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Posts Tagged ‘Does Marriage Counseling Work’

Pass on the Joint

Friday, July 2nd, 2021

ben franklin

Till Money do Us Part

As I go back and look at my blogs I like to reflect on how counter intuitive they are. Some may seem like a relief, others a surprise, but a disappointment? Rarely. Until today, that is. The one I’m writing today is, I believe, an absolute buzz kill. Why? Because I’m going to talk about something sacred and powerful, vital to marriage, and one of the most common reasons for divorce. No, it’s not sex. It’s money.

When couples decide to ‘get serious,’ it’s not sex or living quarters on the table, it’s the individual bank accounts. Combining bank accounts is as much a tradition for newlyweds as something borrowed and something blue. Before the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 and it’s  stipulation that allowed women to establish their own credit history, joint accounts were an entrenched cultural tradition. So why is that a problem?

Money and Power

Problematic dependency is a recurring theme in most marriages. Struggles surrounding ‘who depends on whom for what’ are normal as roles and rules are negotiated, re-negotiated, decided, and re-decided.

“I’m in charge of our laundry because that’s how my mom did it.”

“But you just ruined all my dress shirts.”

“[Secretly cheering] Fine. Do your own laundry.”

“[Secretly cheering] If that’s what you really want. OK.”

In the new AMC show ‘Kevin Can Go F#@ck Himself’ the wife played by Annie Murphy from Schitt’s Creek realizes she’s been a victim of problematic dependency when she finds her shared bank account has been emptied by her husband (https://www.salon.com/2021/06/27/kevin-can-f-himself-joint-bank-accounts/). She tells her friend she let her husband handle their finances because “You know. I’m bad with money.” Her dependency on her husband didn’t just leave her broke, it left her powerless.

When money ceases to be a tool for trade and becomes instead an instrument to wield power over a partner, things can go sideways fast. Partners fearing poverty stay in abusive situations; partners who leave (or get left) end up co-parenting out of government housing while the kiddos spend the weekend at the ex-spouse’s million-dollar estate.

Love, Lies, and Bank Accounts

If the “money-is-power “issues aren’t enough, another major drawback of establishing a joint bank account is navigating seasons where partners are not communicating well (keeping secrets or making purchases without consulting the other spouse). Much like the ‘rules and roles’ laundry polka I described above, communicating poorly about money is NORMAL. Who hasn’t been secretive about a purchase or hidden a receipt? Consequences, however, can manifest as betrayal. Financial infidelity can feel as bad or worse than sexual or emotional infidelity because the partner who isn’t keeping secrets or making major purchases feels powerless AND broke.(https://www.thebalance.com/should-you-have-joint-or-separate-bank-accounts-1289664).

Too Petty and the Bank Breakers

So how do loving partners share money in an equitable and practical way? Easy. Follow the rule of three: Yours, Mine, and Ours.

Yours, Mine

Individual bank accounts solve the dilemma of ‘petty cash.’ What’s petty cash? That’s a pack of cigarettes here or a new golf club there. Sometimes it’s called ‘mad money,’ or a ‘fun money.’ While the holy grail of budgeting is out there I’m sure; the fact is, even the most conservative money advisors like Dave Ramsey 

advocate a line item in every budget called ‘fun money.’ https://www.ramseysolutions.com/budgeting/fun-money-in-budget. This allows couples to stick to a zero-based balanced budget and plan for independent, impulsive, random purchases. When something is discussed and planned, it can’t be a surprise. Couples can plan this line item in several ways:

  • A finite amount like an allowance (“OK we are each gonna have $50 to spend from our paychecks, no questions asked.”)
  • A flexible amount like a bonus, money left over after buying groceries, or income earned from an extra business venture
  • Family bonus where savings from all income sources is divided up at the end of the year for partners to spend how they wish

Either way the money has no strings attached. Once the funds are dispersed partners don’t feel like they are being monitored, micro-managed, or chastised.

