Well-Meaning Therapists

The Divorce Remedy: The Proven 7-Step Program for Saving Your Marriage
by Michele Weiner Davis

(Page 4 of 5)

Often people recognize that friends and family can be biased and, for that reason, decide to seek professional help for their marriage. Unfortunately, going to a therapist when you are having marital problems doesn't guarantee you will leave with your marriage intact. Some therapists see divorce as a challenging, yet viable solution to marriage's many problems. They appreciate the impact of divorce on children, but they prefer to focus on children's resiliency and their ability to adjust. Although they might initially try to help couples move beyond their differences, if the path to solution is rocky, they are quick to suggest calling it quits. They see divorce as a rite of passage. But why?

To begin with, you need to know that, first and foremost, therapists are people. No matter how well trained they may be, it's impossible for therapists to check their personal values, morals, and perspectives at the door at the start of a therapy session.

A therapist's views about marriage are influenced by many things, including the quality of his/her own parents' marriage. For example, if the therapist's parents had a highly combative marriage and made no attempt to improve things, making it miserable for the kids, the therapist might believe that people are better off divorcing when there is tension and steer the sessions in that direction. If a therapist's father had affairs and the therapist observed the hurt that it caused in the family, he might believe that marriages cannot heal after infidelity. If a therapist grew up with two parents who calmly talked things out when there was trouble, and if you and your mate have a more hotheaded problem-solving style, she might believe that you are incompatible and suggest you separate when research shows that many hotheaded couples manage to solve problems just as well as those who are more controlled. If, in growing up, a therapist had a really stormy relationship with her father, it's possible that she might have negative feelings about men and continually side with the woman in the couple. This sort of bias is likely to result in resistance on the part of the man (who feels outnumbered), or in his dropping out of therapy, neither of which bodes well for the marriage. In short, therapists can't separate who they are from what they do.

The same is true for me. Do you remember what I told you about the impact of my parents' divorce on my own marriage and in my work with couples? It made me a true believer in the sanctity of marriage. How does this pro-marriage bias affect what I do when I work with people?

For starters, each time I meet a person or couple and hear about their marriage problems, my default position is, "This marriage can be saved." Obviously, I am not always right and some marriages do end in divorce, but my positive attitude has served my clients well. Most couples stay together and find renewed happiness with each other.

I don't panic or become discouraged when I hear people's doubts about their marriages or when I'm told about complicated marital problems. I've worked with people who have had multiple affairs, a divorce in the works, months of separation, a loss of love and/or lust — and, in the eleventh hour — were able to fall back in love. I mean, really fall back in love. So, as I've said before, problems aren't roadblocks, just bumps in the road.

Contrast this "Never say die" philosophy with the approach many other therapists take with couples. Many therapists assess the viability of people's marriages based on the types of problems they are having, the severity of these problems, how long they have lasted, and how optimistic both partners are about the possibility for change. If the problems are long-standing or if one partner expresses intense doubt about the marriage, the therapist becomes pessimistic, starts to doubt that the marriage can be saved, and begins to work toward separation.

I, on the other hand, completely understand why people feel pessimistic. Anyone who has suffered in a marriage over a long period of time will, by definition, feel despondent. I see the hopelessness as a normal reaction to a painful situation rather than a sign about the marriage's future. I proceed with the knowledge that, once we find workable solutions, the hopelessness will vanish. Hopelessness doesn't derail me.

Too many therapists give people the message that divorce is a reasonable solution when hopelessness exists. How? For example, people often go to therapists for affirmation that getting out is the right thing to do. They feel really torn and they are looking for that "expert opinion." Some people even ask their therapist outright, "Don't you think I've tried everything?" "Do you think my marriage is over?" The truth is no matter how many degrees a therapist might have, or how smart s/he might be, there is absolutely no way for a therapist to know when a marriage has reached a dead end.

But this doesn't stop many therapists from acting as if they have a crystal ball. They say, "If your husband won't attend therapy, it means he's not committed to your marriage and nothing you do will make a difference," or "It seems as if your wife has lost feeling for you, why don't you just get on with your life?" or "As long as your husband is having an affair, you might as well assume your marriage isn't going to survive," or "Why are you hanging on to this marriage? Your wife has already filed for divorce?" Although these predicaments make marital repair more challenging, none of them is, by any means, a marital death sentence. Telling people that their marriage is doomed is, in my opinion, fortune-telling at best and unethical at worst.

