It may be your fault that your life and relationships aren’t working well.

Although we all do our best to live in a world of equality and hearing both sides of a story before making a conclusion, as a couple’s therapist I have a very important announcement to make: Sometimes, after hearing all the complaints and experiencing how each person operates with my own eyes and ears, I can say that the cause of marital problems are sometimes, OK often, not equally divided between the two spouses. Indeed, sometimes it is primarily one person who causes the vast majority of issues in the relationship.

So there, I said it. Sometimes it is primarily one person’s fault for a relationship not working. (Note: I did not say always). But I also know that the person who I pinpoint as the dysfunctional one will fight to the death to not be seen as such. This is why we marriage therapists earn what we are paid. We wrestle alligators, we get slammed, and people call us names we wouldn’t want our family to hear.

When couples come in, I do my best to try and figure out what is going on that creates the dysfunction. My thoughts are a blank slate. Usually, the two people are nervous, and especially fearful that I will blame them – husbands seem especially concerned about this one.

So, I proceed into the sensitive waters of their marital story to try and get to the bottom of what’s not working, and many times, I quickly hit a roadblock: One person is so afraid of being seen as the only one to blame that he can’t even bear for me to ask him questions.

“Why are you focusing on me?” Bob says.

“Because I am curious about some things, and I am trying to get clarity and understanding so I can help you,” I say.

“Why aren’t you talking to my wife? It seems like you think I am the main problem, here.”

Bam! “Here we go”, I am thinking as I sense what I need to know is on display before me. I feel like a fisherman with a nibble on his line.

“Because I can’t question or talk to both of you at the same time. I have to talk to one, then the other. What makes you think I believe you are the main one to blame?”

“Because you’re focusing on me.”

Right. That little interaction has told me several things that will be helpful moving along:

1. His reality is off. He makes up negative meanings where I meant nothing negative.
2. He is extremely sensitive to the possibility of being seen as wrong or bad.
3. His self-esteem is very low. He takes things personally.
4. He is defensive as way to protect himself from harm.

This is not to say that I won’t hit dysfunctional gold when I speak with the other spouse, I might, and if I do I will have a messy cocktail on my hands. But so many times it is that one person who is so difficult to have a conversation with that I have to believe my personal experience with them is a microcosm for how they are with others. You can’t have a two-way, back-and-forth conversation with someone whose alarm bells of threat start going off the minute you ask them the first or second question. It prevents relationship, period.

The cliché “You can’t have a healthy relationship with others until you have one with yourself,” is true, and should not really be thrown aside as just a cliché. It is so important, in fact, that it is the point I make to couples very early in the process of marital therapy: You have to get healthy and confident about who you are, so you can have a back-and-forth, give-and-take relationship with someone else. Without that, it is not possible. And the really bad news is, a huge portion of our population do not feel that way about themselves.

So, what to do? I really feel that these sorts of things – how to converse in a healthy way with other human beings, how to have a good relationship with yourself – need to be taught starting in elementary school and continue all the way through high school. We teach so many subjects during these years that will be of no use, so why not prioritize something that could change family functioning and the world for years to come?

It takes courage to face the ugly or dysfunctional things about us as individuals that need to be faced. We need to start a cultural conversation that speaks to the fact that doing this is a sign of strength, not weakness, and that if your life or relationship is not working, it is best to look in the mirror instead of pointing to others as the cause.

I started off in life with what might have been the lowest self-esteem ever recorded, and through education, counseling, and diligent determination to not be unhealthy I turned myself into a confident woman who has a very good, compassionate relationship with herself. I have learned how to be relational with others, and it has changed everything. If I can do this, I truly believe anyone can, but therapy is expensive and so many people will never have access to it. If I couldn’t have afforded it, I would still be that dysfunctional, floundering woman I once was. That is why we need a better plan to provide this information to everyone, for free.

It’s best to look at yourself if your life isn’t working, instead of blaming others.

Empathize today or lose your relationship tomorrow.

You have to know what empathy is and use it often in your relationships.

Just about every adult knows that the characteristic described as empathy is a desirable trait. Without it, interactions between two people become very problematic, as I see weekly in my marriage therapy practice, with at least 50 percent of the couples I work with, at some point, declaring, “(Insert partner’s name here) has NO empathy.”

