Piecing it All Together Through Couples Counseling
Some couples don’t really know where it all began, how it all happened. They felt close, their communications seemed open…but something slowly went wrong. Perhaps they simply stopped tending to their relationship; their lives became busy, children entered into the picture. Sometimes it was one event that never was discussed properly and resentment grew. Such was the case of Sarah and Bobby Lee, a middle-aged couple living in the Midwest, who sat before a couples counselor, arms folded.
Bobby Lee explained his side of the story:
We’ve always been happy. Well, for the first 10 years, everything seemed fine. Then Sarah got a new job. Which was great, because we really needed the extra income and Sarah’s mom babysat whenever we needed her to. I went to Sarah’s Christmas party and realized how close she was to her boss. They were laughing together all night. It was like I wasn’t even there. I still wonder whether she felt embarrassed about me. I’m just a blue-collar guy, you know? I never said anything to her but I think she had an affair with that man. She got laid-off about a year later and we never talked about it. I was taught to “let sleeping dogs lie” and that’s just what I did.
Sarah listened to the story, stunned. She had never heard about Bobby Lee’s feelings about this Christmas party. Not only that, but she certainly never had an affair:
My boss, he was gay. And I was afraid that Bobby Lee would get angry about that. His family can be such bigots. And since my boss was the one throwing the party, I wanted to spend time with him. Bobby Lee didn’t seem like he wanted to get to know my co-workers anyway. And that hurt my feelings. But my God, to think all these years, he’s been worried about that?
Counseling taught both Bobby Lee and Sarah the importance of communicating at that time and not letting resentments build and gather. It took the professional urgings of a couples counselor for the couple to openly talk about their marriage.
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