In the earlier post, I wrote about how furious I get when my wife criticises my driving. She feels I’m a bit over-cautious when I change lanes. When she offers this bit of constructive criticism, it gets me livid. How could she criticize my incredibly safe and attentive driving? I stay obsessed about it for hours. I find myself turning around thoughts, finding ways to explain to her once and for all, just how safe and amazing I am as a driver.

Sounds like my problem, right? So how could couples counseling help with something which seems to be mostly about my head going on spin cycle? Shouldn’t I just get my head shrunk so it stays more firmly rooted to reality?

My father died late last year at the age of 86. I expect that when he was a young man he would have regarded 70 as a great achievement, let alone 80. But a very close friend this week had an operation to remove cancer which left her without an eye, and another found that a cardiac check-up led almost immediately to bypass surgery. Yet another is struggling with persistent glaucoma. It’s like I’ve reached the age where my friends are falling apart. “Let’s get younger friends” quipped my wife, the mistress of black comedy. Or maybe I shouldn’t hang out with so many marriage counselors?

Many people go into couples therapy with a simple objective. Change my partner!! Please!

Usually they aren’t looking for a younger model, with fewer wrinkles and a smaller waist-line. They just want their couples counselor to deliver them back the same old partner with some tweaks. Then everything would be great!

Now let’s put aside for a moment the idea that the goal of going to see a couples therapist is to change your partner. Imago couples counseling takes a different perspecitve on that which I can talk about in other posts. Today, I just want to talk in general about the idea of changing anyone, or even changing their opinion.

You wouldn’t fight with your marriage counselor would you? It turns out that actually most of us do just that.  It’s a subtle and unconscious fight.  Couples therapists call it resistance.  It’s actually a natural and unavoidable part of the marriage counseling process.  I go and see a stranger, and the plan is to tell [...]