Tag: Marital Therapy

The Surefire Way to Save Your Relationship!

by Nathan Chua

More often than not, couples come to counseling explaining their respective sides of the mess that has become of their relationship.  Each of them has turned into a lawyer for their respective cases to prosecute and defend.  For the trained eye though, they are engaging in a pattern of attack and defend.  They’ve come to therapy to find an advocate or the ultimate authority in the person of the counselor.  It is the therapist or counselor who will make the final determination of who is right and who is wrong.  In some cases, they see the therapist as the final arbiter who can determine the fate of their relationship. 

For those who are hoping to find some ways of resolving their differences, they face the dilemma of still loving and caring for their partner, but at the same time, can’t wrap their heads around why they end up fighting like mortal enemies over some trivial matters.  It’s like their partner turns into something else other than the person they fell in love with.  This while each shows glimpses of that lovable side in more sober moments.

Couples find themselves dealing with two dilemmas.  These twin dilemmas are what I described in the first paragraph of this blogpost.  The dilemma about who’s right and who’s wrong (i.e. who should back down and submit to the authority of the counselor), and the dilemma of whether the relationship is worth saving or not.

Fortunately, there is a surefire way to save your relationship.  I believe that no matter what you end up doing as a couple, a successful handling of your dilemma means that you retain a relationship with your partner regardless of whether it remains together or not.  With this silver bullet to all relationships, a couple may end up having a better way of handling their conflicts, or discover that they might be better off as separate individuals who can still learn to be friends after.  

The best way to find out what the ultimate fate of the relationship will be, is to change the only thing that each partner has the most control over:  Themselves!  In other words, if you change yourself for the better, you are more likely to enjoy a couple of possible results.  You either end up having a better relationship because your partner notices your positive changes, or you realize that no matter how much you change, your partner doesn’t.  

Let’s take the first possible result.  If your partner senses the positive changes you have made, there is a greater likelihood that they will change too.  For example, when, after years of trying, you decide not to badger your partner about how messy the room is.  Your partner may notice that sudden but welcome change.  Having felt relieved of the constant reminders, your partner may in turn show you their appreciation by, well, cleaning up the room!

Changing yourself can also solve the dilemma of whether you should stay in the relationship or otherwise.  If you have done your part to make changes in yourself and see a lack of response in your partner, then maybe it’s time to come to the realization that you no longer share the same ideas about who or what is important to both of your lives at this moment.  By getting yourself out of the attack and defend pattern, you will know that your partner’s unresponsiveness is not rooted in the way you handle conflict, but a difference in your life directions.

To end this post, just remember that when all things seem hopeless, you still have yourself to count on for change.  

“Be the change you want to see in the world,” Mahatma Gandhi.

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Why some good advice may be bad for your relationship

by Nathan Chua

These words of wisdom can range from the general to the specific.  How often have you and I heard some talk show hosts and even some clergy, tell us what to do in our relationships, only to find out that these seem to backfire or only give short term results but eventually fail us when we most need them in our most distressing moments.

Here are some examples that hopefully covers the general and the specific advice: 

  • Love your spouse.
  • Do something to satisfy your partner’s love language everyday.
  • Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.
  • Don’t be stingy with your apologies.  Apologize as soon as you can whenever conflict ensues.

If these types of advice did work for the majority of us, then we would see a lot less marital discords and separations in our midst.  Last I heard, the “divorce” rate in our country doesn’t veer away much from the averages in more economically-developed countries.  Last I heard also, the divorce rates among therapists are even higher than the average in a developed country like the United States.

For example, let’s use the advice that one should immediately seek reconciliation with a partner to avoid drifting apart.  One way to do that is to make an apology as soon as the conflict starts.  This could end up with the couple not just fighting about what they fought about, but also fighting about how the apology was done!  Double whammy!  And then the couple goes off on a tangent with even more issues about the past or future worries about how the relationship will unfold. 

Context Matters:

The types of advice we hear from talk shows and read about online are well-meant.  I mean who could argue that you should make an apology or that you should address your partner’s love language.  The reason this doesn’t qualify as the silver bullet for change in your relationship, is that we are all different based on our own histories, and also that not all situations are the same.  

Going back to the earlier mentioned example, a highly conflict-avoidant partner may use quick apologies to appease situations.  The offended party though has a history of ranting and in his or her view, being hit immediately by an apology doesn’t offer a chance to release some of that inner tension or start any kind of meaningful talk.  

So for instance, they fight about one not being responsible enough to take out the garbage,  Partner A is angry because this has become a constant irritant between them while Partner B uses his quick apology once again to keep the peace.  A now becomes more annoyed because this was not the first time B has used his apology to avert a discussion.  For A, this does not allow for them to have a constructive conversation or a moment when they are both open to arriving at a compromise.  And there they go!  A gets into a fit that B does this, and B retorts that A should be more receptive to his or her apologies.  So the fight goes from a simple household chore, to their differences in the way they handle conflict.  Sound familiar?

