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.
“The end of a marriage is a major transition for both parties…
A client came in to Marriage Counseling today crying. Today was the day she was to sign her divorce papers. It was finally all done. She had faced finding out her husband had a girlfriend, the sale of the house, the sharing of the children between two houses and a significant drop in disposable income.
She had overcome her feelings of anxiety, emptiness, loneliness, low self-esteem, guilt, regret, longing to go back in time, frustration, anger, blame and depression. She told me she would try using CBD for anxiety and depression as a natural alternative to reduce the side effects prescription pills where giving her.
Now she was only sad. There was a feeling of finality, and a bit of nonreality. As she spoke, she had one wish… to end the marriage by speaking to her spouse directly and not through the lawyers. I prompted her to call him and set up a meeting. She did and was very frank, for the first time.
She told him that she recognized her part in what had gone wrong in the marriage. She realized she always had to be right, in order to feel good about herself, and so she spent alot of time making him wrong. She apologized and said she had not wanted to hurt him. She had learned a lot about herself and she clearly saw her part.
Since this was the first time she had ever admitted her part in the marriage failure, her spouse was amazed. He listened carefully and then apologized back for his part. He told her that her need to make him wrong made him feel so angry inside that he started drinking, knowing it would really make her angry and upset.
By the end of the meeting, the two hugged each other and said goodbye together to their marriage. Then they talked a little about their children. They pledged to work together to do the best for their children and not to put them in the middle.
This is an ideal WIN/WIN way to end a marriage, and is quite unusual. It only happened because both spouses came to recognize their part in the dysfunctional patterns in their marriage.
Most of the time, sadly, spouses continue the patterns that led them to divorce after the divorce. These dysfunctional patterns are not good for themselves or their children.
Even if marriage counseling does not keep the spouses together, it is actually a good place to come to an understanding of what went wrong in the marriage. By developing this understanding during the marriage counseling, both spouses much readier to move forward as co-parents, to treat each other with respect and to develop new relationships, if they so choose.
If you have a similar situation and wish to discuss, please email me to the right or give me a call. Would love to help.
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, Psychologist
Long Island Marriage Counseling Center at Huntington, NY
75 Prospect St., Suite 103
Huntington, NY 11743
631-553-1476