3126: Why Couples Shouldn't Do Couples Therapy (Says the Couples Therapist) by Dr. Kelly Flanagan on Conflict Repair

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[00:00:30] Hey, it's Justin from Optimal Living Daily. Before we start, I want to share a super powerful practice I use called NSDR or Non-Sleep Deep Rest. In just about 10 minutes or so, this Yoga Nidra practice leaves you feeling as refreshed as after a nap without actually sleeping. Experience it for yourself on our guided podcast. Search NSDR and look for the one from Optimal Living Daily.

[00:00:56] This is Optimal Relationships Daily. Why couples shouldn't do couples therapy, says the couples therapist. By Dr. Kelly Flanagan of drkellyflanagan.com A Saturday night with the person you love can go south in a heartbeat, can't it? Several weeks ago, my wife and I had just finished another night of one more cup of water requests, my legs hurt laments, and can I have another kiss rituals, and the rustling from the kids' bedrooms had quieted.

[00:01:26] And a couple of open hours sprawled out before us, like an oasis in the desert of living. Until, my wife began to discuss the recent seminars she'd conducted in Guatemala. She looked at me like I had heard the story before, and the truth began to slowly dawn on both of us. I had never asked about her teachings in Guatemala. I felt a moment of sheepishness, and then I went on the attack.

[00:01:53] A mixture of defensiveness, I watched the kids for 10 days so you could do the trip, and offense. It's your fault for not telling me sooner. Listen, I'm a shrink, and I still get surprised all the time by my you're-not-good-enough voice of shame. It can sink a Saturday night in just one quick beat of a shame-shadowed heart. Marriage enemy number one.

[00:02:18] Our hearts are like a sponge for shame, and most of us are pretty saturated with it by the time we meet our lifelong companion. So, when our partner criticizes us, or asks for change, or asks for more, or simply gets a little too close for comfort, our heart gets squeezed, and we leak shame all over the place. Except, shame is a lie, so it never comes out all honest and confessing. It comes out like barbed wire.

[00:02:46] Usually, we try to make our partner feel even less worthy than we feel ourselves, with verbal attacks, emotional slander, and sometimes simply with silence. And in most marriages, shame begets shame. So, when we shame our spouses and squeeze their hearts, their shame oozes out, and they go on the attack. Usually, when the friendly fire is over, it's impossible to tell who really fired the first shot.

[00:03:13] We assume our spouse is at fault, and we completely ignore marriage enemy number one. Shame. Why sometimes marital therapy isn't the answer. For many couples, the cycle of shame escalation in the relationship is so intense that the marital therapy hour looks like a weekly battlefield reenactment. The script is written, and the players have little interest in changing their own lines.

[00:03:37] Oftentimes, both spouses are secretly looking for an audience who will cast the deciding vote in their favor. So, the viability of any couple's therapy is dependent upon each spouse's answer to two questions. Are you willing to focus on yourself and face your shame? And, are you prepared to do so for an hour a week in the presence of your partner? If the answer to either question is no, the couple should not be in marital therapy.

[00:04:07] Instead, each spouse should be attending individual therapy. But partners resist individual therapy for at least two reasons. First, the mere suggestion of individual therapy feels like more shame. More, you are not good enough. Second, the individual therapy room can feel like a prison cell. No distractions, no one to blame, no place to direct the shame spilling out of our hearts.

[00:04:32] Which is why many people go to individual therapy and use the hour to complain about a spouse. It's far more painful to look in the mirror. Fighting for your Saturday night As my wife and I began to go toe-to-toe that Saturday night, she had the wherewithal to step back and say, You know, right before you got angry, you looked embarrassed. I stopped mid-fury. And suddenly, the battle wasn't between her and I.

[00:05:01] The battle began to rage within me. Frankly, I think every marriage hinges upon this kind of moment. Do I deny the shame she saw peek out before my defenses were up and go back to shaming her? Or do I own it? Uh-oh, I thought. This is going to hurt. The shame began oozing up from the cracks in my heart. And I began to share with her the multitude of ways I had felt not enough in the past week. It hurt to feel it.

[00:05:30] It hurt to admit it. But it felt so good to share it. And with no shame to defend, I felt free to apologize for all the ways I bungle my priorities and lose my focus on the most interesting thing in my life. Her. It wasn't the Saturday night that we had hoped for, but I think it was the Saturday night that we needed. How to fight within marriage ourselves You don't fight for your Saturday night by fighting with your spouse.

[00:05:59] You fight for your Saturday night by fighting with yourself. By fighting back against your shame. Except in our fight against shame, we don't wield weapons toward others. We lay them down. We breathe deeply, giving ourselves just enough space to make a wise decision. The decision to look in, rather than shouting out. We cultivate a quiet, still attentiveness. It pulls the covers of anger off the bed of our shame and reveals the aching, hurting kid underneath

[00:06:29] who just wants a place to call home. We use a graceful self-compassion. Until we can be gentle with ourselves, we can't be gentle to anyone else. So when we discover the hurting kid within us, we speak to him or her like we would to any kid with a skinned knee or a bloody elbow, with an embrace and a whispered, hush. We use courage and vulnerability to reveal it all to the person we love. We say things like, this isn't about you.

[00:06:58] This is about me. I'm terrified I'll never be good enough for you, but I bluster as if you're the one who isn't good enough for me, because that feels way safer. And we insist on being with people who can receive this kind of confession gracefully and receive us within their embrace. So, as the marital therapist, I often find myself saying, I can't help until you have faced your shame. But if you're willing to do that first,

[00:07:26] I don't think you have any idea what kind of radical, life-altering, world-changing love the two of you could create together. Then, marital therapy will be a rebellion that turns this world upside down. You just listened to the post titled, Why Couples Shouldn't Do Couples Therapy, Says the Couples Therapist, by Dr. Kelly Flanagan of drkellyflanagan.com

[00:07:55] And a big thank you to Dr. Kelly for this post today, putting his own profession under the spotlight in a really interesting and insightful way. Good for him. And I'm here to echo his instructions. If you're in a relationship and have had a hard time resolving some troubles between you and your partner, I think the best thing you can do right now in response to this article is to ask yourself those two questions. Are you willing to focus on yourself and face your shame? And are you prepared to do so for an hour a week

[00:08:24] in the presence of your partner? And if the answer to either of those is no, then you get to work on wading through your troubles without the help of your marriage counselor. But luckily, you do have the opportunity to get a step ahead. And that is thanks to what Dr. Kelly said about how his wife, who I feel compelled to mention is also named Dr. Kelly, addressed the fact that he looked embarrassed before responding with anger. So this is a pivotal moment in self-awareness.

[00:08:53] But you don't have to wait for your partner to hopefully spot it for you. A good exercise is to reflect back on how our anger built up in certain interactions with our partners. Go back through the conversation and see if you can pinpoint the thought or feeling that you had right before your behavior started to reflect anger. Maybe it was embarrassment, like with Dr. Kelly. Or perhaps it was sadness or guilt. If we can pinpoint this, it can often provide us

[00:09:23] with a gateway to understanding what our true feelings are, what is simply disguised as anger, but in reality is something else. But that brings us to the end. So thank you to Dr. Kelly once again. And thanks to you for showing up here and doing right by your relationships today. It's time to get going for now, folks. I hope you have a great rest of your day and I'll see you tomorrow for more ORD. That's where your optimal life awaits. Thank you. Thank you.