Lots of people assume that listening is an important relationship skill, and they’re right. It is. But most of the time people think of listening in the traditional, narrow way: I listen well when I pay close attention to what another person is saying, and understand what they’re saying.

But truly good listening is more than that. Truly listening well to another person involves seeing the world through their eyes. This doesn’t mean you agree with them: your position on abortion, for example, might be different than mine. But if I can see your position on abortion through your eyes—that is, with an awareness of your unique perspective—then I can understand your position much better. You may have had an upsetting experience that shaped your views on abortion, or you may have been raised by a family that was grounded in a certain political or religious culture. I will understand you better—and truly listen to you—if I can see the world through that family ‘lens.’

Another good example is this: I strongly disagree with people who condemn homosexuality. I see their position as homophobic and harmful. And yet, even though I would never agree with them, I would do well to try to understand the bigger picture behind their opposing view. Some people are anti-gay, and yet they also are persons of conscience who genuinely want to be ethical and good. Can I see the world through their eyes? Can I see how their views on sexual orientation emerge from their own history, culture, and conscious discernment? Again, I need not agree with them. But if I can listen to them this deeply, I can open up a dialogue that can be healthy and enlightening for both of us.

I posted this in my Couples blog because it’s such a fundamental dimension of life in a relationship. Are you truly listening to your partner, whether or not you agree with her? Can you see the world through his eyes? What do you imagine it’s like to be your partner, to live in your partner’s body, to think with your partner’s mind, and to live with your partner’s personal history? If you can listen to your partner in this way, you are much more likely to cultivate a happy and nourishing life together.

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I’ve been reflecting a lot in recent weeks about the experience of holding–holding someone (literally and/or emotionally), and allowing oneself to be held. Why is this so hard for so many of us?

It was the genius Erik Erikson who talked about that line from the traditional wedding vow–”to have and to hold”–and how it expresses a fundamental task of human development. In his writings, which were among the first building blocks of what’s now called ‘Object Relations’ theory, Erikson reflected on the human need to have and hold things–and to have and hold people. As a human being moves through the stages of life, two basic experiences are repeated again and again: saying ‘yes’ to others (having and holding), and saying ‘no’ to others (separating and rejecting). Both are essential.

(Do you wonder why the ability to separate and reject is essential? Think about what you should be able to do if you find yourself in an abusive relationship.)

Often, in my work with couples, I see people strugging to hold the other person, even if the ‘holding’ in question is simply being emotionally present while the other person is expressing herself. And I see people struggling to allow themselves to be held. “I’m fine,” someone will say, brushing away tears and dropping eye contact. “No you’re not,” I sometimes say. And I (gently!) add, “You know you’re not. I know you’re not. Why do you think I have Kleenex in my office?!”

If you and your partner are going through a rough time–and even if tempers are high and trust is low–what would it be like for one of you to work on your holding skills? What would it be like to experiment with being more emotionally present to your partner, even if your partner has not earned your trust? It would be hard, I can tell you. But it would be a powerful way for you to grow and develop as a human being: even in situations where you’re not feeling safe, you’re better able to be more fully present, both to yourself and to the other person. And sometimes you may discover that the other person is actually not as frightening or untrustworthy as you thought: when you get better at holding and being held, the other person might notice this going on in you, begin to relax, and engage with you with more understanding, compassion, and honesty.

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I get this question from many couples.

Quick answer: I don’t know. But I’ll think about it, and we can talk about it.

I was trained to assume that it’s usually not a good idea to see one person in a couple if we’re discussing couple issues. It’s tricky. If I’m not careful, I could end up colluding with the person in front of me against the other person. It’s not hard for me to see this when it’s happening, but it’s something I need to pay close attention to. And it’s always worth asking the question, why can’t you work on your own individual stuff when your partner is with you in the session? It’s common–it’s an everyday occurrence, even!–for couples to triangulate. You’re frustrated with your spouse, so you gripe to your friend about it. It happens all the time. But it can’t happen in couples therapy, unless you don’t mind that your relationship isn’t getting any better. And I do mind–I want both of you to get better.

