by Nathan Chua
There have been a number of times that couples have come to me to seek therapy because it is their last option in an otherwise hopeless relationship. Oftentimes, these couples have tried seeking advice from well-meaning friends and relatives. They often may have also experienced attending group workshops or retreats. Unfortunately, at least for those who have come to my office, they do see changes but they have been mostly short-lived. Don’t get me wrong though, I have no problem having couples go to these events. They can be of some help and for some, may be the best option. In fact, I believe in the wisdom of doing one’s own research and work on becoming a better person. The only thing about these approaches that can sometimes lead to less successful attempts at fixing a relationship, and at times may even cause more harm, is the lack of context.
A Word About Context
Pardon me if “context” may sound a bit jargony for some. Put in another way, context simply means applicability of some of the rules that people learn in retreats and self-help materials. When I say group, I don’t mean group therapy, but those that we often see, where people gather to listen to a speaker and talk about targeted subject matters that come out of the talks. The application of a rule without sensitivity to context can lead to its misapplication and therefore possibly cause more harm than help.
When I use the word context also, I do not just refer to it as a place, time, or situation that a couple finds themselves in. A context in any given situation, can include people and internal mental processes. People as context means your partner or spouse is a context. I am sure you’ve heard some say that they are different people when they are around their co-workers compared to when they are with their family. Your spouse is a context. Internal mental processes are also a context. Each partner in a relationship has their own histories either within or outside the relationship. A wife who had been betrayed in a previous relationship before will likely be more vigilant of being betrayed. If there had been a past betrayal in the current relationship, the betrayed as well as the betraying partner can become sensitive to secretiveness and guilt messages respectively.
Sure, attending weekend retreats, and reading self-help books and online articles can definitely help, but there is this element of context that you and your partner have to consider. Books and group facilitators have no and very little knowledge of your context either individually or as a couple. Here is an example of how a misapplication of learned material can end up not just being of little help, but also cause even worse problems if taken out of context.
Suppose you learn from a weekend couples workshop that couples have to talk about their issues to keep the problems from festering. Yes, this can certainly help couples who are conflict avoidant. Let’s say a partner learns to follow a piece of advice culled from a weekend retreat, which is to apologize as soon as possible to their partner. Devoid of context, this essential rule may feel like sound advice. However, what if from the apologizing partner’s perspective or context, they never had the habit of apologizing. The family of origin of the offending partner had learned that just starting up a conversation is enough to serve as an apology. Given that this rule of immediate apologies is learned by both partners, expectations from the offended partner will naturally rise to a level much higher than before. Well, they did spend quite a bit of time and resources to attend the retreat!
Following a rule devoid of context can be damaging. How? Let’s suppose the apologizing partner does the immediate apology as advised. Having been reminded of this, the offended partner will notice this with greater scrutiny as to how the offending partner would make the apology. Being uncomfortable with the newly prescribed behavior, the apologizing partner on the other hand, tries to make as sincere an apology as possible but falls short of the other partner’s expectations. The offended partner can have thoughts like, my partner is just doing this because that was what was taught. It’s insincere and fake and therefore doesn’t deserve attention or appreciation. The offended partner may then choose to wait a bit longer and see how far this goes before expressing appreciation.
The apologizing partner may then attempt this several times, which from their perspective requires a herculean effort. Having not received any form of appreciation sooner, the offending partner can feel that their efforts are not working to make their relationship move back to better times in the past. They give up on doing it. The offended partner can then notice the short lived quality of the change and have thoughts about how hopeless their partner is, and that change is not likely to come any time soon or become a lasting sign of better things to come.
So to answer the question in the title of this article, couple counseling is indeed not a joke. It is hard work and is fraught with fears of having to share very personal matters to a stranger. But a counselor will have a better grasp of your contexts as a couple and as individuals. Knowing that context and how these rules can apply or not apply to you is critical to avoiding the pattern of distrust that’s shown above. Why not give it a shot?