I knew we needed it. I’d even been the one to suggest it over the years when arguments festered for too long and drained us both. But when the day came and we entered our therapist’s office, I questioned if I was truly ready to rip off the bandaids I’d so carefully placed on old wounds.
I sat down in the club chair, bracing myself for the tears I knew would flow before our session ended. From my eyes and 10 minutes into our first session, I was already crying. I began to unwrap the reasons I thought we’d found ourselves sitting side by side in these chairs in a couple’s therapy session. And as each word left my lips, I realized it was not just one event or one argument or one misinterpreted tone or abandonment issue, but it was a collective history which brought us here, our collective histories. It was the unspoken and spoken between us. It was the shared dreams and the ones we had prior to ever meeting one another. It was about the kids. It wasn’t about the kids. It was about us. It was about the ideal “us” before we became such and it was about now.
My wife and I began our relationship with love and hardship. We had come into our relationship as three, not two. I had custody of a little baby boy who became our son. And so our union was not typical. He joined us in our early stages of dating; walks in Central Park, ice cream cones by the playground, and storybook time at the library. We had very few moments that were just the two of us.
We didn’t think this would affect us as much as it did, but as we grew and added more children, we completely forgot about the “us” and realized there was never much time given to the “us.”
I heard myself speaking my truth in our first session, it gave me confidence and a sense of resolve. It helped me peel away the shame I’d entered with. I didn’t want to admit I’d failed in some way. I didn’t want to admit we needed this. But we did. We needed to sit in front of a complete stranger, tell her things we couldn’t hear from one another in the safety of our own home, and get real with one another.
Our first session taught me that it wasn’t enough to carry the memories of the examples we held onto of our own parents’ marriages. I had grown up viewing my conservative Baptist grandparents, where the husband complied and listened to the wife’s needs as long as his basic needs were met first: dinner and a clean house. My wife grew up with the “Baby Boom” generation: mom working full time who carried her work stressors home while her father towed a more reserved and calm form of expression. Each parent unit communicated and interacted in a way that worked for them, but we realized it didn’t work for us.
Couples therapy is about obtaining the new tools we need to navigate the new season of our relationship. The season which came after we had children. As parents, we give up so much of what we want for ourselves and as a couple to give to our kids. For me, couples therapy became another way to give ourselves to our kids, to work on the broken pieces within.
Through therapy, we will refurbish those pieces; so they become pieces worth giving and sharing with our kids. It wasn’t enough to try and emulate our favorite couples from our favorite television shows (I mean the love between Jane and Michael in Jane the Virgin…is one worth wanting). It wasn’t our reality. We had real life to deal with and for some time, we were hanging on by a thread.
Our session came to an end and I left more hopeful than I’d entered. I walked out, homework noted, ready to put in the work. With my wife by my side, I thought about our wedding vows. We had a family blessing halfway through our wedding. We invited all of our family and friends to commit to supporting us and walking with us in our marriage. As we enter into our twelfth year together, I find myself calling on those friends and family for a little extra support and reassurance. I invite them too to recommit to the vows they took on our wedding day. And to share in our experience, as we go through this season of change together, there is one thing I know for sure — marriage is hard. It requires work, nurturing, forgiveness, and so many other parts which come with loving someone else (and yourself). The very day we began couples therapy, I learned 3 very important lessons:
- I am not solely just my childhood issues. Yes, we all have baggage and yes, we all carry that baggage with us. But it does not define us. We are the only ones who have the power to change our belief system and not wallow in our past.
- I can nurture the parts of myself which need nurturing — and that is ok! I gave myself permission to give this (therapy) to myself and in turn, my family. It gave me space to unravel, to be honest, and to understand my feelings.
- I can only begin to mend the things I bring to the table (or in this case this club chair). I can only work with our therapist on things I am honest about and ready to bring up in his presence. If I am not ready, my partner may be. There is a push and pull approach to couples therapy which I am still getting used to.
I will go back. I will keep going back to therapy. I will push through my fears and welcome them all as opportunities. In his book “Getting the Love You Want” therapist and author, Harville Hendrix, P.h.D. notes, “Standing in the way of the changes we need to make in order to have a more satisfying relationship is our fear of change.” I pushed through my fear of going to couples therapy and today, I am grateful I did.
It gives us space to talk, hear, listen, and try a little harder to get to know one another even after all of this time. I am still surprised by some of what comes out in the room, in the presence of a stranger. We’ve invited her into our marriage to support us, walk with us and help us be better at nurturing who we are today and who we will be in the future. This is us.
Are you ready to push through your fear? Call today for an initial consultation.
