new stresses arouse old issues?
Regression: Regression is a normal part of life when challenges arise and couples often regress back to former destructive or alienating behaviors when one or both of the members of The Coupledom are having a rough time. Job loss, illness, retirement, adding another child to the family, or children leaving home, hormonal changes, a death, mid-life transitions and moves are just a few of life’s passages that introduce elements of concern and readjustment. Sliding back to habits that become distancing is typical as well. The energy that it takes to stay involved and interested in even someone we love can be trumped by work ambition, child rearing demands and personality traits characterized by self-absorption and avoidance. Yet a return to couples therapy is often last on the list of options and sometimes even too late. Why? Because therapy makes us look at our pain and that is hard to do. It is that simple. Pain, as in fear of failure, of loss, of imperfection, of powerlessness or anger, of insecurity and suspicion, of hurt and helplessness. Painful feelings that we don’t like to address unless we are bleeding. And sometimes that is too late for The Coupledom.
A Tool For Life: I work with couples that return to therapy when they hit a bump in life’s road. They don’t see couples therapy as a one shot only, make it or break it deal. They view therapy as a resource to turn to whenever they need it. If one of The Coupledom says, “Let’s go,” the other says, “Fine.” It is an acceptable option for both partners. I see this as evidence that a good relationship never stops growing or improving, especially when both partners are able to say, “Hey, let’s look at this and see what we can do to make it better. Why don’t you call and make an appointment?” “Will do.”
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2012