Having said all that, there are times when meeting with one of you is helpful. Most of the time, when one person in a couple is feeling bad or behaving badly, the other is also dealing with some troubling feelings and behaviors. (Sorry. If you think your partner’s the only one who has issues, this is bad news!) But there are times when one person really is presenting a deeper need or a more troubling concern than the other person, and that issue might not even be about the relationship. Or there are times when safety is a concern, or one person is simply too mad to come today, but the other could pick up some insights or coaching for use in later encounters. Again, it’s tricky, but it’s not unheard of, and sometimes beneficial, to have at least one session that’s one-on-one.

But there need to be a few ground rules. First, if I begin working together with you as a couple,* I really don’t like keeping secrets between you (triangulation!), and I won’t keep a secret if it affects the well-being, dignity, or safety of the other person. If you’re having an affair and want to excuse your partner to talk with me alone about the affair–and you’re not interested in talking about how to bring your partner into the conversation–then we better not do that. I’d be delighted to help both of you work on an affair, and I know that there may be a period in that work when one of you doesn’t know about it, but I see both of you as my client. I can’t be your confidante and not his. I can’t be your listening post and not hers.

Let’s talk about it. There are exceptions to most rules, and there are times when a one-on-one session is not only a good idea, but essential for our couples work to move forward.

But let’s be careful.

_____________

* If you begin working with me as an individual, sometimes we’ll talk about problems you’re having in a relationship, but in that case you aone are my client, and your partner is not. So we’d approach this question from the opposite direction: is it a good idea to bring your partner in? That’ll be a separate post in my “You” blog…stay tuned!

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I had a personal experience a while ago that I’d like to share with all you couples out there. I share it with you because anger–that wild, fantastic emotion!–can be such a problem for couples.

Not too long ago, we were having guests over for a Sunday lunch, and one of them started coming through the outer front door, opened the inner front door, and then turned back to call out to his partner to bring something in from the car. These guests know about our dogs, who are sweet, enthusiastic, and highly prone to escaping! But for some reason this particular guest forgot that we can’t just open wide both of our front doors unless we want to chase our dogs around the neighborhood in a terrified race to prevent them from running into the busy street just five doors to the north.

I hate to admit it, but I was enraged. What, what was he thinking?! Doesn’t he remember this? How could he be so insensitive?? Lucky for me, I didn’t express this anger to him. I made it to the bathroom in time. I ran to the bathroom because I managed to remember that when I fly into a rage, it’s probably not about the thing that’s making me angry. I entered the bathroom, closed the door, leaned wearily on the sink, and said this to myself:

“Sweetheart, where does it hurt?”

That’s right, call me crazy, but I sometimes address myself as “sweetheart.” It’s a small way for me to practice self-care. (Seriously.) I could also have said to myself, “Okay, asshole, why are you so pissed?” But I knew that below the anger was some kind of other pain, some other issue.

This time, the issue was terror. I don’t want to sound too neurotic, but I get very scared when our doors open and the dogs have a chance to escape. I read carefully (perhaps too carefully) all the descriptions of the Shiba Inu breed, and I’m something like the Director of Homeland Security around my house. I want it to be a stronghold! So when I sense a breach in the wall, I get scared, fast.

It turned out okay, of course. Our friend came in and closed the door, and the dogs were going crazy over our guests’ arrival, as they always do. There probably was never a real risk of escape given how enthusiastically they welcome any visitors. And after I identified what was really going on inside me, I was able to breathe, wash my face, breathe again, and return to the party. All in the space of about 60 seconds.

I offer this to couples because all too often couples get into big, explosive fights because one (or both) of them is just 60 seconds away from calming down and figuring out what’s really going on inside. The next time you’re feeling a surge of anger like this, give it a try: find a quiet place, take a breath, and ask your sweet self where it hurts.

