101 stories from the therapy room

(A non-clinical approach to psychotherapy and counselling)

I was working with a married couple in their mid-40s. The major issue the couple was going through was the conflict between their parents. The need to defend their own relatives created friction and hurt, and the arguments that ensued made them lose contact as a couple. 

Containing the hurt within themselves created more distance. They were living in the same house but were feeling very lonely. They had also decided not to have a child. So there was also grief of not having a child, which was never acknowledged or handled properly between them. 

Now, the question was whether the couple had the strength to deal with the grief and loss of parenthood. My assessment was that they were not ready. Instead of focusing on the deficits in them as a couple, I decided to facilitate a session for them to find/remember the reason for being in the marriage. My intention was to evoke a curiosity about why their souls came together and not to make it about the decision to not  bring another soul (child) into the world. For this kind of reflection, I introduced the speaker-listener process to them to facilitate the significant, shared search which may bypass their conflict and help build a bond between them as a couple.

The speaker-listener exercise is an activity to develop the capacity to understand each other’s world and create a shared world. The process is al follows – 

The husband would start by saying, “We, as a couple, came together for ______.” The husband would say what he thinks – the wife would have to listen and paraphrase her husband’s narrative. The same process will be repeated by the wife. She would say, “We, as souls, came together for ______.” The husband must listen and repeat it. This process of dialogue exchange of the thoughts between the couple could create a shared understanding.

Round 1:

The husband says, “We, as a couple, came together to travel around the world together.” The wife listens to him and repeats it for him to feel heard.

The wife says, “We, as souls, came together for me to get support, to grow wings to fly towards my goals and make them a reality.” Listening to her statement, the husband was tearing up. Curious, I asked him about his tears – he said, “I was trying to support her by working extra hard. I know my wife acknowledged the hard work, but listening to her say it again is validating and healing.”

Round 2:

The husband said, “We, as souls, came together for me to get her support. I am a creative person but I feel stronger when she trusts my creativity.” Listening to this the wife said, “Yes, he is very creative and I also admire his compassion towards animals.” The husband felt heard  and supported by her words.

Next, the wife expressed this – “We, as souls, came here for me to provide a home for him because he lost his parents at a young age. So, I thought of giving him the home he hadn’t had in a long time”. Listening to this, the husband agreed that without this home that she had provided him with, he would be nobody.

By acknowledging their mutual support for each other, they were rebuilding compassion that they once had for each other and they said, “We, as souls, came here to support each other. There is something special between us – we have common topics of interest we like to discuss and we also respect each other’s individual space.”

Outcome:

Defending the hurt they were feeling created a rift between the couple. This exercise (“we, as souls, came together”) constructed a bridge between them.

I asked them to continue this exercise for the next 2 weeks to deepen their connection. Now the couple had a complementing position in dealing with the earlier hurt they were feeling.

Conclusion:I have always heard, “Marriages are made in heaven.” I have a different opinion. I don’t know whether a marriage is made in heaven, but it is a choice a couple could make to make a marriage feel like heaven.