Toward Commitment

by Diane Rehm

  DIANE: Well, in a marriage, or when two people are living together, criticism causes people to knock heads, which is what you and I did for too long.

  JOHN: For too long, I certainly agree. And, as you properly noted, the issue is still with us and will always be with us. The lesson is to manage and contain it, and I think we've made some progress in doing so more frequently. I know that I can now, to a much greater degree, hear criticism from you, take a deep breath, and step back and treat it as a comment about a specific issue, and restrict my reaction to that issue.

  Terms of Marital Agreement

  The following undertakings are made until October 1, 1982, at which time this marital agreement will be reconsidered anew, without any prior commitments having been assumed by either party.

  I will be totally uncritical of my spouse. I will not utter a single critical word. I will allow myself to experience how that feels.

  I will discuss major monetary expenditures as objectively and dispassionately as possible, realizing the particularly heavy demands that will be made on the family budget this fall and winter.

  I will exercise my freedom to express my sexual feelings honestly. My spouse is not obligated to respond to my sexual advances. I will neither be critical of, nor angry at, my spouse for lack of willingness to make love. I will take responsibility for my own sexual needs.

  I will exercise my freedom to refuse or accept social invitations. I will not commit us as a couple to any invitation until I have discussed it with my spouse. The refusal or acceptance of one does not necessarily bind the other.

  I will exercise my freedom to spend time with my friends, male and female. I will be open and honest about my activities. I agree not to engage in any genital sexual activity with any of those friends.

  I will exercise my freedom to come home in the evenings during the week or not. On weekends, I will honestly discuss my own desires and will exercise my freedom to spend time alone if I choose. I will discuss my needs and intentions in these regards with my spouse.

  I will exercise my freedom to sleep in a separate room. I will discuss with my spouse my needs and intentions.

  I will exercise my freedom to attend or stay home from church. My spouse agrees not to pressure me to do otherwise.

  I will exercise my freedom to suggest, or be open to suggestion, in regard to recreational activities. This might be a movie, a concert, an art gallery, or any other form of recreation that appeals to each of us. From time to time, I will exercise my freedom to engage in recreational activities by myself. I will discuss my needs and my intentions with my spouse. I will take responsibility for my own desires regarding recreation.

  I will do my best to be loving and kind, warm and affectionate. I understand that the needs of my spouse deserve as much consideration as my own.

  I will participate in two joint meetings in September with Maxine Denham, to talk with her about our struggles to keep our marriage alive and healthy.

  Psychotherapy

  John

  I have been in psychotherapy—or therapy for short—over a number of years. My therapists have been both men and women, and the therapy has been conducted in individual as well as group sessions. It has played a significant role in my life, altering my relationship with myself and with others—especially Diane. Its impact, however, has not always been benign, and at times it has released distinctly ambivalent forces. On the one hand, it has promoted a better understanding of myself. On the other, it has proven divisive and harmful to our marriage.

  How have I experienced therapy? For me it is, first and foremost, a process. That is, it is not a set of behavioral rules designed to make me a well-adjusted person. Instead, it creates an affirming environment in which I can see myself more clearly. The therapist and, if it's a group setting, the others demand one thing of me: that I relate my thoughts and experiences with honesty. Such honesty reveals both the good and the bad in me. It can both provoke joy and inflict pain.

  My introduction to therapy was bitter. Diane had begun to work with a female psychotherapist to deal with her own issues, many of which were related to our unhappiness. I remember feeling alarmed that she was seeking help outside the family and thus, I felt, demeaning me. After she refused to allow me to participate in her sessions, I decided, out of a certain degree of desperation, to ask Diane whether I might have a few sessions with the same therapist on my own. During these sessions, the therapist said virtually nothing, and her icy aloofness drove me crazy. Not only was she not helping me, but she provoked in me a hostile and negative reaction. After only two or three sessions, I quit in disgust.

  Two years later, Diane began working with a new therapist, this one a female pastoral counselor, an older woman Diane described as warm and kind. I began to envy Diane's relationship with this woman, and, several months later, asked her whether I might occasionally “drop in” on her sessions with the therapist. Understandably, Diane reacted with some annoyance, exclaiming that if I wanted therapy, I'd have to get it on my own time. Diane did, however, introduce me to the pastoral counselor, with whom we each developed, as a couple and as individuals, a long and, for the most part, successful relationship. In particular, although sympathetic, she didn't allow me to dodge the hard questions. For example, what was the true relationship between my father and mother? What needs of Diane's was I not fulfilling? What satisfaction did my absences from my family give me?

  Individual therapy with the pastoral counselor enabled me to validate myself. She encouraged me to confront my feelings of insecurity and worthlessness, and at the same time she helped me to understand that, for all my faults, I am lovable. Thus, possessed of greater self-esteem, I was somewhat better able to respond to Diane's needs. At times, however, the therapist's affirmation and acceptance of me led me to believe that Diane—and not I—was the greater cause of our problems.

