Online marriage counseling meets Sienfeld! “The Marriage Ref” is a TV show produced by Jerry Seinfeld where couples reveal their relationship problems, and a referee steps in to say who wins. Now there’s an online version. And you can be “the marriage ref”. Or you can reveal your own disputes and see which side the world votes for. Want to try it – just go to http://couplesspark.com/.
Hardly surprising then that Tara Parker-Pope, writing last month in the New York Times talks about how several groups are turning to online approaches to end marital strife. Some approaches are based on the idea of an online survey, which measures your marital health, and points out areas where you might need relationship help. Other approaches are more like Imago couples therapy, where couples learn to understand and accept each other more fully.
The delight of being a blogger is searching for what to write about. It sends me scouring the internet for articles of interest about couples therapy. And in the process I came across a short blog post on psychology today which really got me thinking. In the post, Joni Johnston PysD talks about three things to consider before giving relationship advice. Since she is the author of the “Complete Idiot’s Guide to Psychology” I like her take on things.
The main result from Baker and McNulty was that if you are shy, you will find it just as easy to find a partner as everyone else. But you won’t be as happy. There’s a poignant twist. Your partner maybe blissfully happy with the relationship, partly because you may be too shy to tell them that they need to shape up and meet your needs more
From Couples Therapy to “Ciao”, the Italians are known for doing everything in style. The New York Times recently reported on Italy’s first divorce fair, held in Milan.
It turns out a divorce fair isn’t quite as exciting as it sounds. It’s just a couple of thousand people streaming into the basement of a hotel, and checking out lawyers, dating agencies, and something called a divorce planning agency. Well, if you had a planner for your wedding, why not for your divorce.
Elizabetta Poveldo who wrote the NY Times article, points out some extraordinarily
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?
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.
The reason this jumped out of me was because after an exciting two days of tracking a few leading blogs about couples counseling and relationships, and even reading Oprah magazine, I came to the conclusion that an awful lot is being written about very little. Remember I’m over 50 now, so I’m permitted to crustily announce to anyone within earshot, or cyber-shot, that the world is becoming depressingly shallow. And if studying 79 students is enough evidence to pronounce that depth is the traveling companion of bliss, then misery loves company as long as it doesn’t challenge its brain cells too much.
This seems to be the point in my blogging career when I need to admit that I live in the same world as one Jerry Seinfeld, formerly knife sharp observer of human foibles, who has now turned the spectacle of marital conflict into public entertainment which reminds me of the moral murkiness of spending saturday afternoon watching gladiators kill each other in the Colliseum. Seinfeld is fairly clear about the entertainment value of his TV show The Marriage Ref. “This is not a therapy show, it’s a comedy show. After nine years of marriage, I have discovered that the comedic potential of this subject is quite rich.” Couples counseling as comedy. At least they walk away physically unharmed.
Ah! Valentine’s Day – once dedicated to the patron saint of love, but it seems that the patron saint of greed might be elbowing his way in. Ever had that experience? Well, here’s another approach from Imago.
With so many relationship problems in the world, we could do without a new one. But according to Leslie Kaufman writing in the New York Times saving the planet might mean ditching your relationship.