Besides therapists' personal experiences, there are other reasons they might not be advocates for marriage. Their professional training may stand in the way. Although it may seem strange, the whole premise upon which traditional therapy is based may not be conducive to helping people work out problems when the going gets tough. For instance, therapists are trained to encourage people to pursue the parts of their lives that will bring personal happiness and satisfaction, even if these goals are at odds with what's best for the marriage, the children, or even the individual in question in the long run. The therapist wants you to feel good and do whatever it takes to make that happen.

I once saw a couple on the verge of divorce — thanks to a therapist the man had seen. The wife and child had moved back to their hometown, several thousand miles from their current home, in order to receive family support for their disabled child. Because they were having a hard time selling their home, the husband decided to remain with the home until it was sold. During the time they were separated, he had a great deal of freedom. He had no day-to-day responsibilities as a husband or father. He could work, go to his health club, and be with his friends as much as his little heart delighted. And he did. He was having a ball. That's when he started to question his marriage. He thought to himself, "I really enjoy my life as a single person. I wonder if there is something wrong with my marriage." So he sought the help of a professional.

The therapist helped him to uncover feelings of discontent with his marriage and his life as a family man. She suggested that perhaps he had always been a "pleaser," that is, he put effort into making everyone happy but himself. Her solution? "Get out of your marriage. Start anew. Be self-determining. Follow your heart." Psychobabble poison.

He eventually confessed his ambivalence to his wife, who was devastated. She had no idea he was unhappy in their marriage! They agreed to schedule an appointment with me. When I saw them, I understood the therapist's assessment: the husband had lost himself in the marriage, rarely openly expressed his desires, and often went along with the program, despite his own wishes. However, instead of thinking that his path to happiness was for him to abandon his marriage and family, I saw a better route; to help him become more forthcoming with his wife and find ways to meet his needs within the context of his marriage. Believe me, it was a no-brainer. After only three sessions they were happier than ever! He became more honest with his wife — only agreeing to do that which he really wanted to do and letting her know when he was disappointed about things — and she loved it. She no longer had to wonder whether he was doing things to placate her that only backfired later. Their marriage flourished. I placed a follow-up call to them a year later and they were pregnant with their second child. So much for a marriage doomed for divorce!

Another significant aspect of therapists' training that makes marriage preservation more challenging is the idea that in order to solve problems, people must first understand what caused the problems. What this means is that if a couple is having marital difficulties, instead of helping that couple identify things they can do immediately to feel closer and more connected, many therapists first gather lots of information about how each spouse was raised. This is unfortunate because research shows that the average time a couple experiences problems before initiating therapy is six years! Six years! So, that by the time most couples seek help, they are in desperate need of answers. They don't need to become experts on why they are stuck! If therapy fails to offer an immediate sense of relief or hope that solutions are possible, most couples become more despondent and more likely to throw in the towel.

Another belief inherent in most theories of therapy is the idea that people will get along better if they just express their feelings openly and honestly. In general, this is true. However, when a marriage is really in trouble, in most cases, the couple know precisely how their partner feels — they just don't have a clue as to what they can do to resolve the differences between them. Therapists are usually more skilled at helping people identify and express hurt and angry feelings than they are at helping people negotiate their differences, so therapy often ends up being more like a blame session than a problem-solving session. As a result, people end up feeling their marriages are really in bad shape and not worth preserving.

I don't mean to imply that all therapy is bad. It isn't! Therapy can be a lifesaver! There are lots of competent, caring therapists out there. But if you do decide to seek professional help, you need to make sure that you are seeking the help of an individual who believes that marriages are worth saving and who has been trained specifically to work with couples. Later in this book, I will offer some guidelines for choosing a good marital therapist.

The Media Myth-Makers

I once worked with a man who told me that he needed to divorce his wife because he didn't think he loved her anymore. I asked him, "What makes you think so?" He replied, "It's just not the way I see it in the movies." I had been a therapist for approximately fifteen years at the time and I thought I had heard everything. I was wrong.