NOTE: Families run into trouble when they don’t separate purchases made for the kids, the couple, or the house from ‘fun money.’ It may take some time to get disciplined, but don’t spend your fun money on a new weed whacker from Lowes or kids’ underwear at Target, and don’t fight over who pays for dinner.

OURS

Yes Virginia, there is a joint checking account that works. “Ours” is the joint bill paying account. The account is accessible by both parties so all transactions can be scrutinized. Each partner pays an agreed amount into the account and bills are set to auto-pay. Easy peasey.

Still Fighting?

If you are still fighting with your partner over the following:

  • You make more money than I do so it’s not fair that you have more fun money
  • You make more money than I do so you should pay more bills
  • It’s your turn to buy dinner this week I did it last week
  • You’re going on another trip/buying another toy/playing golf again?
  • You’re going to Target/getting another Amazon box/going grocery shopping again?

Then your problem is not about money it’s about trust. Go back and look through my blogs for topics on saying I’m sorry, making amends, and setting boundaries. If those don’t help, set up a 10 minute consultation and maybe a marriage counselor can help.

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Gaslighting, Addiction, and Marriage Counseling: 3 Things You Must Know

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2021

Gaslight

What’s Going On?

It was apparent to me that the person listening, trying to practice ‘a safe holding space’ for her partner like I had taught her, was in distress. Her husband was saying all the right things, using I statements, and owning his feelings, but it was no use. She was looking away, holding her breath, and finally, inevitably I guess, she burst into tears.

As the professional in the virtual room I knew their history. He was in recovery for alcohol addiction and she had suffered from his gaslighting and verbal abuse. I realized that encouraging her to open up, even in a therapeutic exercise, was leaving her overwhelmed and defenseless. If they were going to continue marriage counseling I had to help them see that recovery from alcohol is not the same as recovery from abusive behavior and give them strategies to stay emotionally safe during the process.

The Language of Gaslighting

It is quite common for a ‘recovering addict’ to also be a ‘recovering gaslighter.’ Justifying, minimizing, and blaming (JMB) protect addictive  behaviors by causing confusion, second-guessing, and a false sense of complicity in partners, friends, and family. Partners of addicts unaware of the damage caused by JMB gaslighting enter counseling unprepared for the pressure to focus on intimacy. Once it becomes a problem (and for victims of gaslighting, trying to create intimacy with the gaslighting partner in marriage counseling is always a problem) the victim partner may:

  • Feel they are to blame because they can’t forgive and forget or just ‘get over it’
  • Take responsibility and start to deny their own needs or point of view of the problem
  • Shut down and check out

If you are the non-addict partner who suspects you are also a victim of gaslighting and you REALLY want to participate in a couple counseling experience, how can you make sure it works for both of you? It’s not easy. If you are willing to focus on your own needs, stay in touch your somatic experience in the moment, and most importantly, keep your own individual therapist, marriage counseling can be a helpful experience.

Tools to Survive Marriage Counseling

Victims of gaslighting have been told by the gaslighter that their needs are invalid or selfish. As a result, victims either won’t know what their needs are, or they’ll know but won’t know how to assert them in a marriage counseling session. For most victims of gaslighting, a good marriage counseling session is one that doesn’t go too deep, allows them to keep their guard in place, and doesn’t reveal information that can be used against them by the gaslighter when they get home.

As a marriage counselor I get that the victim partner’s primary need is safety. In fact, my primary job is to keep everyone in the room emotionally safe. So, when I see a partner hold back or have reactions like the ones my client in paragraph one was having, I back off. Did my clients create a holding space for each other and achieve intimacy? No. Was everyone in the room free to maintain boundaries? Yes. Even though they didn’t successfully achieve intimacy, a safe session is a good session.

For victims of gaslighting who are unaware of any needs beyond the need to feel safe, awareness of somatic experiences is vital. Is your stomach clenching? Do you feel like you are about to cry? Do you feel a pressure on your chest? These can all be signals that remind you “I’m not safe to share right now.” In the therapy room I will often see these signals before my client can express them. Because they may not have practice naming the feelings (sad, afraid, or anxious), I can help by simply inviting them to name the feeling. If they disengage at that point, then we take a break.

