After the Affair: A First Aid Tool Kit for Recovering from Infidelity

Our very first international collaboration!

Jacob Martinez and I, Nathaniel Chua, have just created an online on-demand workshop for people who are recovering from an affair!

We know how difficult it is for any couple to start anew in their relationship after such a devastating revelation.

We also know how hard it is for some of you to take that step to getting couple therapy.

So here’s a resource for you to learn in the privacy of your home!

Here’s an introductory video featuring Jacob Martinez and Nathaniel Chua:

Click the link below to see how you can sign up for it and get access for one full year!

https://aftertheaffair.vhx.tv/?fbclid=IwAR3shgo21i4PMWMBDCq4CfLqk4z7FhxPDI6MdPciUr0rfRL2rWfYufyrz7w

Common Sense and Psychological Sense

by Nathan Chua

As I learn more in the field, I can understand why some people might have a negative view of psychology.  Besides the stigma, there is plenty of material out there that can make any person think, “Do you really need a PhD to know that?”  In this article, I’d like to talk about some examples of how this happens and why much of the common sense advice we hear online can at best, be heard but reflected on before implementing.

Here are some examples of very common common sense advice we all may have heard about at some point:  

A common sense or logical approach to sadness or depression:

Eliminate negative thoughts!  Think positive!  This will work only if we eliminate a function of our thinking, which is thinking of the opposite!  

You and I can test this for ourselves.  Living in a tropical country like the Philippines, note what thoughts come to you when the heat and humidity become unbearable.  Your mind will probably remind you of how much more pleasant the weather is in the cooler months of the year.  During the cooler months, you would probably remember the impending summer months and how short-lived these more pleasant temperatures are.  This is our minds’ propensity to think of opposites.  For our minds to not be able to do this, we would have to damage it in some ways.  Thinking positive will only remind us of the negative thinking that we were trying to avoid in the first place.  

Here’s another reason why it becomes difficult for you and I to simply think positive.  In fact, it can even be counterproductive.  The command here is, “It is important for you to not think that negative thought.”  The paradox of this command is that it makes you monitor your thoughts, specifically, your negative thoughts.  So how do you know you’re successful?  You’re not thinking of the…oops!  In other words, simply using common sense to not think about a negative thought, already reminds you of what you are avoiding in the first place and it has taken such an important place in your mind.

This war between positive and negative thoughts is unending.  One thing for certain is life will provide us with challenges, which inevitably produce negative thoughts.  This is part of what we mean when we say that depression is not really due to sadness, but it is mostly about the struggle with sadness.  Thinking only positive thoughts may sound logical by the process of elimination, but it leaves us in a losing war with our feelings which will only disappear if we are in a state of numbness from medication, or if we were dead..        

Common sense advice on sleeping problems:

Be prepared to go to sleep!  Keep it as dark as possible, with just the right temperature, and dead silence.  What’s more, follow a routine of taking a warm shower or a hot bath and make sure you have comfortable clothes.  The fact that you are prepared to go to sleep means you are primed and anxious for a battle with your insomnia.  If you are prepared for a battle, it goes without saying that you will be awake!  

I remember in the early days of my work as a therapist, I used to give one piece of advice to conquer insomnia, try not to sleep!  In other words, come to an acceptance with your insomnia and you will probably be more able to sleep.  So common sense advice as mentioned above may only serve more to keep you awake than it is to help you get the rest you want. 

Couple advice on apologies or using formulaic sentences:

Be quicker to forgive or apologize to your partner or spouse.  That’s a common statement we hear from different experts in the field.  When taken as a rule for its own sake, it forgets about the different contexts that couples have.  As I have mentioned before in a previous article, context does not just refer to a physical location but also people and our very own thoughts and memories.  If applied without sensitivity to context, this can lead to misinterpretations and even more loops in a couple’s arguments.  A quick apology can be interpreted as insincere just as a quick word of forgiveness.  It’s easy to say words we don’t mean but body language is harder to disguise.  This can lead to more vigilance from one of the partners and more frustration on the other.  One is seen to be insincere while the other is perceived to be unappreciative, which leads to the point of them giving up on each other.     