Hollywood cannot be faulted for offering unrealistic portrayals of what really goes on behind closed doors; after all, it's the silver screen's job to entertain, not to educate us. Yet in a media-saturated society, it's hard not to be influenced by the images with which we are bombarded; perfect hard bodies; impassioned, breathless sex, and heart-stopping romance. If our relationships don't quite measure up, we start to think we're being short-changed, and want to upgrade to a new and improved model.

But the truth is, good marriages can be incredibly boring. There's nothing sexy about making dinner, paying bills, caring for elderly parents, changing diapers, and chauffeuring kids to soccer games. The really good things about marriage — the comfort spouses feel in one another's presence, the unspoken glances that speak volumes, the little things people do for their spouses, the certainty that they will wake up next to each other in bed every morning — are about as compelling to watch as watching paint dry. That's why realism is in short supply on the movie screen. It wouldn't sell.

Nowadays, if Hollywood isn't busy glamorizing marriage, it's busy taking the sting out of divorce. Sitcoms, movies, and cartoons depicting nontraditional families are the norm, and everyone seems to be doing just fine. The message is clear — the nuclear family is a thing of the past and we're no worse for the wear. Viewers aren't exposed to the real trials and tribulations of blending families or of raising children as a single parent. We don't see the War-of-the-Roses-type arguments that often occur between spouses as they pit their biological children against their stepchildren. We're not told how these arguments often account for the fact that 60 percent of second marriages end in divorce. We don't hear about the poverty and other challenges that often accompany single parenthood, especially for women. Television makes life after divorce seem easy.

Beyond making marriage look more glamorous than life, and divorce less noxious than in reality, the media biases people's perspective about marriage by being obsessed with bad news. The National Marriage Project at Rutgers University released a report that received more than its fair share of attention. It said that the U.S. marriage rate has never been lower, births to unmarried women have skyrocketed, the divorce rate remains high, and Americans' marriages are less happy than in the past. Wire services, newspapers, and magazines had a field day. Radio talk shows were buzzing with guests hypothesizing why the institution of marriage is headed for disaster.

Although few could debate the data offered by this now famous report, it is equally undebatable this news reflects just one side of the coin. For instance, did you know that The Wall Street Journal reported that a long-term marriage is a new status symbol? Or, were you aware that surveys tell us that Americans continue to say that a happy marriage is their number-one goal and that approximately 85 to 90 percent of us are still getting married? Did you know that in a recent survey of America's wealthiest people — those in the ninety-ninth percentile of taxpayers — it was noted that 71 percent were married to their first spouse? Do you know about the most popular and longest-running column in magazine history — "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" — in Ladies' Home Journal? It is an upbeat, positive column describing the steps different couples take to solve their marital problems. People can't get enough of it. Unless you have been living on another planet, you know that 50 percent of first marriages end in divorce, but have you ever wondered why 50 percent of marriages last? Have you ever considered what makes these long-term marriages different?

I strongly believe that the constant barrage of negative data about marriage takes its toll on society. We start to believe that divorce is one of life's normal rites of passage; we fall in love, we get married, we have children, and we divorce. This acceptance of divorce as the norm makes it more likely that, rather than do what it takes to make marriages work when the going gets rough, we just leave.

Imagine for a moment, that instead of all the doom-and-gloom predictions about marriage, we were inundated with love's success stories. We'd read in-depth interviews about couples who have been married fifty years or more and case studies of those who had risen above difficult marital problems such as infidelity, and about the hundreds of thousands of couples whose lives have been changed by taking a simple marriage education course. We'd receive updated information about the ways in which long-term marriage benefits men, women, children, and society as a whole. Just think about how our collective unconsciousness might be altered if the media spent a fraction of the time investigating why marriage works instead of informing and warning us about the death of marriage!

The Legal System

"If there is one lawyer in town, he will starve to death. If there are two, both will make a good living."

Sometimes, when people are unhappy in their marriages and unsure about whether they should leave or not, they go to an attorney to check out their rights. This, in and of itself, is not a bad idea, but there are some things you should know before you pick up the phone.

When you go to a divorce attorney, what you get is someone who specializes in the divorce process, not reconciliation. People often seek legal advice, not because they are 100 percent sure they want to divorce, but because they want to get information and to feel that they are protecting themselves. Although many attorneys pick up on people's ambivalence and suggest counseling, this is not necessarily always the case. It's an attorney's job to facilitate a divorce, not to suggest reconciliation. Besides, the thinking goes that by the time you schedule an appointment with an attorney, you have already considered all the alternatives and you are ready to terminate your marriage.

