Wife got stuck in traffic (there was some kind of construction on the road), so she arrived half an hour late. As a result, this session was really two half sessions, with very different characters.
During the first half, Counselor and I talked about how I get anxious when Wife starts describing our relationship in ways that I think are incorrect: "Hosea demeans me," "Hosea orders me around," and so on. Counselor has made the point before that it really doesn't matter whether she is "right" or whether I am "right" about what "really happened": the fact is that Wife feels like such-and-such happened, and so the emotional impact for her is exactly as if it really did happen. He likens this to watching a movie: Wife is watching her movie and I am watching my movie, and what is real for each of us is what we see in the movie, not "real life." So if I am a callous jerk in Wife's movie, then it doesn't matter whether I'm also a noble hero in my own movie; the emotional impact for her is what it is, based on what she sees.
But today he went a little farther. He said he can tell when Wife starts talking like this that I get very anxious -- therefore, that Being Misunderstood is a really big deal for me. And he's right, of course. (You could probably already tell that by how long-winded I get on this blog, as I try to prove that I'm Right and She's Wrong.) But he added that it is an innate reaction (for men, at least) -- one that he feels too -- that when we see something not right we want to fix it. Of course "fixing it" means understanding what is wrong as completely as possible, and then manipulating things so that they work correctly instead. And his point was that -- in human relationships -- it never works like that. He sees the whole goal of therapy as learning to accept how things are; for marriage counseling, this means for him learning to accept your spouse as she [he] is, without feeling you have to fix her [him].
This doesn't make things magically better overnight. In particular, it's not like you can get your spouse to change by "accepting" her [him] the way she [he] is. But the idea is that by no longer beating your head against a wall, you can alleviate some of the tension you personally are feeling and therefore suffer less. And his goal is the alleviation of suffering.
His recommendation, therefore, is at least to be aware of what is going on with yourself when you start feeling like this. So when Wife starts going on at length about what a jerk I am (for example), Counselor will interrupt at a certain point to ask, "Hosea, what is happening for you right now? How do you feel right now, while Wife is saying all these things? Where in your body do you feel whatever it is that you are feeling?" And his goal, he said today, is to encourage his patients to pay close attention to how they are feeling, to understand that they feel this way because they are clinging to a desperate desire to fix something they have no control over, and ultimately to give up this urge to control things as a way of dispelling the anxiety or anger ... as a way of feeling better.
I smiled and told him he was teaching Buddhism. I hastened to add that I wasn't accusing him of preaching a religion of any kind. It's just that there is one level at which Buddhism is not a religion at all but only a set of psychological techniques which can be used by anybody, in the same way that a machine can. He smiled back and assured me he didn't take it wrong. "It's OK, I'd be glad to be sitting here teaching the Four Noble Truths ...."
About this time Wife arrived, and the discussion became a lot more superficial. Counselor started by asking her how she felt. Answer: really stressed at being late, especially because she had left the house on time or at least almost, but then there was all this stuff that brought the freeway to a standstill that wasn't her fault but it still meant she was late. "I see," said Counselor. "And why did being late stress you?" "Because I think it is rude to be late, and because I figured Hosea would be mad at me, and besides we can't accomplish anything if I'm not here and I hate to waste my time driving down here if it is all for nothing." Counselor tried to assure her that the time wasn't a waste and that she could afford to feel less anxiety, and then we shifted into how things have been with Wife.
Basically, she has been sick and her depression has been trending worse; plus her old psychiatrist retired and she doesn't have a new one yet. So she asked Counselor if he knew a psychiatrist that she'll be meeting next week: she picked him out of a list (sight unseen) because unlike the first four or five she called, he was taking new patients. Counselor didn't recognize the name. And we spent pretty much the rest of the session with Wife describing what she is looking for in a psychiatrist: someone who will support the medications she is on now (which have gotten her as stable as I have ever seen her), but also ideally someone who could provide counseling or consultative support for some of the non-checmical sides of her depression. And somehow discussing this took the rest of the session. So it was much more business-like than the first half.