  In group therapy, whether attended by just men or men and women, I was repeatedly struck by one revelation. However educated and sophisticated, each confessed to feelings of remaining a frightened and lonely child. This revelation freed me to attempt to discuss with Diane our mutual problems. However, the temptation to fall back into old and safe patterns of noncommunication remained very strong.

  I have learned that, for all its benefits, therapy does create an unreal and potentially deceptive world. By experiencing that world, I've equipped myself to deal with the real world better. But it's vital that I keep the two separate and understand that the relationships created in therapy are only brief exercises that may or may not offer insights that I can apply to my enduring relationships.

  Diane

  Therapy has been a lifesaver. It has allowed me, both in group and individual settings, to better understand myself, my behavior, and the impact my behavior has on others. I had always been confident that I had substantial self-knowledge. It wasn't until I got into therapy that I began to realize how little I really understood myself, and how that lack of self-knowledge distorted my view of others.

  How did that process begin to work on me, I wonder, and how did I bring that learning into my relationship with John? To start with, John refused to go into joint—or couples—therapy with me. So after long discussions with my friend Jane Dixon, I reluctantly made the decision to go into therapy by myself. For months I resisted the idea that I could in any way benefit from talking our marital problems over with a therapist without having John by my side. They were mostly “his” problems, after all, I kept arguing to Jane, so what good would it do to talk with a therapist alone? Finally, however, she convinced me that the effort would be worthwhile.

  Finding the right therapist is not easy, but in my own case, through the help and recommendations of others, I found the right succession of therapists to meet my needs at each juncture. The first time I saw my first therapist, I remember blurting out everything that was wrong with our marriage. Gradually, however, she turned the discussion toward me, my own background, my own expectations of myself, my frustrati
ons, and how I expressed them. She seemed to be less interested in the marriage than I, and each time I tried to return to that subject, she managed to steer me back to my own relationship to myself.

  Eventually she urged me to become a part of one of her groups, feeling as she did that group therapy was an opportunity for me to grow more quickly in my self-understanding. Reluctantly I agreed. I say reluctantly because moving into a group seemed less safe and far more threatening than what had become the comfort and familiarity of talking with an individual therapist. But I'm glad I agreed. It was the beginning of a long process, sometimes painful and sometimes filled with joy, laughter, and the satisfaction of sharing my emotions with others who had problems seemingly different from mine.

  What the “problems” all came down to, however, were those of living, coping, and grappling with the realities of our lives, and becoming aware of how the past connected with the present. Each of us had to recognize our unrealistic expectations of others, allow our childhood memories to emerge without backing away from them, and learn to incorporate, without fear, those past experiences into healthy, rational everyday behavior.

  But those two years with my first therapist were only the beginning of what has become more than twenty-five years of work with various therapists, male and female. Why should it take so long to straighten out one's thinking? What is the goal of therapy? Is there a moment when I know I'll be finished? I doubt it. For me, the work continues to explore and reveal aspects of my inner life which, at some level, I may have known were there but which were not acknowledged. Now, at sixty- five, I'm ready to let go of the modes of thinking and behavior that for so much of my life controlled me. I believe that I can change the way I actually think. I believe that certain patterns of thinking became repetitious and deeply ingrained many years ago. Now the challenge is to undo the negative ways of thinking and to replace them with altered patterns. I have, among other forms of therapy, experienced cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), a form of treatment that focuses not on the past but on current ways of thinking, and seeks to put a stop to the old ways, replacing them with the new. In addition to psychotherapy (what most of us would call the “talking therapy”), CBT has been enormously useful in training my mind to work in new ways. Not only where John and I are concerned, but in other difficult personal situations, I have been able to put this new form of thinking to work. Therapy, as I've said, has been a lifesaver.

  Dialogue on Psychotherapy

  JOHN: Diane, several times during these conversations you've suggested ways of rendering people somewhat less unprepared for marriage. You've talked about questionnaires, you've talked about marital counseling. It just struck me that therapy is really a way to make up for the absence of such premarriage techniques. That might lead someone to think it's an either-or proposition, that you can make preparations before marriage, or, with the lack of preparation, rely on therapy after the marriage has begun. I'm beginning to think it's a matter of doing both, if at all possible. There's one great advantage of postmarriage therapy. It's that people have a basis of experience—good or bad—to deal with. If it's before marriage, I'm not sure they will have the insight into the problems that will arise.

  DIANE: I've talked with some people who've said, “What in the world do you need therapy for? What do you get out of therapy?” First of all, I do agree with you. I don't think that premarital counseling is a substitute for psychotherapy. I think the two are very different. Premarital counseling would just begin to raise the issues that the two people will have to grapple with, or simply raise their awareness of where they'll differ or be similar. Psychotherapy is a learning process in which you come to understand your individual self. Couples therapy perhaps has to come after individual therapy. I don't think you and I could have done the work in couples therapy if each of us hadn't had some work in individual therapy first.