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For a long time I’ve been thinking about wedding vows and how they can be a well-intentioned but problematic way to begin a marriage/partnership. I’ve tried to come up with a wedding vow that not only promises lifelong fidelity, but lifelong growth and maturity–even if that growth might lead to the end of the relationship.

Practically speaking, this is probably just a little mental exercise for me, an attempt to write a wedding vow that would never actually be taken by someone. I say this because weddings and union ceremonies are highly emotional events, and the couple in question invariably wants to emphasize the “until death do we part” theme. On a wedding day, nobody wants to think about the things you go to couples counseling to work on. And often enough, there’s nothing wrong with that. Some couples seem to be made for each other, and their wedding-day bliss makes for a great opening scene to a long and nourishing life together.

But most couples–and I count myself in this group–go through the ordinary developmental crises that intimate relationships face: the need for both persons to grow and mature; the difficulties they face at different stages in their lives; the ways they handle (or mishandle) anxiety, anger, distrust, and discord; and the inevitable ups and downs of sex, money, in-laws, kids, careers, substance use, and…well, you get the idea. For me, phrases like “in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer” just don’t cut it.

So here goes: my attempt at a wedding vow that gets a little closer to what I think a healthy marriage/partnership is. I’ll start with two examples of typical vows, then offer my own.

Here’s a traditional vow that most people hear at most weddings (particularly in the movies): “I take you, _____, to be my _____, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.”

That’s your basic vow–short and eloquent, with the usual polarities (healthy/sick, rich/poor). One concern, though: it doesn’t say much about the inevitable difficulties couples face in the dynamics of a typical relationship, and I wonder if more marriages would last if the couple had words for what they would do if their relationship were in real trouble. This vow is short and elegant, but to a fault. It doesn’t say enough.

Here’s the vow I took in a blessing ceremony with my partner in 2003: “I, _____ give myself to you, _____, and these things I promise you: I will be faithful to you and honest with you; I will respect, trust, help, and care for you; I will forgive you as we have been forgiven; and I will share my life with you, through the best and worst of all that is to come, until death parts us.”

That’s better. It assumes there will be conflict (“I will forgive you…”), it stresses the importance of honesty and respect, and it drops the usual “sickness/health” language for “the best and worst of all that is to come,” which to my ears rings with a deeper wisdom.

But I still think we’re not there yet. Here’s my first stab at a vow that might bear the “Therapist Seal of Approval”: “I, _____ offer myself to you, _____, and these things I promise you: in times of rejoicing, I will celebrate with you; in times of sorrow, I will weep with you. When we fight, I will be honest with you; when I am wrong, I will seek your forgiveness. I will strive to share with you a life of respect, trust, growth, and love, through the best and worst of all that is to come, until death parts us.”

Hmm… I think that’s better. For starters, I like “I offer myself to you” more than “I give myself to you.” It implies the freedom of the other person to say, “No, thanks” to my giving of myself, and even though this is really not the best moment to do that, it’s healthy for couples to remember that they are freely offering themselves to one another, and freely choosing not to say No to the offer. This vow also assumes that not only will there be conflict, but that the person taking the vow will sometimes be wrong.

And finally, that last line: “I will strive to share with you…” That’s the line that I think would be hard for couples to say to each other. There’s an obvious (and big!) loophole: striving to do something isn’t the same as simply doing it. If I promise to strive, that implies that I could decide at some point that it won’t work, and the striving isn’t worth it. It’s the kind of thing a hospital might tell a patient: “We will strive to save your life…” If the patient dies, well, the hospital still strived. It also sounds a little klutzy, I think. It sounds like the kind of language you hear in Therapyland.

But I can’t figure out a better way to take a healthy wedding/partnership vow. There are millions of well-intentioned, good people in the world who take the traditional vow and wind up divorced. And because they assumed all along that they both made promises of unconditional fidelity, it’s hard to see the divorce as anything but a dismal failure. But many divorces are actually the healthiest option for the couples in question. Can you imagine a few scenarios in which divorce is the better choice? I’m sure you can. Again, it’s probably in bad taste to raise these issues on a wedding day. Lots of people would probably be superstitious about it–that if you talk about it, you’re tempting fate. But I maintain that a healthier vow makes for a healthier marriage.

