Couples Therapy for One: To Fix a Marriage, Some Go Alone
Many
couples in troubled marriages wait too long to get help. By the time
both spouses agree to counseling, the relationship has often been
strained to the breaking point.
Some spouses, though, have found a way to work on their marriages
even if their partners won't go to couples counseling. They go alone.
Colleen Orme, 48, a marketing consultant living in Great
Falls, Va., did this several years ago, after her marriage hit a rough
patch. She believed her husband had stopped treating her with respect.
He drove her car and returned it with no gas. He showed up two hours
late to a charity event she'd been planning for months. He ignored her
birthday. The two had many long, circular arguments in which she tried
to explain her feelings and he defended himself.
Ms. Orme suggested couples counseling, and
for a few months they both went to therapy sessions. Then, her husband
quit. "I was looking for some answers and just wasn't getting any," says
Tom Orme, 49, a sales representative for school products. "She
complained about me and I complained about her."
Ms. Orme decided to continue without him. "We spend a lot of time in
marriages trying to fix the other person," she says. "I changed my
approach and decided to focus on how I can become happy."
Taking a new approach in couples therapy, some counselors say
troubled marriages can benefit even if just one spouse seeks help. And
usually that spouse is the wife: Experts say women are more likely than
men to get relationship-focused therapy alone.
At the University of Denver, unpublished results from a five-year
longitudinal study of 300 long-term couples suggest that a month or so
after receiving relationship-skills training, those who got it as
individuals saw as much improvement in their relationships as those who
got the training as a couple. A year and a half after the training, the
Denver researchers found that couples where the women attended sessions
alone reported being happier than couples where the men attended alone.
Howard Markman, a psychologist and the study's lead
researcher, says the women learned relationship skills more easily and
were better at teaching them to their partners. Women also are more
comfortable talking about feelings and the strong emotions that arise in
couples therapy. While there is no hard data available, Dr. Markman
estimates that in his own practice, when one spouse is resisting
counseling it is the man about 70% of the time. Some other therapists
estimate that figure in their own practices as high as 90%.
How to Make the Most of Marriage Therapy for One
- Find a therapist who practices an evidence-based approach like cognitive behavioral couples therapy. Therapists who say they are 'couples friendly' focus on the relationship, not either individual.
- Ask your spouse why he doesn't want to go. Does he not agree there is a problem? Is he scared of what he will find out? Does he just not care? The answers to these questions will help you figure out where you stand.
- Understand the goal. It isn't to change your partner. It is to gain insight into your role in the dysfunctional pattern. 'One spouse is never 100% of the problem,' says Eli Karam, assistant professor at the University of Louisville's marriage and family therapy program.
- Invite your spouse to come with you to therapy, but don't coerce. Do not threaten divorce! Your partner should be curious about this other person in your life. Perhaps he wants to come one time to meet your therapist? Even one meeting can help give a therapist perspective on the marriage.
- Share insights, reading materials, even 'homework'—and ask for help. If your spouse says he doesn't get it, respond with curiosity. Say, It made sense to me, what is confusing about it to you? 'Go in the side door,' says Kim Leatherdale, a Little Silver, N.J., marriage therapist. 'You are encouraging your spouse to open up.'
Couples therapy is basic conflict management.
"One of the major problems in relationships is that people can't handle
the inevitable problems," Dr. Markman says. Couples therapy focuses on
the present, not the past. It helps people identify negative interaction
patterns, recognize their individual role in them and do their part to
change them.
The process works best if both partners participate, experts say. But
if just one partner is willing, a couples-based approach can be
substantially more effective for the marriage than traditional
individual psychotherapy, Dr. Markman says. This is because couples
therapy teaches practical skills for improving the relationship;
individual therapy often focuses on uncovering patterns from childhood
and other experiences. Dr. Markman recently started offering
relationship coaching on the phone for women who can't get their spouses
into counseling.
In order for couples therapy alone to work, there are some ground
rules. The relationship must be basically sound—no lying, cheating or
abuse. The therapist will focus on the relationship, not the individual.
And the partner who doesn't come to therapy must still want to improve
the marriage and should be informed about what goes on.
Whether in couples therapy alone or with a spouse, everyone must
recognize that they won't be able to change the other person, only
themselves, therapists say. And each spouse needs to recognize his or
her own role in creating the conflict. "I have never seen a relationship
where all of the problems are the fault of one person," says Eli Karam,
assistant professor at the University of Louisville's marriage and
family therapy program.
Rather than griping, the focus will be on problems that can be
solved. Is one partner always late? This can be addressed. Hate your
in-laws? Too bad. Dr. Karam says he tries to help clients re-frame
behaviors in a positive way. He might tell a husband who feels his wife
is overly focused on details that at least the bills will be paid on
time. "We need to remember why we were attracted in the first place,"
Dr. Karam says.
Ms. Orme says at first she felt stuck in a rut while in couples
counseling alone. "I would say, How can he not value me? Why can't he be
mature?" she recalls. And the arguing didn't stop. Her husband recalls
telling her, "If you want to go to counseling and get some insight,
great, but you're not my doctor."
After two years, Ms. Orme says she finally started to hear what her
counselor was saying. "I couldn't blame my husband forever," she says.
The Ormes have been married 23 years.
Ms. Orme's therapist helped her to stop pleading with her husband and
start explaining to him what was important to her and expecting him to
respect her needs. If she had a work deadline, she asked him to watch
the kids.
"He is probably treating me differently because I won't tolerate
certain things anymore," Ms. Orme says. "But I've also become a happier
person, because I am not looking for him to make me happy anymore."
Mr. Orme says he was confused by his wife's changes at first but
gradually came to appreciate her independence. "When she changed her
behavior, the pressure dissipated," he says. "And when that is gone, you
can think more clearly and your whole perspective changes."
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Elizabeth Bernstein at Bonds@wsj.com or follow her column at www.Facebook.com/EBernsteinWSJ.