If you have been a victim of gaslighting from a partner who is in recovery for ANY kind of addiction, individual therapy can provide you with the room to be yourself. You can remember what your needs are, learn to talk about your emotions, and contemplate decisions in a safe holding space. If you then decide to go to couple counseling with that partner, it is vital that you keep your individual therapist. Keep working on your understanding of what is healthy and unhealthy so you can assert what you need and your couple counselor can better understand how to direct the sessions.

Into Me See

Intimacy is the freedom to lower boundaries, name feelings, and process openly without fear of reprisal. Since there is no danger of getting hurt or humiliated you can share spontaneously, laugh, cry, and share grievances in a healthy, reciprocal fashion. Couple counseling is designed to increase intimacy. If you are contemplating couple counseling and you are the non-addicted partner who is also a victim of gaslighting, then give yourself the best possible chance at a positive outcome. Ask yourself; am I able to assert my own needs? Am able to access my somatic experiences in the moment? Am I willing to have my own individual therapist? If you are worried about couple counseling or have had a couple counseling session that left you feeling unsafe, please reach out to your couple counselor and let them know.

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Infidelity, Hunger, and Bank Robbery: Emotions Make Terrible Drivers

Thursday, April 30th, 2020

Crime and Empathy

I cannot know what it is like to rob a bank. Or, maybe I can, but I haven’t yet. I do, however, know what it is like to press my right foot against the gas pedal a little harder, to consciously look away from my speedometer, to cast glances at my rear-view and side-view mirrors for police, and to mentally practice the, “My husband was supposed to get my speedometer fixed officer. It’s been off five miles per hour for months,” speech.

I know what it’s like to want something so badly, even if it is just to get to  Trader Joe’s before it closes or to my daughter’s volleyball practice so the coach won’t count her late, that I cheat a little. This little nugget of self-realization means while I truly don’t know the urge to rob a bank, as a human with my own law-breaking nature, I can’t look down my nose at the person who does.

Hangry and Lonely

Urge (and its cousin crave) is a funny word. In Alcoholics Anonymous and Allanon we use the acronym H.A.L.T. to describe typical urges. The acronym stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, and Tired. When I work with clients I often add ‘thirst’ and ‘need to potty’ to that list. Urges are good things and key to our survival. If I am hungry, I need to eat. If I postpone eating, I won’t get less hungry as time goes by. In fact, I will grow more hungry and until I eat, I will enlist my emotions to make that happen. Unfortunately emotions are terrible behavior drivers.

For example let’s say I skip lunch and arrive home from work and see my kids’ toys in the driveway. Hungry now looks like anger and I yell at my kids about their toys. Once I eat, all is well with the world. Another example might be, what if I am a shy person and I feel lonely much of the time. I don’t recognize lonely but I do recognize the chocolate cake in my fridge. Instead of calling a friend (which is hard for me) I eat a chocolate cake. The result? I get a  wonderful  endorphin/serotonin hit from the cake but when I crash, I’m still lonely. I may never be brave enough to phone a friend, but I don’t have to be. I know where the cake is.

Urges and Healthy Behaviors

Emotions and urges are brothers-in-arms.  They are designed to work with cognition (our thoughts) to initiate behavior that keeps us healthy.  Go back to my ‘need to potty’ urge and see what I mean. You’re having a lovely conversation with the queen when your lunch begins to turn somersaults in your tummy. You know avoiding this urge is an invitation to disaster so you think of an excuse to politely exit the conversation and go take care of yourself. Rule of thumb? The longer you fight the urges, the sicker you become.

Counseling is about teaching our clients the language for urges so they can match them up with helpful thoughts and behaviors.  Like a miles-long contrail in the sky indicates there is a tiny jet way up there somewhere, infidelity, restricting food, or substance abuse are signs of underlying unmet urges. Unmet urges indicates there’s a lot of pain in there.