As you can see from this example, no advice however sensical they may sound, will be done in a vacuum.  In other words, the solution becomes the problem so that the original problem remains while they fight about the solution that didn’t work because one did not live up to the expectation that the solution is supposed to provide!

So next time be mindful of the advice that you hear in popular media and psychology.  Understand that your partner and you are unique and your situations, likewise.  Try other ways to address these situations that have remained a concern for you for many months or years.  Be aware of these situations as you see them coming.  Look back and see how the situation unfolded, and understand why your relationship is vulnerable to such conflicts.  In other words, be mindful of the context before you apply the advice.    

Finally, remember that you love this person for so many reasons that make your life so much more meaningful.  One of your vows you made rings a bit like the idea that you accept this person for who he or she is.  As Christensen, Jacobson, and Doss have written, “Approach change in the context of acceptance [for] change is the brother of acceptance, but it is the younger brother.”

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Goals of Counseling: What is it all about anyway?

by Nathan Chua

I remember a person who shared with me that she had been with her therapist for several years.  She felt it helped her in terms of managing her anxieties and anger issues.  She went on to share that she needed her weekly sessions to get some relief from all the emotional struggles that go on during the week.  This type of counseling is called supportive counseling which certainly has its place in the field.  In my graduate studies, I can certainly attest to the fact that I used to do this type of work in dealing with my test cases to begin my training in listening or counseling skills.  With this person who shared her experience though, the weekly sessions have become a psychological crutch, just like taking a break from her cares for at least an hour a week. *

Counseling work is more than just being supportive.  The goal is more about having clients learn, as experientially as possible, skills that can be brought to their everyday lives.  The counseling room becomes the lab where these skills are introduced and tested.           

I don’t really mean to be simplistic here but I thought the title can help us focus on knowing what goes on inside the work I do and its ultimate goals.  If we come up with something that would make it simpler and more understandable, then we would have done a better job in assisting people in appreciating what all these working sessions are for.  

If you wish to change the way things are in your relationship with your partner, then you need to try different things.  In ACT or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy linggo, we call that expanding behavioral repertoire.  It is also referred to as flexibility skills.  If you start a conversation with your spouse with a criticism or a “You” statement every time, you are more than likely to get defensiveness in return.  And so on and on you go with the circular arguments that often lead you to ultimately just avoid each other or get into a massive shouting match.  

Unfortunately, we are the creatures who think that we can do the same things over and over again and come up with the results we want, even if the evidence clearly shows the contrary.  We like to follow rules and rule-following becomes the dominant reinforcer of our behaviors, and not the actual contingencies that show up.  We can see this if we break down the process of how people get hooked to the slot machine or some form of gambling addiction.  Although it is true that there is a one in a billion chance that you might hit pay dirt, the addicted person is not aware of the consequences happening as they continue this obsessive behavior.

Taken in these terms, we in this helping profession are after you getting out of your comfort zones.  Comfort zones are places where we want to end up that give us the short term feel-good moments.  Being able to analyze your spouse and find out what’s wrong with them, can give you that sense of accomplishment that you know something they don’t.  Getting that high in front of a slot machine when you win a small pot can be intensely rewarding at the moment.  However, the long term consequences eventually show up.  You no longer become the spouse you want to be.  The more you criticize your partner, the more they snap back.  Slowly eating away at the relationship you once thought will go smoothly through the years.  The more you gamble, the more you end up piling up debts and spending countless hours unable to do anything else that could have otherwise been spent more productively and meaningfully. 

I’d like to borrow a phrase from a book to help you, my readers, understand how counseling works.  The work is about being comfortable with the uncomfortable.  Maybe it’s time you tried another approach to your spouse, even if it feels embarrassing or extremely “so not you.”  Maybe you need to sit with those urges to gamble and find out what really is behind the pull towards the addiction so that you can find alternatives to spend all that energy on.  To paraphrase a well-known ACT therapist, Kirk Strosahl, maybe there’s something more important here than what you feel. 

If you are like the person I discussed in the first paragraph of this post, then be wary.  That’s because the counseling work is making you feel comfortable!  If you start to do things that are uncomfortable with the help of your counselor, then you might be on the road to being comfortable with being uncomfortable.  That’s also when you know that your work with your counselor is worth all that time and energy.  Maybe you’re on to trying something different that moves you towards what I regularly use in my discussions with my clients: being the person you want to be, and living the life you want to live.

*The example here is an amalgam of different cases that do not refer to any person in reality.

Coming to An Acceptance of Your Partner or Loved One

by Nathan Chua

One of the things that our minds are really good at doing is judging.  Our minds have developed this highly useful skill for the ultimate survival of our species that has very few qualities which can protect it from external threats.  We don’t have large sharp teeth or claws and are said to be a species that has the longest gestation period among all creatures.  