Sometimes that happens in these sessions: when Wife starts describing her history or symptoms, a lot of time can go by at a very superficial level. But I'm going to have to keep an eye on my desire to "fix" Wife as if she were a defective toaster oven. I think Counselor may be on to something there.
During the first half, Counselor and I talked about how I get anxious when Wife starts describing our relationship in ways that I think are incorrect: "Hosea demeans me," "Hosea orders me around," and so on. Counselor has made the point before that it really doesn't matter whether she is "right" or whether I am "right" about what "really happened": the fact is that Wife feels like such-and-such happened, and so the emotional impact for her is exactly as if it really did happen. He likens this to watching a movie: Wife is watching her movie and I am watching my movie, and what is real for each of us is what we see in the movie, not "real life." So if I am a callous jerk in Wife's movie, then it doesn't matter whether I'm also a noble hero in my own movie; the emotional impact for her is what it is, based on what she sees.
But today he went a little farther. He said he can tell when Wife starts talking like this that I get very anxious -- therefore, that Being Misunderstood is a really big deal for me. And he's right, of course. (You could probably already tell that by how long-winded I get on this blog, as I try to prove that I'm Right and She's Wrong.) But he added that it is an innate reaction (for men, at least) -- one that he feels too -- that when we see something not right we want to fix it. Of course "fixing it" means understanding what is wrong as completely as possible, and then manipulating things so that they work correctly instead. And his point was that -- in human relationships -- it never works like that. He sees the whole goal of therapy as learning to accept how things are; for marriage counseling, this means for him learning to accept your spouse as she [he] is, without feeling you have to fix her [him].
This doesn't make things magically better overnight. In particular, it's not like you can get your spouse to change by "accepting" her [him] the way she [he] is. But the idea is that by no longer beating your head against a wall, you can alleviate some of the tension you personally are feeling and therefore suffer less. And his goal is the alleviation of suffering.
His recommendation, therefore, is at least to be aware of what is going on with yourself when you start feeling like this. So when Wife starts going on at length about what a jerk I am (for example), Counselor will interrupt at a certain point to ask, "Hosea, what is happening for you right now? How do you feel right now, while Wife is saying all these things? Where in your body do you feel whatever it is that you are feeling?" And his goal, he said today, is to encourage his patients to pay close attention to how they are feeling, to understand that they feel this way because they are clinging to a desperate desire to fix something they have no control over, and ultimately to give up this urge to control things as a way of dispelling the anxiety or anger ... as a way of feeling better.
I smiled and told him he was teaching Buddhism. I hastened to add that I wasn't accusing him of preaching a religion of any kind. It's just that there is one level at which Buddhism is not a religion at all but only a set of psychological techniques which can be used by anybody, in the same way that a machine can. He smiled back and assured me he didn't take it wrong. "It's OK, I'd be glad to be sitting here teaching the Four Noble Truths ...."
About this time Wife arrived, and the discussion became a lot more superficial. Counselor started by asking her how she felt. Answer: really stressed at being late, especially because she had left the house on time or at least almost, but then there was all this stuff that brought the freeway to a standstill that wasn't her fault but it still meant she was late. "I see," said Counselor. "And why did being late stress you?" "Because I think it is rude to be late, and because I figured Hosea would be mad at me, and besides we can't accomplish anything if I'm not here and I hate to waste my time driving down here if it is all for nothing." Counselor tried to assure her that the time wasn't a waste and that she could afford to feel less anxiety, and then we shifted into how things have been with Wife.
Basically, she has been sick and her depression has been trending worse; plus her old psychiatrist retired and she doesn't have a new one yet. So she asked Counselor if he knew a psychiatrist that she'll be meeting next week: she picked him out of a list (sight unseen) because unlike the first four or five she called, he was taking new patients. Counselor didn't recognize the name. And we spent pretty much the rest of the session with Wife describing what she is looking for in a psychiatrist: someone who will support the medications she is on now (which have gotten her as stable as I have ever seen her), but also ideally someone who could provide counseling or consultative support for some of the non-checmical sides of her depression. And somehow discussing this took the rest of the session. So it was much more business-like than the first half.
