RELATIONSHIPS FOR DUMMIES

Having trouble with your relationship? Are you growing apart instead of getting closer? Feeling alone while living together? Thinking of divorce or breaking up?

These are some of the issues that couples bring to me when they enter couples therapy. One of the most important roles we have in our lives, we know least about. We only know what we know. What we know we learn from early role modeling.

Most of us came from a dysfunctional family to a greater or lesser degree. Many never had a secure attachment, thus leaving them feeling unlovable, unsafe and insecure. Few came from healthy relational mature parents, where the relational space felt safe. Many came from a relational space that had been polluted by our parents. Their contentious relationships created a dangerous place to grow up in, and that space is where we grew up. It was the playground of our youth. If our parents were hostile, bitter, abusive, detached, violent or addicts, we learned how to emulate their behavior unconsciously and unwittingly. If our parents were loving, kind, considerate and present to one another, we imitated their behavior. None of us came from perfect homes. Even in the best of families, arguments incurred along with resentments and withholding. We were scolded, spanked, punished and ignored. When apologies were heard and parents retrieved harsh words, reparation was possible. Some of us were fortunate in that we did not want to be a carbon copy our family of origin. We separated and individuated with the hope to be better than what was familiar in our past.

How can we improve our relationships if we do not have the resources, tools and skills to effectuate change? How do we move our relationship forward to a healthier place in a safe space with respect and consideration for our differences? How do we learn how to accept each other with our weaknesses as well as our strengths? How do we learn how to enrich each other’s life—have each other’s backs—navigate the troubled waters when we never learned how? How do we know how to accept each other unconditionally—change what needs to be changed and leave when all hope becomes hopeless?

It is important to understand that it’s not a blame game. If we blame our parents, we need to go back to their parents, and so on. We did not know a generation ago what we now know. Psychology like all professions has grown by leaps and bounds. It was “spare the rod and spoil the child” that morphed into “You cannot raise your children the way your parents raised you, because your parents raised you for a world that no longer exists” and “To be a parent is to be chief designer of a product more advanced than any technology and more interesting than the greatest work of art.” (Alan de Botton)

So, what’s the answer? Reading books on relationships is helpful, however it’s not unlike learning how to swim. You can read many books, but you cannot learn how to swim until you get into the water. There are hundreds of relationship books available that have been written by many qualified, well credentialed professionals. Workshops and couple’s retreats are very valuable, and I highly recommend attending them. The last is finding a professional couple’s therapist with lots of experience to work through the bumps in your relationship. This can be one of the best investments you will ever make. Why struggle with problems that can become an adventure in intimacy with the right therapist? After all, you would not consider taking out your own tumor or sewing up your own limb that has been torn in an accident. Marriage therapy is not different than a qualified heart surgeon if you need a bypass or a neurosurgeon to operate on a brain tumor. Emotional illness is no different. It needs to be repaired and made well just as physical illnesses. Without healing, nothing changes. Without repair, there is no healing.

I had the good fortune of finding an amazing mentor to increase my knowledge and skills in working with couples; Hedy Schleifer, a master couples’ therapist who took me to the next level of working with couples. Her approach has been widely accepted worldwide. I happen to be one of two couple’s therapists who practice in South Florida who have been qualified to teach couples how to heal the wounds of their relationships. Using Hedy’s approach, as she calls it, “an adventure in intimacy.”

It takes courage to make the decision to get help. It takes time, money, effort and two people wanting to move their relationship forward. If only one of them is ready and willing to put forth the effort, it won’t work. It requires both to be all in to achieve optimum results.

There are some relationships that can’t work. There are many, around 50% that don’t work. This therapy is only for those couples who want every chance to rebuild what has been lost over time. The process includes individual work in the context of the couple working together. I have worked with couples who were stunned to learn something they never knew about their mate, even having been married for many years. It simply had never been spoken. The process reveals truths that were also unknown to each individual in the relationship, for several reasons. Shame and fear being the two culprits who kept the other from knowing. Some had not even had a conscious awareness of their own history of violence perpetrated upon them. They were either disassociated or had repressed memories. By sharing these profound truths that are uncovered during the sessions, each partner develops empathy and compassion and the relationship moves forward.

In my book, I HATE THE MAN I LOVE, I bring the reader into a session as if they were a fly on the wall to have a bird’s eye view of how the session progresses. It exemplifies the process of how I work with the couple from the beginning to the end. It allows the reader to see the difference in “talk therapy” and the experiential process the encounter provides. The book is still available on Amazon.com. I encourage any of you who are interested in this process to read the book. It will soon be unable to purchase, as I am revising it with a new title, DO YOU HATE THE ONE YOU LOVE?

Your relationship is your most valuable possession. It requires care and work just as you treat your home, car and investments. It is probably the best investment you can ever make in your relationship!

GO FOR IT! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE!

Joan E Childs, LCSW