Avoiding the Couch

Some Counsel on Counseling

Here’s one pretty common version of what happens when a marriage goes bad. Two people fall in love, get married and spend a few years learning that happily ever after may not be in the cards. They try their level best to make things work and solve problems, but they are thwarted by their partner’s failure to recognize that they are the one messing things up. Unable to fix their spouse on their own, they figure the one to get the job done will be a stranger who knows neither of them.

Out come the yellow pages, where all the more complex problems of Western Civilization are resolved.

Unfortunately, a lengthy list of therapists produces more angst in choosing just one of them. Since they can’t determine the quality of a therapist by their name they generally rely on how many letters are behind the name. Secretly, they know that this really only tells us about education, not skills, but they hope eternally that there is some connection between the two.

They have hoped for lots of things.

Going down the list they reduce the number of candidates with scientific precision. They cross off names they can’t pronounce, those with fewer letters, and those in undesirable locations. That usually narrows it down to one or two candidates, so of course they choose the name that sounds the most appealing.

Ah, there she is, Mildred Pickwickett, B.A., M.A., M.S.W., Ph.D., L.M.F.T., A.C.P. Cool name, lots of letters and five minutes from the house.

She must be the answer.

Too bad the string of degrees and certifications don’t tell us is anything about the kind of person Mildred is. I’ve often thought that therapists should have to include little stars after their credentials, one for each time they’ve been divorced or made a trip to rehab to get off drugs or booze. If they did, many of them would have Orion’s Belt after their name, not just the alphabet.

A dirty little secret in the field is that the education and training of a therapist is absolutely no indicator of their skill, efficacy, or even competence. The more they have, though, the more zeros you will be writing on the check. So, with no guarantee of enhanced skills--these are desperate times--a choice is made, for better or worse.

One of them, probably her, picks up the phone and starts punching numbers to set the first appointment. Dr. Pickwickett is a busy therapist, in very high demand. Her next opening isn’t until after lunch.

She wants to go. He doesn’t. But since she won’t let him have the remote back until he agrees, he relents. On the way there, grimacing in anticipation, the thought finally occurs to him that this may be a good idea. After all, if an unbiased third person can see how crazy his wife really is it may put the marriage problems squarely in her lap where they belong. He might even get out of this with a session or two and leave her there to sort out her own stuff. She is out of his hair, and he gets the remote back. The situation suddenly has promise. He is clueless that she has come to the same conclusion a long time ago, and has similar ambitions.

They show up in Mildred’s office, both with the same façade: calm-natured and reasonable. This, of course, is the exact opposite of how they are with each other at home.

It lasts for about three minutes.

And once the gloves are off, it quickly spirals downward into another round of “It’s his fault!” and “No, it’s hers!” Just like at home, only there is no TV or screaming kids in the background and it costs three hundred dollars an hour.

It’s a frenzy of finger-pointing that may require all of Mildred’s questionable skills to contain. Once it does calm down, the standoff just takes a more subtle form, each still accusing the other of being the “real” problem; each tacitly competing for the therapist’s sympathies and validation. Neither is actually trying to resolve anything except the indisputable fact that they are right and the other is wrong.

At this point Mildred knows that the marriage is toast. It’s just a protracted wreck, careening though the counselor’s office on its way into the ditch.

But it’s a cash cow for Mildred. A couple inextricably lodged in projective denial will write checks to therapists until they start writing them to the lawyers. How long it takes them to get there is only a matter of how long it takes them to figure out the show is over. And Mildred won’t help with that; there’s no money in it. All the therapist has to do is be smart enough not to take sides or offer an honest assessment. While not geniuses, most of them are smart enough to not mess up on that one.

It is a pity, though. All this could have been avoided from the beginning.

Advice is cheaper than a politicians promise, and seldom more useful, so I rarely put myself in a position to give it. But while repairing a bad relationship is usually undermined by the people in it, the way to do it is ultimately simple. So, in this case, I make an exception.

If your marriage is having problems and you both really want them fixed, try the following:

1. Each person sits down and makes a list of everything they do that harms the relationship. Neither is allowed to write a word about the other person’s problems, only their own.

2. Each person makes a commitment to themselves and to their partner to accept responsibility for the problems on their list and do something about it.

3. Each person takes their list to a trusted friend, relative, clergy or other trusted person without a financial motive and talks with them, seeking advice and support for making the necessary changes.

4. If, when making the list, you find yourself including things like active adultery, chronic alcoholism, drug addiction, assault and battery or any other deal-breaker, throw the list away and move out ’til you are ready to be married.

5. If, after serious thought and reflection, you can’t come up with at least three or four things to put on your list, move out ’til you are ready to be married.

Now, for the next two months you are only allowed to talk about the problems on your list. That is, your problems. Not a word, syllable, consonant or vowel about the other person’s problems. When they want to talk about the things on their list, all you have to do is listen, hopefully without saying something to screw it all up.

This will fix most any troubled relationship, or at least let you know in a hurry that the time for hope has passed.

It will save you a lot of time and expense with therapists and probably lawyers. But then again, if couples were capable of making those lists and pointing their fingers inward, they would not be in trouble in the first place.