As for the klutzy language, all I can say is, I’m working on it!

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It’s been a while, so I want to link again to this list of relationship tips by John Gottman, a master therapist and researcher. He studied couples who reported that they were happy—he took their word for it—and discovered these insights. I think my two favorites are “Accept Influence” and “Have High Standards.” In my work with couples, I find that couples are happier when they listen to each other and respond non-defensively (“Accept Influence”), and when they have high expectations of one another. That’s right—high expectations. Often enough, people will say, “Maybe I’m just being unrealistic, and demanding too much of him.” And I think, no, the reverse is true. Gottman’s research shows that the happiest couples are the ones who expect very good relationships with lots of give and take, lots of love, and lots of exciting intimacy.

But there’s something to think about here. You may have high expectations of your partner and come to find out that your partner simply is not interested (or able) to meet them. If so, this is upsetting, and it could lead to the end of your relationship. If that’s the case, the problem is not that your expectations were too high. It’s just that you were looking to the wrong person to meet them. And here’s maybe the hardest part to understand and accept: your partner (or now-ex-partner) was not wrong or bad for not meeting your expectations. They are your expectations, and no one was put on earth to meet them. You just need to find someone who wants to strive with you to have the high-expectation, high-quality relationship you want.

Oh – and I’ll add this: your partner may have promised you something that s/he ended up not willing (or able) to deliver. If that’s the case, then it makes perfect sense if you’re feeling frustrated and resentful. But if that’s not the case, your best option would be to take ownership of your expectations, keep them high, and keep searching for someone who wants to have the happy adventure you long for.

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Lately I’ve been reflecting on a story (or is it a legend?) from my own family history. If any of my siblings or cousins read this, please know: I don’t know how much actual historical truth there is in this story. I think the substance of the story is true. I’m fairly sure that if certain parts of the story didn’t actually happen, they at least were imagined by the persons involved. In any case, it’s a truthful story, if not a factually true one, and it led me into some insights that I think are useful. So…end of disclaimer!

Here’s the story.

In the mid-nineteen-seventies, my maternal grandfather was dying of Alzheimer’s disease. His wife—my grandmother—had been trained as a nurse when she was younger, so she came every day to his care center and helped the staff take care of him. At this point in his illness, he had forgotten her, and all the other members of his immediate family. But—and this part I know is true—he remembered his Mercedes. My grandfather was a successful businessman, and his good car was a source of pleasure and pride for him. For reasons passing understanding, he retained a memory of this car, even as his beloved family fell away from his awareness.

One day, after a few days of rainy weather, he turned to my grandmother—his wife—and said, “Nurse, can you make sure they put my Mercedes down there, on the opposite curb, so that I can see it when I look out this window? And can you make sure they wash and wax it?” My grandmother was a salty Irish mother, no taller than maybe five and a half feet. I can imagine her eyes narrowing as she heard this request. But she complied. She agreed to do this, and she went downstairs, drove home, took the Mercedes to the car wash, and parked it outside my grandfather’s window.

But before she did that, she drove the car to a street that—after the rains—had lots of mud along the roadside. She got out, went to the far side of the car, and kicked mud onto the clean doors and panels of the Mercedes. She took care to confine the mud to the side of the car her husband wouldn’t be able to see.

On one level, this story is a great joke. It’s a funny tale of my irreverent grandmother’s Irish temper, and her passive-aggressive response to her husband forgetting her. But as I reflect on the story, I think there’s more going on here. I think there’s something about the mud that speaks to her love for her husband, and her refusal to relinquish him to the inexorable darkness of his illness.

I think that her act of kicking mud onto the car was her way of insisting that there was some part of him that still belonged to her, and still knew her. It’s hard (if not impossible) to be truly angry at someone who is wholly unaware of your existence. You can have an abstract anger for someone you don’t know—for example, I spent eight years being angry at Dick Cheney—but the kind of anger that would inspire this muddy scenario is an intimate anger, a loving anger. If she had fully accepted the tragedy of his illness, and said her final goodbyes to him, she would not have acted on—or even felt—this anger. I think there was something resembling faith and love in this act of hers. She wasn’t going to fully let him go, not while he was still physically alive, and still interacting with her.

