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 perspective 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.

After all, if you do seek marriage counseling with the objective that your partner will agree to do something different, then you would need to believe that people can change their mind.  Can they?  And how do they change?

Sometimes people change when their marriage problems are so intense that they are in desperate need of relationship help, and act on any advice they hear.  They change what they do, for a while….but old habits slip back, when all the fuss dies down.

I guess other people change what they do out of love.  They see their actions hurting their partner, perhaps through an insight which emerges during couples therapy.  And that convinces them to change.

Both of these are intellectual changes, and we know from brain science that changes like this can work, because the more you do something new, the more you grow new neurons which make the new habit part of who you are.  But that’s a tough process to get through, while for a whole all the other neural pathways are saying “I hate this – let’s do it the old way.”

I’m getting interested in looking deeper.  For example, why would get furious if my wife points out that I’m pulling out a little too fast into the traffic lane?  Can’t I reply calmly like Dr. Spock. (He who is known for his pointy ears not for child development.) Can you imagine me just saying “I understand your cause for concern and maybe on that occasion I did place us in jeopardy, and I promise to be more careful next time?”   Ummm…let me see.

No, instead there’s these insane conversations going on in my head.    “I don’t care right now if this woman is the most precious thing in my life, whose brought me more happiness than anyone else on the planet.”  I tell mself. “ What right does she have to comment on my driving! ”  Then I get to the internal ranting, usually with an impressive display of flooring the gas pedal and demonstrating my be car rally skills. “ Doesn’t she know and appreciate how good and safe I am?   She may love me, but she won’t for long if I let her get the idea that I just scared myself half to death doing a stupid careless thing.”

So instead I say “That was perfectly safe, I’ve been trained by the best!”, and she says “No it wasn’t, and you are making a habit of bad driving and it scares me.”, and I say “Well you can talk about bad driving, what about that time when….”, and she says……Oh, it doesn’t matter what she says.  She could say the sweetest thing on earth, but I’m in fighting mode, and I don’t want to hear it.

So, let’s talk about what it might take to change this. 

I can’t change anything unless I understand why I’m acting more Jabba the Hutt than Vulcan.  And feeling like him too, with none of the fringe benefits like Princesses on a leash and flying ships. 

Imago couples therapy talks about how when we are infants some things which look pretty insignificant from the outside, look huge and life-threatening to us.  Little baby Tim knew that if he didn’t get the food and protection from his parents, he couldn’t do anything for himself, and he would die.  So “little me” took it pretty seriously when things came up that made it look like my parents didn’t love me.

Now it turns out that I was a pretty active spontaneous kind, who did lots of crazy dumb things that left my parents pretty unimpressed.  They seemed to love me much more when I showed them how smart and competent I was.  So there’s these little raw spots in my subconscious that are memories of when I felt unloved, and therefore unprotected, whenever I did dumb things.  I can’t stop doing dumb things, so instead I’ve learned to pretend that I don’t do dumb things.  I’m highly invested in outer version of my world that shows everyone how competent and capable I am.

If they try to get underneath that protective skin, and so much as hint at me being as stupid and clumsy as the rest of humanity, it hurts.  Deeply!

So let’s say I went to see a couples counselor who said “Tim, you need to change.  If you yell at your wife every time she criticizes your driving.. (oh and the rest of the list)…she’s going to be taking a hike.”  Well I might accept this bit of relationship advice for a while, until the next visit to the couples therapist who then says “Tim, I you clam up and get all still and silent every time your wife criticizes your driving…….”  Get the picture?

What if I could change inside and feel a totally different reaction?  “Whoops honey, that was a close one, gosh I’m sorry – I think I will take those advanced driving lessons!” 

Is there a wayto become that person?  And if there was, would it make my life happier?

In Imago Couples Therapy we do have a way to make this change.  It comes from a vision of who I can be, and what my relationship could be like, if I could be that person.  You see I don’t particularly like going around having to prove to everyone how capable and competent I am in order to feel good about myself.  I would rather just feel good about myself all the time!  I don’t want to be wasting my life covering up sensitivities created by imperfections in my growing up.  I want to be open to the fullness of life, and loving that I am here, and in love.

Oops – end of Part I.  Hope you come back later this week and join me for Part II

This also builds on my previous post about fighting your marriage counselor.