I explain the concept of empathy so often that I have to believe a lot of people don’t know what it is. So today we’ll lay it all out, and as a result I imagine this will be one of the most shared articles I’ve ever written. Why? Because so many people want and need it, and don’t get it.

I think part of the confusion about what empathy is has to do with the fact that there are different types. To be able to communicate to your partner what it is you want, you need to identify the type it is that scratches your itch, and tell your partner, “See this? This type of empathy is exactly what I need.”

So here are the three types of empathy:

Cognitive empathy is when we can put ourselves in someone else’s shoes and attempt to see things from their perspective. This can be very helpful in processing situations that make no sense to you, or when people are apt to make surface conclusions or judgments about something someone has done. Example: Why did the wife hide the receipts from the dress shop? Is it because she is deceitful and spends money she doesn’t have?

Answer: When we learn the rest of the story, which is absolutely crucial before making conclusions about things we hear, we find that she hides the receipts because her husband’s reaction is intensely negative whenever he sees receipts for things he deems unnecessary. The wife works and makes plenty of money, and so does he, but he is extremely frugal and has values that include not spending money on things that are not absolutely needed. She hides receipts to avoid his negative reaction. The cognitive empathy perspective helps us understand the woman’s situation in total, and say, “You know, I’d probably do that, too, in those circumstances. She’s not deceitful at all, she just can’t be herself around him. That is really sad.”

Emotional empathy is the kind where someone actually tunes in to the same pain you are feeling, and feel it themselves. We cannot expect that anyone do this, as people feel what they feel, and feelings cannot be manufactured. When I feel emotional empathy toward something or someone it typically catches me by surprise, like watching a commercial ad that moves me, or seeing a story on the news, or hearing a story from a client that just cuts me to the quick in the cruelty that one human being heaped on another, and I literally tune into and feel their pain in that moment.

Compassionate empathy is simply caring a great deal about what is going on with someone who is going through a trial or tribulation of some sort. The issue they are experiencing can be anything from a hangnail to a major chronic illness or impending death, it really doesn’t matter what it is, what matters is they are feeling distress. This is the kind of empathy that I see men and women starving for in their relationships, the kind that that so many people don’t receive.

Here is a typical example: The wife comes home later than usual from work and says, “I am just frazzled! I have so many things going on I can’t think straight, then, I had to go to the grocery where the lines were long, and they were training someone new and he was so slow. I just am at the end of what I can handle today!”

Right here is where the listener can either make or break an opportunity to offer compassionate empathy. The only thing this woman really needs is for her listener to care that she is in such a tizzy, to care that she is overloaded, that her life is, at least for this moment, unmanageable, and to verbalize that in a kind and loving way. Something like, “Honey, I am so sorry that your life is so stressful right now. Can I help you in any way?”

My husband says men are not on the wavelength to empathize with a complaining partner, and this will be like learning a foreign language to them. “They need to be hit on the head,” he says. “We didn’t learn this growing up, so we need to be told that this is how we should behave. If we didn’t see it in our family growing up we don’t know it is a necessary and healthy response to a complaining wife.”

But where listener/responders go off the rails is in judging the situation the person in distress is in to see if it is worthy of such upset, how it could have been prevented, telling them how what they did was wrong, or how other people are suffering far worse somewhere in the world, or offering solutions on how to fix it All of these responses will fall flat and do damage to your relationship, so you should not do it. A word on unsolicited advice: It is always unwelcome, no one likes it, and it breaks the laws of appropriate boundaries. In appropriate boundaries, we do not offer other adults insight or advice without their invitation or permission. If you feel you have the perfect solution, then after the moment of stress, and after things have settled down, ask, “May I offer a suggestion?” If your love does not want to hear or consider your suggestion, then step back and do not offer it. This is called being respectful.

Think about it this way, we humans love to be around people who are kind, nurturing, non-judgmental, and who offer compassionate insight and grace. Our romantic partner should be the ultimate person who does this for us. I tell clients all the time, “If it is not medicinal and uplifting, and not designed to make your partner feel loved, honored and cherished, then don’t say it.”