Where there is pain there is impulsivity, over-indulgence, restricting, and even healthy-looking things like high performance discipline routines, super healthy eating (orthorexia) and over training (follow David Goggins, author of Can’t Hurt Me if you don’t believe me). Over-ANYTHING can be a sign you have unmet urges (suffering) that you are trying to meet with behavior that completely misses the target. Welcome to humanity.

Healthy Humans

When you make an appointment, counselors don’t judge you because we’ve all been there. We all have urges we’ve allowed to dictate our speed, our relationships, and our health. Your counselor’s job?

  1. Help the hurting identify underlying emotions so they can
  2. Disconnect unhealthy responses to normal emotions and
  3. Reconnect something that IS healthy and will positively affect their job, relationships, health, and freedom.

If you are struggling, you must take care of yourself. Need help? Worried about your own unhealthy behavior? Call a counselor today.

 

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After an Affair: Affair Recovery for Couples After Infidelity has Occurred

Thursday, February 21st, 2013

The tough work after an affair starts with the revelation. Once both the partners are aware of the infidelity and the choice is made to stay married then it’s time to dive into the recovery process. In my experience helping people survive an affair I’ve been taught there’s almost no bounds to the desire to try to save the marriage. My job is to help couples divide the work and work smarter.

The partner who had the affair must work on humility. Frequently I call this staying low. Humility means there’s never any push back when the betrayed partner makes a request never any editing when replying to a direct inquiry and never any exhibiting hostility when responding to the deceived partner’s hostility.

Humility can be very tough for the partner who had the affair for a few reasons. First and foremost she most likely has anger she never dealt with that let her excuse or rationalize her affair. She may feel like she isn’t permitted to exhibit her unmet needs in the restoration process and so the process of stuffing the emotion may begin all over again leading to bitterness and possibly acting out.

The partner who was deceived has very well the hardest task of all in counseling. He must choose to offer forgiveness after infidelity has happened. If recovering couples decide they do not want counseling forgiveness may never be addressed or it may be ignored in favor of punishment. In treatment the marriage counselor helps the deceived partner release the frustration which leaves room for forgiving if he decides. The counselor also helps the deceived partner understand that forgiveness is not for the partner who had the affair it is for him and his well-being.

Working diligently during affair recovery isn’t enough. Both partners must divide the work and focus their energy on working smart. The result will be contented individuals and a marriage on its way to recovery.

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Affair Recovery: How to Recover After an Affair

Monday, January 7th, 2013

In my years counseling, I have worked with several couples through the tragedy of sexual, emotional, and now the common financial cheating. I have seen some amazing recoveries. Couples who recover use affair recovery as an opportunity to create the best marriage they presumably can. The following is a summary of some “lessons learned” by couples have experienced after an affair (the pronouns “he” and “she” are swapped for simplicity).

First, sexual attraction and desire are normal, whereas acting on that behavior is where trouble starts. Accept the incontrovertible fact that you and your partner could be interested in people during your marriage, and target your energy on what is satisfactory to get on with next.

Second, life brings enticement and we really need to have plans to nip it in the bud if and when it strikes. Ask, “If my better half was feeling interested in somebody outside the relationship, could she trust me to handle those feelings and help her?” If the answer’s no, the plan should ideally include allowing anyone at any time to talk about feelings with a therapist or a reliable advisor.

3rd, take resposibility for your love language! Are you attracted to a certain appearance? Does the ability to make funny banter get your pulse racing? Does a particular talent or pursuit make your knees weak? Listen to these triggers, and ensure you don’t hire, go to lunch with alone, work out at the gymnasium, or Facebook with anyone who speaks your love language.

