Has This Ever Happened to You in Marriage Counseling?

Has this ever happened to you?

You and your wife have been rolling along doing what you do for a long time.

She is not happy with that.

And truth be told, you aren't either, but you're also not willing to do anything to rock the boat. You've heard nightmare stories about marriage counseling, and you're not sure you want to engage, but she puts it in front of you.

We need to go to counseling.

I've been online. I have found us a counselor. I really think this person is going to be able to help us. The appointment is next Tuesday at three.

And you kinda don't have a choice, so you go.

There's a little tiny bit of you that's a little hopeful that maybe the the the counselor will hear what you have to say, But mostly, you're just like, oh, no. This is not gonna be good. This is not going to be good. Now you and your wife don't have big knockdown drag out fights. You don't yell and scream at each other. You just quietly go through your day, and you used to be in love, but something happened, and you can't figure out what it was.

So, you know, here you are.

After you greet one another, after you greet the therapist, introduce yourself, know say nice to meet you and all those sorts of things, then the counselor says, What brings you here today?

And your wife starts talking. She tells the counselor the entire story from beginning to end including all the things that you were doing that she doesn't like.

So the counselor thanks her and validates her experience and then turns to you and says, So what's your side of the story? What do you think?

What do you see as the problem?

And you pause for a minute and you try to think of now how do I formulate this? Because this was a surprise. You weren't prepared to actually be asked your opinion.

So you want to give a thoughtful response and you think for a minute and then before you can open your mouth your wife starts talking again.

And she gives the counselor the answer to the question that the counselor just asked you.

Now that's not surprising because you're used to your wife interrupting and answering for you. It's part of your pattern. It's part of what you guys have learned to do as a couple.

However, the counselor actually just turns attention back to your wife and continues the conversation.

In the meantime, you haven't said a word.

You haven't had an opportunity to say a word. You haven't had the space to think for a minute before you can formulate a response. And honestly, if you're going to formulate a response about how you see your marriage in front of your wife, you might be a little careful about how you word that because you don't want to start an argument. Because it seems like everything that you say upsets her in some way or another.

And so you sit there and you watch the counselor have a conversation with your wife.

Every now and then, you get asked another question by the counselor, of course, And the same thing happens again. It happens a second time, a third time.

At the end of the session, your wife seems very pleased. She likes the counselor. Things are going well, and she looks forward to coming back next week, and it's gonna be great. And she walks out with a little bit lighter step knowing that she's right.

In the meantime, you walk out feeling a little more depressed.

I get it. I really do. I've seen that happen so many times. And I've watched what happens when that's the expectation when people meet with me.

I don't hesitate to stop the wife and say, Hey hold on a second. I want to hear what your husband has to say. He always looks a little surprised.

But I have a rule when I'm working with a couple. I only let one person talk at a time.

Now that is both comforting to couples, but it's also really frustrating. I remember asking one one man one time, What was the thing that I did that was the most helpful? And that's exactly what he said. You only let one of us talk at a time.

And I said, What was the most difficult part about working with me?

And he laughed and he said that you would only let one of us talk at a time.

But seriously you can't learn anything if both people are not getting a voice and that is just like the primary piece of knowing how to work with a couple.

Sometimes when things are escalated significantly, I would actually separate the couple and I would meet with them with the other person out of the room. Sometimes I'd ask one of them to step out for a few minutes and then I would have them come back after I'd had a brief conversation. And then that evolved into what I do now with coaching.

And actually a huge part of my work is working with them individually as well as as a couple.

Because that way I can coach each one of them. Each one of them can be honest with me about what's going on without fear of upsetting their mate and starting that negative pattern that they get locked into all the time. I've often called that the infinite loop of victim and villain and going back and forth.

It literally looks like the infinity sign when you think about it. You're just circling around the same thing over and over again and getting nowhere.

So I really want to empower a couple as individuals so they can fix their own marriage.

And that's the beauty of it. I don't actually save marriages. I empower people.

And the person that I feel like needs the most empowerment in a marriage is actually the man.

Because you've learned how to avoid situations because you don't want to hurt your wife's feelings. You don't want to make her angry for sure.

And she probably wouldn't listen to you anyway.

And you don't understand why that is. And that's your hope in finding help is that someone will be able to see what's going on and help you make sense of all of it.

But in reality, things are geared towards the squeaky wheel. I hate to say it that way, but whoever speaks the loudest is the one that gets the most attention. And it really shouldn't be that way.

But beneath all of that, that tendency that you have to avoid those kinds of conversations that could make a difference for you as well as for her that that's the problem in the beginning. That's the underlying problem that you're dealing with is that you have relinquished your leadership role to your wife which actually is an unfair burden for her.

She really needs you to be engaged with her in the process and she does not realize that she is making it impossible for you to do that.

I had some training in emotionally focused therapy for couples. And one of the major premises of that approach to working with couples is that the person who is disengaged needs to engage in the relationship, in the conversation.

And most often that's the man.

The piece that they left out however in that training was that you've got to get the person who is over engaged to allow space for the disengaged person to engage. In other words, the wife has to stop talking and taking up all the space so that your voice can be heard. Now I am not anti female. I gotta tell you I'm a girl. Okay?

And I know what it's like to be on that woman's side of things. I understand her position.

But I've been studying the psychology of men and marriage and teaching it for pretty much thirty years now. I don't know. I kind of am losing track. I know it's been way more than twenty five, but I'm not sure I've hit thirty quite yet, but it's getting close.

And in that study and in working with couples over all that time, I've come to really understand what men go through.

I was curious about why men behave the way they do, and and my... Actually, my doctoral dissertation was on mothers and sons. I can tell you that story another time, but why I chose that topic.

But from that point forward, after I first got my doctoral degree, I actually really focused in on how can I help men?

And my original goal was, well, if women understood men, everything would be fine.

And that sounded great. So I spent at least the last decade just really focusing in on educating women on the psychology of men. You know, what you... What guys think, how they feel, why they do the things they do instead of what the woman thinks he should do.

Those were just... That was what I did. And my my premise was that if the woman understood the man then the man would naturally step up and take leadership.

He would step into the role that he's designed for.

To be the leader simply means that you're protecting and you're providing and you're problem solving. And yeah, you want to make her smile in the process. Right?

But what I found is that more often than not, when the woman finally understood the man and stopped directing him, giving him advice, you know, doing things that felt emasculating to him, When she finally got that and was able to do it, the man just sat back and relaxed.

A sigh of relief is a good thing. Right?

But you're still not taking the leadership.

And until you can get to that point where you know how to regain that position, your God given position as a man, you're going to drift right back into those same old patterns for one reason.

And that will be her anxiety.

Her anxiety comes from the feeling that she has to do it all because you don't say anything.

I want to really empower men through my channel, through my teaching, and through my private coaching. I want to empower men to be able to speak up, to find their voices, and to lead with wisdom, strength, confidence, and compassion.

This isn't about running over your wife. It isn't about being a bully yourself turning into a villain.

It's more about learning a different way to show up in your marriage, a different way to assert your personal power in your own life, to be the hero in your own story instead of letting your wife struggle and feel like she's all alone in trying to make the marriage work.

You know this is such a serious topic for me. I care so deeply about it. And I care deeply about what's going on with you.

If anything I've said today resonates with you, I invite you to get more information on my website at DrDebiSmith.com. In the meantime, I'll be back soon with another video and hopefully bring some more insight into where you are in your life and in your love. Until then, take care. I'll see you soon.