LI Marriage Counseling Center, Huntington, NY
From Dr. Kramer – Give me a call now at 631-553-1476 to make an appointment or email me at Marriage Counseling Long Island.
“Can this marriage be saved through marriage counseling?
Today at the LI Marriage Counseling Center at Huntington, NY, a couple came in with vastly different styles. Their marriage was at what I call STAGE 4 Conflict. Very little positive surfaced during the marriage counseling session. Instead they just ranted and blamed, ranted and blamed. I started to wonder just how I was going to quiet them enough so that we could begin to focus on the underlying issues in the marriage and the real reasons they were in marriage counseling with me.
As I listened and let them rant a bit, their key core patterns in the marriage began to become clear. She perceived the world from the perspective ” What is wrong with this picture?” When she found something wrong in anything he did, according to her standards, she went into attack and command mode. Like a bull dog, she did not let go.
During the marriage counseling session, I started to notice his patterns. He seemed to withdraw and become secretive and do his own thing. He called her a control freak, but he controlled the situation in his own way – not with words but by doing exactly what he wanted without consulting her. She would then become even more inflamed.
Their styles were so different. The leverage I had in the marriage counseling though was that they did not really want a divorce. I set up separate marriage counseling sessions to meet with each of them next week. With him I will deal with is inability to stand up to her and negotiate differences. I will also deal with his relationship with his mother which is a sore point for the wife. With her, I will deal with her inflexible style of seeing only what is wrong in every situation and then attacking.
My goal is to get each of them to move a bit away from their key core patterns that they learned in their families of origin. He learned to be too accepting of his mother and not clear about how to deal with her. He has already acknowledged that his mother is like his wife so this segment of the marriage counseling should go smoothly.
When I meet with the wife, I will focus on getting her to pull away from the family pattern of seeing everything in a negative light… ‘what is wrong with this picture’ is apparantly the family motto. I will help her to look more on the positive and to learn to soften her communication style to be more charming and less like a drill sergeant. SHe wants the marriage to work so I think I will make headway there.
My prognosis for this marriage is that yes, it can be saved through marriage counseling. I will continue to report what happens in this marriage counseling case here in this blog.
From Dr. Kramer – Give me a call now at 631-553-1476 to make an appointment or email me at Marriage Counseling Long Island.
Warmly, Diane
Dr. Diane Kramer, Marrriage Counselor and Psychologist
Long Island Marriage Counseling Center at Huntington, NY
75 Prospect St., Suite 103
Huntington, NY 11743
631-553-1476