The kind of psychology I espouse is not difficult because it takes a lot of effort, it is difficult because it is tricky.  As you might have experienced yourself, common sense advice can be effortful and offer more opportunities for discouragement and escalation to even bigger problems.  To paraphrase a famous psychologist, we are not in therapy to do the logical thing, but the psychological thing.  So next time you hear someone give common sense advice, please either think critically or try not to generalize.  You may even give it a try if you wish, but also be more noticing of the results.  What makes psychological sense may not be what common sense dictates, and that’s the whole point of this blog post.    

Why Couple or Marriage Counseling? – What couple or marriage counseling can offer that you cannot find in workshops or self-help materials

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?

Brief Therapy Packages for 2023!

At One Life Only, we always endeavor to help you find the kind of therapy that will be most helpful to our clients!

We believe that therapy should be brief (as possible) and effective in moving our clients’ lives in the direction that they want.

There are some of you who want to know what sort of packages we recommend for individual, couple, and family therapies!

Well, we are now publishing it here for your guidance in making a decision that can prove life-changing not just for you but even your loved ones!

The packages are now available in our FAQ pages, the general one and the one for personal inquiries.

Here is the update that we just introduced to these pages:

What are your suggested packages for individual, couple, and family therapy?

  • Here are our suggested packages for individual and couple therapy:
    • Individual: Six to Eight Sessions may be done weekly, biweekly, or monthly depending on your needs
    • Couple: Our package for couples therapy consists of four sessions.
      The first and the fourth sessions are conjoint, while the second and third sessions are individual sessions. The total amount of time for the four sessions is 300 minutes or 100 minutes each for the conjoint sessions and 50 minutes each for the individual sessions.
      We generally see significant improvements after four sessions for a majority of our clients.
      The four sessions can be done between one day to as long as your schedule permits.
      Follow up sessions if needed will be mostly conjoint at 75 minutes each.
      You may choose to schedule one session at a time and decide if you wish to continue anytime during your series of sessions.
    • We currently do not have a package for family therapy.

Note: You may still choose to schedule one session at a time and decide if you wish to continue anytime during your series of sessions.

What can help you become the New You in the New Year?

by Nathan Chua

It’s that time of year again when many of us set out to become better people.  We all have this internal yearning to be the best versions of ourselves.  I often use the term our existential angst, a concern that we have not been living up to what we hoped to be.  What do we want to be?  A kinder friend?  A more responsible husband?  A more fun-loving person?  Much of the troubles we feel have much to do with thoughts surrounding the people we strive to be and what our current reality indicates.  

But what if this striving can start instead from a very simple skill that we can learn?  Maybe the question could be phrased as what is it that we could get better at, rather than what we could be.  Nothing is more demoralizing than realizing that even with all the work we try to do in becoming a better person, we fail.  Why is this so?  For one, our minds are very good at naming things we can or can’t do when faced with different circumstances.  It feels like there is an upper limit to what we can or cannot achieve.  It could be someone or something that could potentially stand in the way of such goals that keeps us from doing better.   

Here’s a very simple tip on what to be better at this coming year in order for you to take some steps towards your most coveted aspirations.  It’s so simple you might think it’s silly.  Be better at: noticing.  That’s it!  It’s your first step towards making the change you’ve always seemed unable to reach.  It could be hard at first but you and I can get better at it, if we practice.  

But you might ask, what is there to notice?  What should I notice?  Should I start noticing what shirt my workmate is wearing everyday?  Of course not.  Firstly, notice what you tend to do when something happens and then notice the results of what you do.  If what you do doesn’t help your relationship with your spouse then start noticing those that do.  If what you do doesn’t give you the hardworking, addiction-free child that you want, then start noticing those that do.  Notice what works and doesn’t work for you and your relationships.    

Then notice what goes on inside of you when these challenges come along.  Notice it just for what they are.  Then notice what your mind tells you they are.  Are there any judgments against those very feelings that make you and I, very human?  And notice also how long these feelings last.  Are they there permanently?  Or do they come and go as they please?       