Now, here is a word about validation. Compassionate empathy needs to include a validating statement from the partner of the person in distress.  Validation is the medicine your upset partner needs from you at the moment they cry out, it is like an arm reached out that will lift your love out of the pit of their bad moment. It comes in the form of your soft tone and comforting words, to validate is to say in a loving way, “I hear you, and I care.”

Example:

Partner says, “I am in distress because of X,Y and Z!”

You: Stop what you are doing, come to them and say, “I see that. I hear that you’re having a hard time, I hate that for you, baby, is there anything I can do?”

In a nutshell, marital responses need to offer safe haven from life’s storms, not I told-you-so’s or comments meant to shame or scold. It’s “treat others as you would like to be treated” in similar circumstances. Be kind and tender, loving and caring, or keep your lips closed.

Goal: Because of you loving actions and words, your partner will feel better, not worse. It’s very simple. Shower your partner with loving action when they are in distress, even if you don’t agree with why they are distressed, and even if you think they brought it upon themselves, none of what you think about the situation matters. What matters is your response to the distress, and that must come from the best part of your personality.

If divorce is unavoidable, here’s how to do it right.

 

 

 

I hate divorce. It’s extremely painful for everyone and leaves many lifelong ugly footprints in so many lives that I’ll do whatever I can to get people to stay together in a healthy way. Still, there are times when there just any fuel left to work on remaining together, and couples decided to divorce. Usually, both people in this situation are emotionally worn out, fearful and anxiety-filled – change is full of unknowns, it can be earthshakingly scary.

Even though divorcing couples don’t feel their best, most start off saying they don’t want things to be nasty, and certainly most reasonable people want to end their marriage in as peaceful way as possible, and that’s how they begin the process. Then the lawyers get involved and the being reasonable mojo is lost. Here’s an example of what is likely to happen:

A. Jim files for divorce. Sue gets a letter and copy of the filing from Jim’s lawyer. She reads it sees that they will be asking for full custody of their children, he wants all of his business he has built, and she will receive no financial support.
B. Sue freaks out and yells at Jim with Mama Bear ferocity.
C. Sue’s lawyer writes Jim’s lawyer and says Sue wants half of the business, 100 percent of her retirement, and wants alimony of more than half his salary and full custody of the children. The lawyer also says that if Jim is not forthcoming with the requests that all of the texts he has been sending to their child’s school teacher will be released to the school, their family, and their friends.
D. Jim freaks out and calls Sue and calls her names she’s never heard him say before.
E. The divorce nightmare begins.

Because I have experienced this personally and have seen it unfold hundreds of times in my work, it has become obvious that something needs to be done to prevent it. Toward that end, here are some ways a divorcing couple can save themselves from all the unnecessary misery:

1. Promise yourself you won’t take the low road. You can’t control your spouse but you can control yourself. Stay as rational, reasonable and respectful as you possibly can no matter what. If you need anti-depressants to help you through, get them.
2. Hire a counselor to lean on. You’re going to need someone to vent to, lean on, coach and help you process things that will be happening and have it be 100 percent safe.
3. Hire a collaborative lawyer and/or mediator. Most lawyers are trained to be adversarial attack dogs with no concern for how their dirty tactics will affect the family who will be living with the aftermath. They want to win at all cost. Collaborative lawyers and mediators are compromise and settlement-minded. They agree from the start to negotiate and work it out, and to not take any of it to the court house.
4. Control and oversee your lawyer. Have a clear understanding with your lawyer or whoever you’re working with that nastiness and aggression will not be tolerated and that you are to approve every message and document that is sent to your spouse or their representative before is sent.
5. Continue to see and communicate with each other in divorce counseling. Hire a family counselor who can provide a safe place for you to communicate and tie up loose ends concerning your lives, children, property and settlement issues. If you have children you will be working together on some level for life, and you owe it to them to get along and be cooperative.

Divorce brings out the worst in people. It strikes us at a core level of primal fears involving safety and survival. It takes a lot of awareness, mindfulness and self-discipline to get through it without creating self and collateral damage, but I am here to tell you that it absolutely can be done. If you ask me, it’s worth it.