(Disclaimer: Names and details have been modified for confidentiality.)
A husband or wife calls up the psychologist and asks me a now-familiar question in a pained voice: “Can you help us? I just found out my partner’s been having an affair. He (she) is willing to see a therapist. Should we come alone or together? How do you work?” After a call or two, we find a time where usually the couple and I meet in my psychology office.
Dan and Maria thought they probably wanted to stay together but needed immediate counseling to handle the challenge of recently released intense emotions: pain, anger, guilt. They had thought they were happily married. Maria was plunged in fear and jealousy, and Dan was awkwardly seeking how to act to restore calm amidst turmoil.
Soon the circumstances that had strained their marriage became more evident. In the safety of my office they were making progress in couples’ therapy, expressing what had been annoying, distressing or unfair, naming their frustrations, resentments and discontent accumulated over many years.
Maria’s obsessive worry that Dan would secretly see the other woman left her exhausted and Dan exasperated. They agreed Maria could see me, the psychologist, alone. Therapy techniques from EMDR proved effective in freeing her from now outdated intrusive thoughts and feelings linked to the impact of the moment she learned about the infidelity.
As the couple used time outside the psychology office to meet new parenting demands on them successfully, have fun again, appreciate and enjoy one another, trust was rebuilt.
Have you, or a couple close to you, been hesitating too long to get therapy needed to recover from a crisis?
Debra BERG, The Bilingual Psychologist in Paris