Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / More Ways To Convince Your Partner To Try Couples Counseling

Transcript

More Ways To Convince Your Partner To Try Couples Counseling · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the dr.
• 0:07
  Psych mom show, today, I'm going to talk about how to convince
• 0:11
  your partner, to go to couples counseling.
• 0:13
  I've already talked about this already, have a podcast about
• 0:16
  it, but it seems like some people really do not understand
• 0:20
  kind of what you're trying to accomplish still.
• 0:23
  So I want to go back into more depth about it and likely, since
• 0:29
  I do not have the time to listen to that podcast, you'll get all
• 0:32
  new info. Because I literally have no idea
• 0:36
  what I said there, but I'm sure was brilliant.
• 0:39
  So, anyway, before we get to that, please do subscribe,
• 0:42
  because in the most recent subscriber episode, I talked
• 0:45
  about something wonderful, which let me see if I can remember, is
• 0:52
  when you defer working on the relationship until you got time
• 0:57
  and then you never have time and like, could you adopt a puppy or
• 1:00
  something like that? And a lot of guys say that their
• 1:02
  wives do this, like they won't have sex.
• 1:04
  I won't go to date night, they won't do whatever until they
• 1:07
  have time and then however, they never ever have time.
• 1:11
  So anyway, let's get into the couples counseling one.
• 1:13
  So let me just shoot down a couple of the common
• 1:17
  misconceptions or basically the ways that your partner will try
• 1:21
  to wiggle out of couples counseling.
• 1:23
  I'll just tell you what to say to those because I mean, that's
• 1:27
  easier. The you're just just do what I
• 1:29
  say. So the first one is that your
• 1:32
  partner says, you don't have time now.
• 1:34
  Now, couples counseling used to be, you know, you schlep there.
• 1:38
  You got your car or car. You both got to leave work.
• 1:41
  Otherwise you got to get a sitter.
• 1:43
  I mean, just a couple years ago, really.
• 1:46
  It was a whole thing to go to couples counseling.
• 1:49
  So that's one of these people really these people that don't
• 1:52
  want to go to counseling. I'll get to why they don't in a
• 1:54
  second, but that's when they were really in their Heyday
• 1:58
  nowadays, though. There's virtual my entire group
• 2:02
  practices virtual there, 45. It's sessions people go, every
• 2:06
  week, or every other week, if you cannot spare, literally, to
• 2:09
  the time to click into a different window on your
• 2:13
  computer, not having to leave work.
• 2:15
  Although many people work from home, literally you can run out
• 2:18
  to your car if you have a job where you don't work from home
• 2:21
  and do it for for 45 minutes on Zoom.
• 2:24
  If you don't have the time to do that, I don't know what to tell
• 2:26
  you. Everybody's got the time to do
• 2:27
  that. I mean, like, if somebody came
• 2:29
  up to you at your work and wanted to chat for 45 minutes
• 2:32
  and it was somebody that you needed to have some political
• 2:35
  Capital with you would have to do that.
• 2:37
  So honestly, like everybody's got time to do 45 minutes every
• 2:40
  other week. I don't care if you are like the
• 2:43
  president, you know? If it's important to somebody,
• 2:46
  they can make 45 minutes every other week.
• 2:48
  And that's, you know, pretty much as direct as you should be
• 2:50
  to your spouse. You be like, this is 45 minutes
• 2:54
  every other week, you know, of course, we expedited to go every
• 2:58
  every week. Every week is a hell of a lot
• 2:59
  better, but every other week for Budget reasons, or because you
• 3:04
  quote, Don't have the time. Then it's like twenty two and a
• 3:08
  half minutes a week unless I'm bad at worse at math and I
• 3:12
  thought either way, it's in the 20s.
• 3:15
  And if you don't have 20 minutes a week to work on your marriage,
• 3:18
  then I mean, you're really not gonna have time to get divorced
• 3:20
  because that involves a hell of a lot of mediation and
• 3:23
  discussions and documents and asset dividing and talking to
• 3:26
  the kids and what have you. So that shit is a much bigger
• 3:29
  time commitment and you can you can say that out, right?