Then notice what, in those moments, are most important to you.  Here is where maybe your list of becoming can come along handy.  Whatever our role in life is right now, we want to see ourselves becoming the best we can be in those roles.  You and I can be a spouse, partner, friend, sibling, parent, child, and so on.  In every situation that presents some kind of challenge to your emotional stability, go back to what you think will be representative of how you would have wanted to handle the situation.  Go back to noticing the probable consequences when you do what you do, then notice what it is that goes on inside your thoughts and feelings as you experience these challenges, and finally, notice what is important for you in the moment.  Then choose your best or better course of action from there.   

And why notice?  If you have gone through numerous self-help books or articles lately, I think that’s what the fuss about mindfulness is.  Yeah!  Simply put, mindfulness is really mostly about noticing!  So just start noticing more this new year.  And may I go just a step further.  Maybe that’s what you go to see a counselor for, to become more noticing or mindful.  Try and see for yourself and notice what wonders more noticing can do for you and the people you love.  Happy New Year everyone!

Making the Hard Life-Changing Decisions

by Nathan Chua

There are a few crossroads we face in life.  Who to commit to in a long term relationship or when is it time to quit one, what course to take in tertiary education, where to live, what school to send kids to.  These are all part of what life presents to us.  Many of us can get caught up in the rigmarole of decision making.  Many clients come to therapy hoping to get an expert opinion on which path to take.  It is quite the common sight that clients come to therapy with the idea that they can consult as many therapists as they can, and come up with a logical and sensible decision.  That search for a failsafe choice can be a red herring.  Many people, and that includes me, can get really stuck for a very long time in indecision.  

Clients may find themselves weighing pros and cons with an expert in therapy.  Unfortunately, this normally ends up with what is called counterpliance or the client making a decision that goes in the opposite direction of what solution was arrived at with the expert, basically demonstrating what our minds do.  You can experiment on this by remembering how many times you have thought about how successful a decision can be.  Pretty soon, you will notice your mind reminding you about the other extreme result, which is failure.  This is why, although tempting to me, I do my best to avoid dwelling on content when a client comes to me with this kind of dilemma.  If I wasn’t conscious, I can get carried away by the back and forth in therapy.  I avoid this because it isn’t something that the client is not able to do on their own before they come.  So any kind of move in this direction will probably be nothing new for the client.  

Fundamentally, our lives can flow into these situations wherein we have to choose one way or another.  In a wonderful demonstration of how an ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) therapist would work with someone who is going through some difficult decisions, Dr. Steven Hayes shows how our minds can trick us into thinking that we can make a difficult decision and not be scared.  The thought that hard choices should not be scary can creep into this process and paralyze us into not making them to our own detriment.  

I often give my clients a perspective towards the past and the future with a question.  I would ask them if they are familiar with scenes where people are gathered for one of those momentous occasions in life that are supposed to be filled with joy and anticipation.  If these were indeed just full of positive feelings and happy thoughts, then why the heck do we see people crying in these instances?  Isn’t that strange?  Just to refresh your memory, have you been to a wedding, a graduation, a debut (an 18th birthday party)?  More often than not, you and I will see people tearing up with smiles interspersing in their faces.  Why is this?  My client will often sit with mouth agape, not finding the right word to explain such a phenomenon.  I would tell them that the body language is precisely a description of what is going on inside of them. It is a mix of feelings.  It is not just purely happiness that is going on internally.  There could be sadness, fear, anxiety, and many more.  In other words, these are the bitter sweet moments in life.  You know, the ones that are eventually etched in our memories as the most meaningful.  For in life, the best moments are not the fun moments, although they can be, but they are mostly also those that are hardest.

I can still recall some of the happiest moments I had that I spent with a friend.  Although there was nothing but fun and joy at the time, there was still something bitter about it.  It had to end.  Life is sometimes bitter sweet or has to be, bitter sweet.  Otherwise, we could be missing it.  Making hard decisions usually forms part of living richly and meaningfully.  Being brave is not about having no fear.  It is rather doing what matters to us even when there is.