Once you start the legal ball rolling, it becomes your lawyer's primary responsibility to get you "a fair deal," which translates to "the best possible deal": the most money, the most time with your children, and the least amount of interference from your ex-spouse. Lawyers are ethically bound to operate from this premise. It's their job. The problem is, your spouse's attorney is charged with the same responsibility. The end result is that the divorce process becomes extremely adversarial. It's you against your spouse.

Divorces are part of our adversary process. By design, the system pits one party against the other. The theory is that the decision-maker (the judge) has the benefit of the most persuasive argument from each side and the attack by cross-examination reveals the weaknesses of each side's position. Though this may be an effective way to make decisions in commercial and criminal cases, it certainly is not appropriate for the troubled family. It pits husband against wife, mother against father and hostility escalates into the ultimate war, the trial.

Although protecting oneself is important, sometimes the very things you do to protect your personal interests jeopardize the slightest hope that you and your partner will remain civil to one another, let alone consider reconciliation.

Consider Greg, a man who desperately wanted to save his marriage. His wife was having an affair, often flaunting her infidelity in Greg's face. Greg was trying really hard not to be reactive because he hoped that the affair would eventually die a natural death. Indeed, research shows that affairs often end and reconciliation is possible as long as the betrayed spouse doesn't become retaliatory.

Greg's attorney felt that he wasn't taking a strong enough stand. He suggested that they try to get an order to prevent the man from having any contact with Greg's children. He also suggested that the man's questionable financial history be made public in order to cast him in a negative light. Although I understood why such a suggestion would be appealing, I also knew that had Greg followed his attorney's advice, it would only have incited his wife, etching their divorce in stone. In this case, winning the legal battle would mean losing the marriage-saving war.

But divorce attorneys are hired to "win," rather than consider a particular legal act's implications on future relationship dynamics.

Divorce attorneys clearly understand that divorce is as much a psychological war, as it is a legal war. That part of the process called "discovery" gives attorneys the tools with which to attack the opponent and to gain psychological as well as legal advantage. Depositions (examinations before trial) of friends, family, and business associates... are all part of the tactics used to bring your opponent to their knees.

If, for example, in your heated discussions about the possibility of divorce, it becomes clear that both you and your spouse want full custody of your children, you will be in for a battle sure to make whatever positive feelings you might have had about your spouse vanish. You will be asked to compile as much information as you possibly can that will not only portray you as the more fit parent, but portray your spouse as inept and unfit. To boost your case and comply with your attorney's requests, you scrutinize your memories for all of your partner's faults and failures both as a parent and as a coparent, which distorts your perception and robs you of any lingering feelings of appreciation for your shared history. And to make matters worse, once you learn of your partner's portrayal of your shortcomings as a parent, the outrage you feel reconfirms in your own mind why you have been considering divorce in the first place.

Concern about the long-term damage done to relationships and families because of the adversarial nature of the legal process has prompted an alternative for those considering divorce. Mediation is a nonadversarial process involving an impartial third party who helps couples problem-solve, communicate more effectively, and reach mutually agreed-upon resolutions that are in the best interests of the family.

Although the goal of mediation is not reconciliation (nor should it be confused with marriage counseling), because of the collaborative nature of the process and its focus on building communication skills, couples opting for mediation often decide to reconcile rather than divorce. Even if divorce is the end result, the spirit of cooperation gained through the mediation process greatly benefits the couple's post-divorce relationship, which is especially important when children are involved. Unfortunately, not enough people consider mediation when their marriage is on the brink. If they did, it's possible that more marriages could be saved.

Now that you know what drives the divorce machine, you might wonder whether certain people are more susceptible to its influence than others. And the answer is yes.

Copyright © 2001 by Michele Weiner Davis

About the Author

divorcebusting.com
Michele Weiner Davis has appeared as a regular guest on Oprah, 48 Hours, the Today show, and CBS This Morning. She is the author of the bestseller Divorce Busting and of Getting Through to the Man You Love and Change Your Life and Everyone in It, and coauthor of In Search of Solutions. A marriage therapist in private practice, Weiner Davis lives outside Chicago with her husband and two children.