  JOHN: Are you suggesting that all couples should anticipate the need for, and undergo, therapy, which can be expensive and time-consuming, and which can also, at times, create wrenches in the relationship? Are we seriously saying you probably can't achieve and manage a successful relationship unless you have a pretty heavy dose of therapy, individual and group?

  DIANE: If you've had a perfect childhood, then perhaps you don't need it. But I think there are few perfect childhoods— or marriages. I think most people can be helped, to some extent, by therapy. I agree it's expensive—there's the question of insurance and who pays—but I would also refer to the fifty percent divorce rate in this country. Just think of that expense, both financially and emotionally. Perhaps part of that high divorce rate is because two people don't know themselves very well, either before or after they're married, or don't understand their own behavior or that of their partner.

  JOHN: Don't you think many couples would say, “Well, we've had our problems, but we've been able to get through them. Those problems really don't go to the heart of our relationship, which is adequate or better. What can I really learn from therapy that I don't already know now?”

  DIANE: I was thinking of personality types. You and I both have strong personalities. Maybe there are people out there with calmer approaches to life. And I was thinking of two couples in particular, who seemed to have a benign and quiet relationship, who seemed to exist together as couples very happily, and what happened? Both couples split, after decades of marriage. I don't really know what makes a marriage work, but I do believe that self-knowledge is a must.

  JOHN: Maybe it's also a question of just how high your expectations are for marriage. In spite of all of our, at times, severe difficulties, I think you and I, somewhat quixotically, have held on to rather high expectations and a genuine desire for a rewarding, enriching relationship. Maybe that's an unrealistic standard to impose on others.

  DIANE: I'm not imposing it on anyone. All I'm suggesting—

  JOHN: But you seem to be suggesting that most marriages really need therapy.

  DIANE: I'm suggesting that people need to know themselves, and most people don't, and certainly don't fully know their partner.

  JOHN: Based on my experience, I would fully agree. But I don't want to mislead people by suggesting that therapy is a sine qua non. That's what I'm probing here. In our case, I would be the first to say it was enormously important. The marriage might not have stayed together if not for the therapy you and I have had. But how seriously are we saying to others, “Gee, whether you know it or not, fellas, you really need to get therapy”?

  DIANE: I don't think I'm saying that. I had friends to whom I could talk. You had no one to whom you would talk about what was happening in our marriage. I think you were not used to talking with anyone, including me. So how was I to break this impasse to get through to you—I just didn't have a clue. I needed outside help. Many people may not need that kind of help. I needed it. Let's also not forget that many plays and novels have been written about the “quiet desperation” in marriage, and how people simply exist within marriage and don't fully develop themselves. I think you and I have had an opportunity, through therapy, to engage in the process of developing ourselves, and we're still growing.

  JOHN: I agree. That has been the enormous benefit of therapy for us. It has allowed us in almost mysterious ways to develop a potential we had for a more successful, rewarding, enriching marriage. I would probably round out this thought by saying that therapy is a resource and can be enlightening. If people are behaving in the belief that ignorance is bliss, and that there is no need to delve into themselves or their partners in order to get along, then so be it. That's not necessarily an unreasonable choice. But if you are trying to deepen and enrich a relationship, then without a doubt therapy can play a role.

  DIANE: Now let's talk about the downside of therapy, which for me has been quite similar to the upside, in that it's raised issues that I would prefer not to have looked at. It's raised conflicts between you and me. As each of us became stronger in our own views of ourselves, it has, at times, made it that m
uch more difficult for us to come together.

  JOHN: Therapy is decidedly ambivalent in the following sense: On the one hand, it can make you confront yourself, your childhood, your behavior, and that can be rough at times. But on the other hand, group therapy, in particular, establishes a cocoon, a protected, sheltered climate, in which the other members of your group are trying to uphold you and show affection for you. In my case, there were times when that was a better world than the one I was experiencing with you. Ultimately, the lessons I learned were constructive rather than destructive, but I can recall being drawn into the weekly session, anticipating a degree of security and a lack of the kind of criticism to which I thought I'd be exposed at home.

  DIANE: So the kind of criticism you got there was different from what you got at home, or anticipated you might get, and ren- dered in a more loving atmosphere. You looked forward to being involved in the group therapy rather than being involved in the real world. It became something of a competition, between what was happening in the safety and security of that group and what was happening at home.

  JOHN: I can recall, at times, feeling an emotional bond with individuals in that group. It was really an illusion to believe it could be perpetuated, when, of course, that wasn't the case, because the group would eventually break up and I would return to the “real world.” So therapy does have its pitfalls.