4th, Don’t put down or make excuses for your struggling spouse. Affairs require logistical back-flips and mental moral gymnastics that would put Cirque de Soleil to embarrassment. If you have the time to cheat, you have the time to prevent it. Eventually, if you have enough time to cheat, you have sufficient time to recover. Telling your other half you don’t have time for a wedding recovery activity like marriage advice, a church wedding retreat, or a once-per-week check-in breakfast with a trainer is a cop-out. The time after infidelity can seem just like predicting a cliff-dive; be brave and take the plunge not only for you but for your spouse.

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How to Define Betrayal

Sunday, October 21st, 2012

Imagine this:

An individual walks toward a park filled with family and friends. From a safe distance and without warning, he takes a grenade out of his pocket, pulls the pin, and tosses it into the crowd. The explosion is devastating. He rushes to his car, pulls out a paramedic’s uniform, and rushes back to the scene where he earnestly tries to administer first aid. He is shocked when his loved ones react with anger and confusion at his attempts to comfort and heal their pain.

If something like this really happened it would make the headlines, right? In reality, it happens every day but it remains a secret, it is confined to private homes, or it is exposed in the offices of marriage counselors. The scenario describes  the confusion and pain of infidelity, and implies the difficult, betrayed meaning for the spouse.

As a marriage counselor specializing in infidelity I try to help recovering couples understand the confusion behind this cycle and how to define betrayal. We know the pain experienced by the betrayed can be similar to the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder experienced by soldiers wounded in battle. The injured spouse may experience anxiety and depression, insomnia and intrusive thoughts, hyper-vigilance and an inability to maintain daily activities.

As the betrayer rushes in to comfort the damage he has caused, his partner vacillates between wanting intense closeness and insisting he get away or leave the home. Couples in this stage may actually experience great sex, intimate conversations, and open emotional expression. Just as quickly, however, their closeness can turn to confusion, anger, and even violence because of the blurred lines between trust and betrayal. This initial roller coaster is normal but it may be difficult for family and friends to be supportive (remember they were part of the collateral damage too).

Couples struggling to find equilibrium may discover they need the help of a professional who understands the cycle of infidelity recovery and who can offer the hope the couple needs.

Dr. Kate Walker, Ph.D. is the Owner and CEO of achievebalance.org© and the non-profit counseling center Ann’s Place. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor Supervisor and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Supervisor.

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Does Marriage Counseling Work?

Tuesday, February 7th, 2012

In our marriage counseling Houston area practice, the following is a generalized scenario our couples often articulate as a common experience that led them to marriage and family therapy:

Dirk finished the last of his paperwork when he heard Dee climb into bed and switch off the light. “Oh great,” he thought. “I forgot how late it was and she’s going to be angry. Again.” He pushed his chair back from his desk and headed toward their bedroom.

Honey?” he asked, realizing it was probably too late but he should try anyway, “you asleep yet?”

“Let’s see,” Dee began, her stomach already aching from the knots twisting away at her insides, “I’ve managed two carpools today, three doctor’s appointments, and cooked dinner for five, so I’m a little tired. Why? Do you need something?”

“No, no. Just hoping you missed me.” Dirk feared he was not hiding his simmering anger very well. Lately Dee had been doing everything for everyone. Everyone except him of course.

“Miss you?” Dee shot out from under the covers and switched on the light. “I never even see you anymore! The kids live for the weekends with you, but I don’t even have that!”

Dick thought, “Here we go with the ‘you work too much,’ and ‘you never have time for me.’ Well what was he supposed to do? Let them all starve? He was tired and these arguments never ended up anywhere anyway. Angrily he shut the door and went back to his office and got back on his computer.

What can this couple do to save their marriage? Their family?  Is this a situation that calls for this couple to consider involvement into marriage and family counseling programs, and really, does marriage counseling work?

Marriage and family therapy programs are core mental health specialization programs. Marriage and family therapists provide couples and families with the help they need to navigate difficult life cycle stages and make positive changes to the way they communicate with one another. If therapy is a good fit for you, schedule an initial appointment. With persistence and help from your therapist you may see the changes you have been waiting for.

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