Coming to Terms with your Partner Through Couples Counseling
Marriage counseling isn’t a magic solution. It will not fix a broken marriage. It can help mend longstanding wounds and bridge gaps. There are times when a couples counselor will advise the couple to separate, in order to clarify and understand a situation better. This was the case with Samantha and Tim.
Samantha and Tim had been together since high school. Samantha had always felt she loved Tim deeply but felt Tim had some sort of wall up, a certain resistance:
It feels like no matter how hard I try, it’s never enough. Somehow he just doesn’t love me back fully. Sometimes I wonder if he even likes me! I know that sounds ridiculous but I’m also tired of trying so hard, trying to win his approval and love. I want a break. I want to feel like the giver, not the receiver.
Tim felt utterly confused:
I can’t believe she feels this way. Everything I do, I do for her. What could I do any differently? I’m not the showy type. I don’t feel like having to put on an act for her.
The therapist recognized the real divide that lie between both Tim and Samantha and first advised for some healthy separation. Samantha had become so fixated on “winning Tim’s approval” that she had lost sight of herself and her own personal goals. In addition, Tim would need to do his own work and recognize the emotional walls he puts up between himself and others.
But occasionally a therapist will advise a brief separation from one another. Perhaps not physically but from the problem itself, in order to mend one’s own fences first. Then some real progress can occur - with two whole, sound individuals who aren’t so enmeshed.