• 3:33
  You know, The next one is that, okay?
• 3:36
  And this one ties into why you're going to have to do this
• 3:38
  shit in the first place and jump through these flaming Hoops.
• 3:41
  What sort of people don't want to go to couples counseling?
• 3:43
  Two kinds of people people that are just done with the
• 3:46
  relationship as I discussed in a prior podcast.
• 3:48
  The literally, the subscriber one, I just told you about if
• 3:52
  people are not into the relationship anymore and that's
• 3:55
  why they never have time for intimacy, then they're also not
• 3:58
  going to have time for couples counseling.
• 4:00
  They are not into the relationship anymore.
• 4:02
  They are waiting you out until You know, the kids are out of
• 4:05
  the house or until you just start living parallel lives and
• 4:08
  get with the program because they don't want to get divorced,
• 4:10
  but they don't want to be in anything resembling a real
• 4:13
  marriage. So in those cases that people
• 4:16
  don't want to go to couples counseling because it's some
• 4:18
  bullshit, like it's like, it's like going to like a weekly
• 4:21
  class on like, dog care when I don't actually want to buy a
• 4:24
  dog, like, unfortunately, in this situation in the analogy, I
• 4:28
  would already have a dog that I don't want.
• 4:30
  So what do I need to go? Take a class to, you know, train
• 4:33
  my dog that I don't want. You know, so they don't want to
• 4:36
  do it because they don't give a shit and that is a tough pill to
• 4:39
  swallow but the quicker you swallow it the better.
• 4:42
  You are positioned to make clear and objective decisions about
• 4:46
  whether you want to remain in the marriage, right?
• 4:48
  The other really well there's two more reasons.
• 4:51
  The other reason people may not want to go is because they don't
• 4:53
  want to be called out. So like if your wife hasn't had
• 4:56
  sex with you in like a year D, I think she knows.
• 5:00
  You know, that that may be considered to be an issue if
• 5:03
  your and has anger issues may be considered to be a big issue
• 5:08
  with the couple's counselor. If there's a drinking problem
• 5:11
  that's going to be considered an issue.
• 5:13
  If one of y'all is yelling at the kids constantly or fighting
• 5:15
  in front of the kids, both of you that's going to be an issue.
• 5:18
  People don't want to look clearly at their bad behavior.
• 5:22
  You know, at behavior that they think that they perceive would
• 5:25
  be considered quote bad by a therapist and or behavior that
• 5:29
  they're deeply ashamed of irrespective of what the
• 5:32
  therapist said. So they may know you know A
• 5:34
  woman may know that. Like, if let's say that the
• 5:37
  husband says she yells at the kids all the time, she may know
• 5:39
  intellectually that the therapist is going to be
• 5:42
  affirming and say, oh you know, it sounds like you're really
• 5:45
  struggling, maybe you need individual counseling.
• 5:47
  Here are some ways that we can work on things not judging her
• 5:51
  but she doesn't want to think that she's doing it.
• 5:53
  She doesn't want to hear it out loud.
• 5:54
  She feels that she would feel so bad you know, hearing it that it
• 5:59
  would just make the whole situation worse.
• 6:01
  There's something called experiential avoidance.
• 6:03
  That is Correlated real highly with all the disorders,
• 6:07
  depression, anxiety, PTSD, Etc. Experiential avoidance means
• 6:12
  fear of emotions, and in specific negative emotions.
• 6:15
  So the, the fear of the shame and guilt that your partner
• 6:20
  thinks they would feel when they heard used directly talk about
• 6:25
  their situation to a therapist that seems to be intolerable.
• 6:28
  They are scared of that negative feeling they are scared that
• 6:32
  couples counseling would make them feel.
• 6:34
  Worse because it would induce - states of mood, you know, and
• 6:39
  they're terrified of that. And you will recognize this
• 6:42
  description in your partner. If it's accurate.