You might be curious to know how judgment can play any part in our survival, let alone the survival of a whole species.  Isn’t it that we use judgment more to describe the ways we behave towards others?  We are not used to using the term in light of its impact on our evolutionary history.  Let’s do this little exercise to see how.  If our minds didn’t know how to judge between a threat and a non-threat, we would be like the fish that get caught twice or more times by a fishing hook.  Our minds are there to create rules that keep us out of harm’s way.  If you see a line attached to a bait, that’s not dinner being presented to you, but you becoming somebody else’s dinner.  Don’t cross the street without looking side to side.  Stay indoors when your experience tells you that this is the time of the year when the weather can be harsh.  This rule-following ability is what sets us apart from other species and gives us an edge of tremendous effect on who dominates the planet.

Unfortunately, this talent is double-edged.  It can be useful to judge between a lion and a puppy but not when we use it to judge our internal processes.  If our minds weren’t able to tell that the moving thing in front of us is a hungry lion, we could be its next prey!  The mind applies the same rule to our feelings and thoughts, because the mind does what it does.  Our difficult thoughts and feelings that naturally come by because of the life situations we face, are equated as bad, as in hungry lion-bad!

Couples and families often come to a judgment of their loved ones.  Unfortunately, such judgments often get in the way of the loving relationships each party wishes to develop.  One way of stepping out of these judgments is to consider your differences as they are and not as defects.  Here’s one way to be more aware of this.  Imagine if you had a loved one (either a romantic partner or a family member) who has suffered from a childhood impairment, let’s say, he or she is half-blind or has an injury that makes it difficult for them to walk at a normal pace.  Would you demand that he or she be able to walk and do stuff as fast as you do?  Probably not!  You would most likely make adjustments to accommodate your loved one’s condition.  

Given this, you and I can be more conscious of what our minds say are defects and begin to view them as conditions or differences around which we have to work.  We can recognize our tendencies to see our loved ones as defective and therefore more like problems to solve rather than human beings who have learned a different way to tie a shoelace so to speak.  

Another way of putting this into a clearer perspective is to notice the difference between describing a movie and judging it.  A descriptive statement would be to say that the movie is an hour and 40 minutes long.  While an evaluative statement would be that the movie was too long or too boring.  Why don’t you try this at home?  You can then experiment with a loved one that you have long judged to be defective.  Just like a narrator for Nat Geo, see if you can objectively describe how your partner or child or parent behaves and say to yourself, “This is someone special who I would much rather choose to love with all his or her different behaviors that I have come to accept in the service of a truly honest and loving person that I wish to be in this and every moment.”  That, my friends, is the key, not to feeling good, but to living well in spite of what your mind says are judgments to be made.  It is up to you to look at those judgments and say, I choose not to run away from or struggle with my difficult experiences in dealing with this important person in my life, and to accept them above all.  Be my guest and see peace arrive in your life. 

How couples go from, “aisle, altar, hymn” to “I’ll alter him (her)!”

by Nathan Chua

If you are like most people who are frustrated with their partners’ incorrigible ways, here’s an option you might want to consider.  What if you and your partner can become more objective in the way you view each other’s peculiarities?  What if these defects were just your differences?  What if you view your differences more from your past perspective of why you two clicked in the first place?

Of course, this is always as we say, easier said than done.  That person you thought had all the complementary qualities you wish you yourself had, has now turned into a nuisance.  You fell in love with him because he was always cool, calm, and collected.  He was never frazzled by any of the crises you had to deal with in your months or years of dating.  Unfortunately, you realize that these same qualities when displayed in certain situations, are not the source of solace and comfort you wish they would be.  They now come across as snooty or insensitive, dismissive of how you feel about your current problems at work or at home.  You now complain and criticize, and your partner is flabbergasted.  He thinks it’s unfair for you to come up with new standards of how he should be.  Isn’t it that you loved me with all these qualities before?  Why do you want to change me completely all of a sudden?

Now, I have gone through so many approaches to couples counseling in my years of working with distressed couples and have found this so far to be the most intriguing of all and probably can turn out to be the most effective.  I call it the, Why Of Course You Do Therapy!  Why?  Because I realized that these are the very words I would be mentioning quite often in my work with couples!  Given the circumstances and given your histories, you will react in certain ways that are quite predictable and understandable.  

The problem starts when each of the parties in the relationship begin to demand, criticize, show annoyance, and reject attempts at connection or reconciliation.  What were qualities that each of you accepted early in your relationship, are now irritants that turn you into adversaries.  Your partner becomes a project to change.  As mentioned earlier, your partner will feel rather betrayed if what he or she thought were things you were willing to accept, have now become unacceptable.  The differences that you had once accepted have now turned into defects that can make or break the relationship.

The key is that through acceptance, your partner may in turn notice how much harder you are working to come to terms with what can be difficult to change.  The irony in psychology is that unless we learn to accept things as they are, then change can happen.  As the words of the great Carl Rogers remind us, “”The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I change.”  This works well with couples too!  The more your partner senses that he or she is accepted, then they feel more motivated to change.  Why so?  It’s the paradox of the human mind, the paradox of being human!