Couples Therapy: the prelude to divorce or the beginning of a new love?

Our task as therapists is usually that of the "fuse". The last resort that is reached after having tried all the other possible ones. From medicine, to the various treatments for discomfort proposed by the consumer society.

And, in the case of couples and their sufferings, this is no different.

A couple usually asks us for psychological attention when its members no longer speak, have no contact or have resorted to violent behavior with which they do not agree. The influence of friends or relatives often influences the decision to seek help.

And it is that being bad can coincide with being used to discomfort. And then help is only sought when someone in the couple's environment manifests discomfort.

Couples therapy as a last resort

The couple arrives at the consultation for one of its members. The one who recognizes his desire to modify something to continue the relationship.

But it also happens that whoever requests treatment does so to "change to the other". So, couples therapy has to go through those conditions that usually mark its level of effectiveness.

The expected result, for some, is the peace of mind of having done "everything possible" to maintain their commitment to the couple, with their personal mandate over it. And then get to separation without so much guilt.

For others, it is the possibility of starting to talk about their own personal difficulties, which they can only put into words before the possible separation. But that separation, in some cases, has already been carried out in fact. And in others, it is an instance that can be reached with more or less damage for each of the members of the couple and for their environment.

The act of separation

The truth is that "break up" is a very important term for most people. It is essential to refer to the situation of emancipation from the family of origin, which is a condition for accessing adult life.

Separating is a term that usually defines various states of emancipation. Many times those who come to "separation" are doing so, in addition to their current partner, their mother, and the form of bonding that has been received from this mother and her values, beliefs and habits.

A new beginning from which to strengthen the loving bond

For all this, couples therapy is not "terminal therapy." You don't have to admit to that bad press. It is a chance to start talking about everyone's discomfort, inside and outside the couple. But not without its insertion in it.

One of the things that one can think about is the reaction of seeking help for the partner. Many couples who in turn have individual psychological treatment seek to treat the couple, assuming the entity of the couple as a subject different from its members. Said entity can be experienced as something that they want to cure.

In such cases, it is important to be able to accommodate this desire to do something for the couple.

There are situations that usually trigger a destabilization in couples. That a son becomes independent and leaves home awakens all the alarms of the foundations of the couple.

There, in what is often called the "empty nest", couples who support themselves by caring for their children experience their departure as the loss of their meaning as a couple. Certain routines that demanded a lot of time, such as the transportation of the children, their care and their education, are prescribed. They are no longer functional. And in its place is free time. To be reassigned or transited.

Any change in the routines that make up the life cycle entail a duel. The transition from one way of living life to another does not happen without some degree of inscription in a duel.

Encounters between husband and wife appear where perhaps they see each other as two strangers, outside the role of father and mother of their children.

At that moment it is played again a possible reunion with expectations that may or may not be out of step with the real possibilities of the couple. Or just an external intervention can prosecute something that went wrong. In the film played by Meryl Streep in "What am I going to do with my husband?", where Steve Carell plays a couples therapist, this aspect of the problem is well exposed.

Coldness and indifference tend to go together in many marriages and taken naturally.

In other cases, something makes noise in the mourning of lost youth, of children who are already grown, and the processing of this duel is not carried out and violence or illness of one or two of the spouses.

The therapist is that third place where something can be put into words with a distance and reactive indifference consistent with the passage of time. Effect of the cooldown a bond can suffer when left unattended.

Couples therapy is a possible place where you can assert the resumption of a dialogue which is on hold. Its consequences will vary on a case-by-case basis. And therein lies the creativity that is expected from this process.