• 6:44
  They just hate - mood their whole life is about avoidance.
• 6:48
  They never want to go too deep. They constantly Escape into
• 6:50
  their phone food, drink exercise work, whatever their whole life
• 6:55
  is about never feeling bad. And never looking at themselves
• 6:58
  directly at any aspect of their character personality or
• 7:02
  behavior that could make them feel quote bad.
• 7:04
  And so that's a pretty big reason that people want to avoid
• 7:07
  Counseling. In this case what you would say?
• 7:10
  I mean they're not going to say like that.
• 7:12
  They're going to say, I don't want to go, it's just gonna make
• 7:14
  things worse or they may slightly allude to.
• 7:17
  Well, I already know what they're going to say.
• 7:18
  Anyways, they're going to just say, I'm a piece of shit.
• 7:20
  So why do I have to go? You know, and in this case, what
• 7:23
  you would say is I really want to work on the marriage.
• 7:27
  It's like a non-starter for me for you to just say, we can, you
• 7:31
  know, we can find a therapist. That is somebody that you like,
• 7:35
  We can find the gender that you want, but we're going to go.
• 7:38
  So it's going to be tough for both of us to talk openly about
• 7:41
  how bad things have become. But we got to do it for the sake
• 7:45
  of the kids. Oh, always use the kids.
• 7:47
  Don't be scared to use the kids as guilt Ripper because the kids
• 7:51
  are an actual motivate or her. So I mean like that can get
• 7:55
  through to somebody and everybody should be working on
• 7:57
  their marriage for the sake of the kids.
• 7:58
  So I mean use it, you got it, you had them, so use them, you
• 8:03
  know? I mean for what they could
• 8:04
  provide Add some utility, right? And and this is a really good
• 8:08
  motivator for people. So the same woman that will not
• 8:10
  work on the relationship just for herself.
• 8:13
  Will if she understands the template that her kids are
• 8:17
  seeing for relationships is toxic, then she may feel newly
• 8:21
  motivated to work on it, you know, because women are are
• 8:24
  super, you know, motivated by their kids and many men are as
• 8:28
  well. So you can use that for your
• 8:30
  husband to if he says no you could say what are we teaching
• 8:33
  the kids, our relationship? Teaching them how to be unhappy
• 8:36
  and relationships to our do. Our kids deserve that, they
• 8:38
  don't, you know, I want to work on it that this isn't going to
• 8:41
  be me against you. It's not going to be the
• 8:43
  therapist against you. That's not even out therapy
• 8:45
  goes, you know? I mean, it's going to be about
• 8:48
  both of us. And if it's not about both of
• 8:50
  us, if it turns into like, you know, six months of you being
• 8:53
  berated, or even three, or even one session, then we'll get out
• 8:57
  and try somebody else. But we're not going to do is
• 9:00
  just keep burying our head in the sand.
• 9:02
  So, if you could state that directly, you know, Oh, you
• 9:05
  you're really going to get some some momentum, going likely,
• 9:08
  because it's really hard to say no to that, you know, confident,
• 9:11
  momentum, as I've discussed in. Other post is really necessary
• 9:16
  to get things moving and your relationship and that's couples
• 9:20
  counseling and that's date night and that's X confident, momentum
• 9:24
  is hard for people to resist. So if you just are like, we are
• 9:28
  definitely going and it's not going to go badly.
• 9:31
  It's going to go. Well, if it doesn't, we'll find
• 9:33
  somewhere else and we'll keep. Crying until it does.
• 9:36
  And and that confident momentum can carry your reluctant
• 9:40
  partner. You're scared partner along with
• 9:42
  you. Now there's one other reason.
• 9:43
  People don't want to go to couples counseling and I I
• 9:45
  hesitate to say this because anytime I mention infidelity
• 9:49
  people go down, tremendous rabbit holes, forgetting that
• 9:52
  87% of women, never cheat and 20% of men, cheat 13 percent of
• 9:59
  women cheat on average. So it was really low rates among
• 10:03
  women in particular. But Really both in America.
