I sometimes forget that the work that I do with couples is actually effective.

Despite having seen many successful outcomes over the decade or so I’ve been doing this work, I can’t help but feel skeptical about the possibility of success in the face of challenging client situations. In part I think it’s due to sporadic bouts of impostor syndrome, which I have struggled with in small and big ways; and in part I think it’s just that on its face it sometimes just seems so unlikely that a couple can bridge the giant gap that separates them when they come in.
 

Take Molly and Grant. Molly wanted another child. Grant did not. When they came in for couples counseling, they were both pretty despondent about the possibility of working things out. Theirs was a stark difference of opinions to overcome, not to mention the impact of months of intensifying arguments over that difference which had left them frustrated, angry, spent, and dejected.

I doubted myself, but I plunged ahead with what my training, experience, and instinct told me: let’s build empathy, and then take a second look at the problem afterwards through a new lens. My style looks a little bit like Imago, a lot like Relationship Enhancement Therapy, and a bit like everything else too. (I tend to think that there are strengths in many different modalities, and I like to keep a variety of tools in my belt.)

Molly and Grant had one child so far, a mischievous and often oppositional three-year-old girl named Haley. They had their fair share of struggles with her, but both of course loved her deeply. Grant, however, had never really expected to be a father and still grappled with how exactly to fill the role; he had no need to double down on it. Moreover, he was afflicted with a physical disability that made him earnestly question whether he could physically handle parenting twice as many children as he was currently attempting to manage.

Molly’s emotional yearning for another offspring was diametrically opposed to Grant’s disinclination. She wanted it, needed it, pined for it. She considered leaving the marriage over it (knowing, of course, that at her age that would certainly not increase her chances of having another child).

Over the course of our sessions, we were able to illuminate (at least partly) the source of her powerful desire; it was no small matter. Her wish for a second child related to her worth as a woman, to her fraught family history, to the untimely death of her own sister years earlier, and perhaps most strongly, her profound wish to give Haley someone to rely on through thick and thin.

Whenever they began to cycle through the arguments for and against, we got nowhere. Instead, I guided them to focus on their feelings, their experience of life as parents, as spouses, as a man or woman, and to share those in a safe and structured space with each other.

Grant was skeptical. Molly was hopeful, and also doubtful, and kind of both at the same time. But they tried. They really tried. They failed a lot; then they tried again. I taught them to listen to each other. I taught them to talk to each other (rather than at or around each other). And soon each began to understand where their partner was really coming from. From there it was a short distance to caring about where their partner was coming from, and then to expressing that caring. I taught them to reconnect with their empathy.

It was somewhat astounding to me that after five sessions, they were savoring their connection once again. They thanked me for literally saving their marriage. They left with a deep commitment to each other and to the process. I trust that these will be assets they will use to continue the discussion around having further children. It reminded me of my own commitment to the process as well.

My work with couples, challenging as it often is, continually reminds me that relationships are never about the what, but about the how. When couples interact with each other on the basis of empathy, there is virtually nothing that stands in the way of deep connection (even in situations where the best thing really is to break up). Couples like Molly and Grant remind me of this truth. They give me something to hold onto when my impostor syndrome strikes. Like my clients, I’m not perfect. I don’t always say the right thing. I don’t always know the right answer. But I am pretty sure that empathy is the right way.

But I have no idea what, or if, they decided about having another child. After all, that was never truly the problem.