Sometimes that happens in these sessions: when Wife starts describing her history or symptoms, a lot of time can go by at a very superficial level. But I'm going to have to keep an eye on my desire to "fix" Wife as if she were a defective toaster oven. I think Counselor may be on to something there.
Hopefully things will start going as you'd like. It's been a long road. The counselor is, of course, right. You won't fix your wife. And your wife can't fix you. However, much damage can be done in the trying. Good luck!
ReplyDelete-Christa
I suffer from clinical depression. If only my husband felt a desire to try to fix me (much I resent Mr. Fix-It in most other capacities). But his attitude about the subject as a whole has made it clear that I am beyond repair...
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing all of this. I admire you hanging in there with your wife.
ReplyDeleteChrista -- Thank you for your kind thoughts. Counselor is often right, I think, even when he is saying things I don't want to hear. But recognizing that he is right when I sit in his office is way easier than putting it all into practice in real life. And I think that is true for both of us.
ReplyDeleteHave you changed your e-mail address? It seems to me that the last time you posted, it was under another address, somehow ....
Veni -- My heart goes out to you. Clinical depression is no picnic. I never understood it until being married to Wife; but in its most serious forms it can be very scary. I hope you are getting some kind of help from somebody, and I wish ... uselessly, of course ... that there were something I could do. [insert hugs here] If you are not sure what kind of help to seek out, or if you want to talk about some of the experiences Wife has had over the years, please feel free to e-mail me.
Who Am I -- Thanks. I don't know if I deserve admiration, or if I am just being dogged and stubborn. I guess I get the same results either way, so naturally I'll try to put the best face on it. :-)
Hosea,
ReplyDeleteI'm incognito. It's me though. The name before was just christa.
-Christa
Hosea, Thank you for your kind words and for taking the trouble to ensure I saw them. I am "managed" fairly well; it's just the large elephant in our marriage we pretend isn't there. Don't ask; don't tell. So in addition to being a lonely thing, I'm in a lonely place with it.
ReplyDeleteVeni, that really sucks. If you were diabetic, would your husband pretend you didn't need insulin? didn't need to eat certain foods and on a certain schedule? Or if you were diagnosed with something terminal (God forbid!), would he stop loving you because you were "beyond repair"? I sure hope not! So why should this illness be different from any other?
ReplyDeleteSorry, I know I shouldn't rant at you. And I can't very well rant at your husband. (How would I start that e-mail? "You don't know me, but ....") On the other hand this is the kind of thing that really bugs me, as if you hadn't noticed. I am glad that you are at least getting professional care. I just wish you were getting care at home too, ... the kind of care you can't get anywhere else. Here's hoping it gets better.
Doing some catching up here ... I just have to question this thing that many counselors have about "not fixing" stuff. I sense that perhaps you question it too.
ReplyDeleteI do understand that (a) desiring to fix it will cause "suffering" (thanks for the Four Truths link) and, more importantly, (b) attempting to fix things broken in your spouse can hinder communication.
But I say that accepting the way things are is not really communication. It is way of validating and affirming the other person even if you think they are wrong and they are annoying the shit out of you.
Hi Apollo,
ReplyDeleteHmmm, let me think about this. My guess is that he can't mean it literally, because taken literally the advice not to fix anything is advice to do nothing at all. And then why are we in his office in the first place? (I joked with him that he must have to fight the urge to fix his patients, and he giggled nervously.)
But I think it could make sense as a rule of thumb, or at the level of Practical Reason. What I mean is that it may well be frequently profitable for me to act and think as if it were impossible to fix Wife.
The idea, I surmise, would be twofold.
(1) Treating Wife like a busted toaster oven will probably piss her off. (There was a great Dilbert strip about this a few years ago.)
And (2) trying to "fix" her is likely to be so frustrating that I will be better able to handle the long haul if I spend the effort instead on managing my own reactions so that I can preserve my peace of mind in the face of whatever she dishes out. Then if it so happens that she changes ... great. (Great for her, too, because in my opinion her current ways of thinking cause her a lot of pain.) But if not -- and people rarely change in ways that fit our specifications -- I will at least be able to decide how to respond with a clear head.
In other words, he might not mean it as a timeless theoretical truth, but rather as advice where to expect the most bang for the buck.