• 10:06
  And but it is something that if people are cheating they don't
• 10:10
  want to go to couples counseling.
• 10:11
  Because they feel even worse about themselves, they feel a
• 10:15
  thousand times more fake and also it's a waste, they are
• 10:18
  either deciding whether to stay with you or have already decided
• 10:21
  they're not. So then what are they going to
• 10:24
  go for? You know it seems false, it
• 10:26
  seems crazy. It just seems like a waste of
• 10:28
  everybody's time and they're not going to say that but that could
• 10:30
  be a reason. So you wouldn't know that.
• 10:34
  If you would just think that they're one of the first two
• 10:36
  categories of people, you know, either they're scared to go
• 10:39
  because I don't want to get called out or they're just
• 10:41
  totally detached from the relationships.
• 10:43
  They don't want to go if they are totally detached from the
• 10:45
  relationship and they're basically just like, what's the
• 10:47
  point? I don't want to waste my time.
• 10:48
  With that were fine. Then again, you got to say a
• 10:51
  version of what I said already, you know, we're not fine.
• 10:54
  I'm not fine, we have to go. I can start even going myself,
• 10:58
  you know, but I thought that maybe you would want to work on
• 11:00
  the relationship to. Now that's something you can
• 11:02
  always say and many times. People get very, very curious
• 11:06
  about what the couple sessions and tail when only their partner
• 11:09
  is attending. So, you know, and this is
• 11:12
  particularly valid if you have if you make changes in ways that
• 11:17
  they value from going to therapy.
• 11:20
  So like if I'm just working with a guy in couples counseling and
• 11:22
  I'm like, okay, what's the problem?
• 11:24
  She hasn't had sex with you in six months.
• 11:25
  Okay. What are her problems with you?
• 11:28
  Well, she says I'm an asshole. She says that I say snarky nasty
• 11:32
  remarks. Well do you let me hear what
• 11:34
  some of those Texts are ho. Whoa, yes, you do.
• 11:37
  You know, you can be a dick. I understand that's because your
• 11:40
  mind, you feel betrayed and you feel.
• 11:42
  So the angry and resentful, however she's got a point,
• 11:47
  right? So in the next week, what are
• 11:49
  you gonna do instead? How are you going to talk to
• 11:51
  your wife and we're game planning it?
• 11:52
  So he comes out of the session acting like a rock star for a
• 11:56
  week, man. She's gonna be curious.
• 11:58
  She's going to be curious about what's happening?
• 12:00
  Anybody would be? And or even if she's not
• 12:03
  curious, You're going to build up some Goodwill from positive
• 12:07
  change from therapy. She is then going to have a
• 12:09
  positive association between therapy and good, you know, good
• 12:16
  things happen. So then she may want to get in
• 12:18
  on it because most people don't want to live a miserable life.
• 12:21
  Even if they feel too scared to change, if change falls into
• 12:24
  their lap, they may run with it and that would be what you would
• 12:27
  be doing there. So you can always start couples
• 12:29
  counseling on your own and then, eventually they join you.
• 12:32
  You know, that's something that a lot of Um, and then, of
• 12:36
  course, there's the money. So some people are like we can't
• 12:39
  afford that. Well, not only are there, many
• 12:41
  people who accept insurance people say, well, you can't get
• 12:45
  in with somebody who accepts insurance yet, obviously,
• 12:47
  because they have like 70 million people who want to get
• 12:50
  in out of discount rate, but either way you can wait, you can
• 12:54
  call, you can do a sinuous, you know, legwork to find somebody
• 12:58
  who accepts insurance or you can say, I mean, this is like fairly
• 13:03
  obvious like Look what else we spend money on there is probably
• 13:07
  nobody listening that never wastes money, you know that's
• 13:10
  that's just a human thing. And so philosophically would we
• 13:16
  want to spend on eating out twice a week or ordering in
• 13:20
  twice a week? Or would we want to put that
• 13:23
  budget toward couples counseling?