In short, if she had simply washed the car and parked it outside his window, I think she would have devolved into one of his nurses. He would have lost his wife, and she would have lost her husband.

I’ve worked with couples at all the different phases of the relationship cycle: new couples, couples married for 40 years, and couples in between. And I have two friends who have been married for (no kidding!) 62 years. Sometimes I think that my job is simple. My job is this: to help and support people who want someone in their life who will kick mud onto their Mercedes, and want to be the kind of person who would kick that mud. My grandmother’s comical Irish anger was actually (if you ask me) just another gift of love to her beloved spouse, another way to say to him, “I love you, dear one. I love you so much that I will reserve my deepest rage for you!”

I am thankful that I had a grandmother who threw mud on her husband’s car, right up to the very end.

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For those of you who learn best by reflecting on images and poetry, here’s a poem (below) that I think offers a good image of how loss and painful change can help us take our relationships to the next level. If you’re worried that something is broken in your relationship, you might want to reflect on how its breakage is making possible a new, more solid structure. I found the poem here.

Scaffolding
by Seamus Heaney

Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding.

Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job’s done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me,

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
confident that we have built our wall.

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So, this happened.

Back in June I posted on the then-revelatory news that South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford had had an affair (and a spectacular one, at that). And ever since then, I’ve felt increasingly uncomfortable with my June-09 take on the story. The hapless governor has looked worse and worse in my view. And it isn’t just the emails. It’s that after he disclosed his affair to his wife Jenny, he then asked for her permission to visit his lover. Maybe this is obvious, but that’s a no-no.

He never came to me for advice, but here’s how a better man (or woman) in that situation would handle it: 1) if you’re not planning to end it—or are at all ambivalent about ending it—tell your spouse about the affair; 2) if you can honestly say that you want to move in the direction of reviving your marriage (or bringing it to life for the first time), then by all means seek counseling; 3) stop telling the world about it and respect your spouse’s privacy, if not your own; 4) if you want to visit your lover, then visit her, but you’ll need to go back to step one and reconsider whether you really want to honor your spouse with a legitimate reconciliation process.

Since Gov. Sanford did none of these things, when I learned that his wife filed for divorce, I thought it was a good move. To borrow a line from one of my favorite therapists and authors, Mark Sanford forced Jenny Sanford to choose between her integrity and her marriage. I’m glad she chose wisely.

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Recently I acquired a new Flip camcorder so that I can videotape counseling sessions for my own learning and development as a therapist. To do this, I must obtain the written permission of the client, so please hear this loud and clear: the camera won’t be running when you come into my office! But I want to offer you the opportunity to have a videotaped session, and I’ve reduced my fee to $90 for a videotaped session (offer is good for one session per couple) to give you an added incentive to do this.

Here’s why it’s helpful: back in 2003, when I was licensed by the state of Washington as a Marriage and Family Therapist, I was finally allowed to stop working with a clinical supervisor. But I kept meeting with him. His insights and leadership are too valuable for me, and I know that the possession of a license doesn’t mean much if I don’t keep challenging myself and developing my skills. The best way for us to work together, though, is by viewing a video of one of my sessions and reflecting on the things I said and did in the session. Why did I lead the client this way? What’s my theory when I’m asking that? Have I considered how gender plays a role in their problem? Having a video makes all of this a much richer learning opportunity.

And there’s also a benefit for you (beyond the ten bucks!). If you’re willing to give written permission for a videotaped session, you’ll be letting my supervisor take a look at your problem and offer his insights. (You won’t meet with him, but I can let you know if there’s anything we discuss that might help you.)

If this isn’t your cup of tea, that’s just fine. But if you’re interested in doing this, let me know. It can lead to lots of learning and growth—and not just for me.

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