• 13:24
  I had a good meme at least I thought it was a good meme
• 13:27
  because I did it and I said how much would you pay to give your
• 13:33
  kids? It was What may better spoken
• 13:36
  than this? I'm just summarizing but how
• 13:38
  much would you pay to enroll your kids in a course on how to
• 13:41
  have a healthy adult relationship?
• 13:44
  You just found your couples counseling budget, but I'm
• 13:47
  Ching, isn't that good? That's pretty Punchy, right?
• 13:50
  So what I meant by that is people will say that they don't
• 13:54
  have money to work on their marriage and then they will
• 13:56
  enroll their kids and all manner of exorbitant.
• 14:01
  You know, activities when in reality the The number one thing
• 14:05
  that you could do to help your child in later, life is model a
• 14:08
  healthy marriage for them. Seriously, I mean, you know that
• 14:13
  somebody who grew up not seeing a healthy marriage, I certainly
• 14:16
  wish that the dance class budget had been funneled into that, you
• 14:19
  know, because I don't do tap dance anymore, but I married,
• 14:23
  you know, and so it would have been a hell of a lot more useful
• 14:27
  to know, you know, even remotely how to engage productively with
• 14:30
  another person within a romantic relationship, you know.
• 14:33
  And Kids May well feel the same in 30 years from now.
• 14:37
  So, definitely, if there is any disposable income, that is going
• 14:42
  to things that are less important.
• 14:47
  So many things besides food and shelter are less important than
• 14:51
  a healthy safe cam emotionally regulated home, then take that
• 14:58
  money and put it into couples counseling.
• 15:00
  You know, I mean a family vacation makes you feel good for
• 15:04
  Or maybe the three days afterwards and not.
• 15:07
  So if Mom and Dad were fighting during it, then those turn into
• 15:10
  horrible nightmare experiences. Whereas, if you actually see Mom
• 15:14
  and Dad, happy looking at each other smiling holding hands on
• 15:18
  the car hugging kissing. This shit is with stays with you
• 15:21
  and helps you be a person that can function with an intimate
• 15:24
  relationships as an adult, okay? So and you can feel free to use
• 15:29
  that whole whole oration to your spouse.
• 15:33
  So, anyway, What did we cover today?
• 15:37
  We covered that your spouse may not want couples counseling for
• 15:40
  a wide variety of reasons. However, if you are assertive
• 15:43
  and you talk with confident momentum and you focus on the
• 15:47
  children, which is particularly for women, a huge motivator for
• 15:52
  change for positive change. Then you really may get some
• 15:55
  more traction than you think and any bullshit about time and
• 15:59
  money can totally be rethought in different sorts of ways, you
• 16:02
  know, because whatever Spending time and money on right now is
• 16:06
  unlikely to be as beneficial as working on the key relationship
• 16:13
  of your life and the only marriage that your kids.
• 16:15
  See, on a deep level. Yeah, I know you got friends,
• 16:18
  whatever. People get a little, you know,
• 16:19
  they have other, they have other templates.
• 16:21
  They don't really have other templates, you know, not not
• 16:23
  like once that they see all the time.
• 16:25
  So people I just saw my previous previous subscriber episode was,
• 16:31
  you're replicating your parents marriage without even knowing
• 16:33
  it. And man, if that's Sounds like a
• 16:34
  horror show and something you would not wish on your worst
• 16:37
  enemy. Never mind the child that you
• 16:38
  love. Then, get your asses in to
• 16:40
  couples counseling Etc. All right, so hope you enjoyed
• 16:44
  this and hope it was at least moderately useful.
• 16:46
  For some of you, please do subscribe.
• 16:48
  Also follow me on Tick. Tock, I have lots of little
• 16:51
  videos, Facebook, real send me stars.
• 16:54
  There are like so many ways to expand social media nowadays, it
• 17:00
  is like insane, but I will talk to you all soon.
• 17:03
  Have a great day, guys. Guys.