Demystifying Couples Therapy: A Heart-to-Heart on Going to Counseling

What's up, guys? Welcome to Demo with Moe. I'm your host, monique Simmons. We'll be discussing dating, engaged and married objectives from a young Christian's perspective. Are you guys ready? Let's dive in. Hey, what's up, guys? Welcome to a new episode of Demo with Moe. I am your host, monique Simmons. Today, we are going to be diving into the conversation of how do you know when you and your partner could benefit from couples therapy. I've had this question asked to me multiple times. I'm sure it's asked to me because I am very open and transparent about my husband and I being in couples therapy. We've been in couples therapy since 2019. A little over four years now. Which time has flown by. I'm very open about that. You guys know how I feel about therapy. I'm an advocate for therapy. I feel like all of us could benefit from therapy, and maybe not ongoing all the time therapy, but a check-in here and there. I think we could all benefit from. But I've been asked this question multiple times. I thought this would be a great topic discussion for this season. We're going to dive right in on today's subject, dr John Gottman, who is very popular and famous for his research. Who, if you're not familiar with John Gottman, I'm not sure what rock you have been hiding under, but if you're familiar with the five love languages, he's your guy. He has the Gottman Institute and on his Gottman Institute website there's a blog there about is it time to go to couples counseling. I'm going to link to that blog in the show notes so you guys can go back and read all of that information when you guys hear this episode. But I'll make sure to link that in the show notes. But in this blog on the Gottman Institute website it says that there are telltale signs that signal you and your partner could benefit from couples counseling and we're going to get into those telltale signs a little bit later in this episode. But these are some of the facts that Dr Gottman has found in his research. 31% of couples take a premarital relationship education program and I want you to listen to these facts. I know that I can't hear you and I can't see you, but I want you to raise your hand or maybe say out loud if there's no one around you or you may not be uncomfortable and embarrassed if there is someone around you, but any of these things stand out to you. Or if you did not do any of these things, just kind of agree with me, say that's you or that's not you or whatever, if any of these things, any of these facts, stand out to you, okay. So these are what he found out in his research. 31% of couples take a premarital relationship education program. So out of all of the couples that get married, only 31% of couples participate in premarital relationship programs. So some type of premarital counseling. My husband and I, we did premarital counseling, but not in the way that I would have wanted to do premarital counseling. It was like a quick little session, something where we sit down with our pastor, you know, just to have a conversation about this, what we wanted to do. But if I could turn back the hands of time, we would definitely do things a little bit different. We would have the hard, uncomfortable conversations about what we expected going into marriage, the roles that we would play, you know, the things we wanted to know about one another, like now being 13 years in this marriage. I would have done premarital counseling completely different, don't get me wrong. I still would have married my husband. But, man, we would have had some conversations that we're now 13 years in just now having, or later in the latter parts of our years just now having. We would have had those before marriage and I would encourage you if you're not married yet, I would definitely encourage you to do some type of premarital counseling and not just the kind where you're just doing it because they told you had to do it. It was mandatory. But I'm talking about really being honest. You and your partner are sitting down, like what do we really want to know about one another? What do we really want to discuss? What are the hard things we really want to talk about, even if it's uncomfortable, even if it may cause an argument, even if I'm afraid, those are the things you really want to discuss. Like those are the legit questions that you really want to ask, because you don't want to wait until you on the other side of I do, and now you have to face these things, and now you have to talk about these things, and now we got to have these conversations that we really should have had before we got married. Okay. Next, it says only 19% of couples actually seek out some form of couples therapy. You guys, this blew my mind. I'm just going to be honest. This really blew my mind. Only 19% out of 100%, only 19% of couples actually seek out some form of couples therapy and only 37% of divorced couples worked with a professional prior to signing the papers. So we've been married, we agreed to leave our marriage, walk away from this marriage, and we didn't fight and do all we could do before walking away, before signing the papers, before saying we're leaving one another, we're letting this go completely. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this about every marriage, because I know, under some circumstances, I know you have to walk away where there's abuse, where there's. I just know when we won't go down that list of things. I know under some circumstances you really have to just get out of there. But yeah, only 37%. And a lot of times our divorce is are for unreconsolable reasons, like we just couldn't get past our disagreements, we couldn't get past conflict that we couldn't work through, but a lot of these things. If we went and saw a professional, if we went and sat down with a therapist even though, don't get me wrong, it can be hard, it can look worse before it looks better, it can be a whole bunch of tears, it can be like man, we're hitting brick walls why we keep coming up against the same thing. Why is it always my fault? Why is it always me? Why are you not putting in the same effort that I'm putting in? Why, why? Why? I understand, but only 37% of divorced couples worked with a professional. You guys, if we're going to divorce, let's do all we can do before walking away, and I think seeing a professional, seeing a therapist or a counselor, is part of doing all we can do before walking away. And this last fact here says the average couple waits six years before seeking professional help for marital problems. Six years, that's a long time before seeking professional help for marital problems. I told you guys my husband and I started seeing our therapist in 2019. And for you guys who've been rocking with me for a while, you know that my husband and I got married in 2010. Because we've been married 13 years, it's 2023. So how long were we married before we saw a marriage therapist? Nine years. So this fact is right. It's right for us and not to say that we were dealing with marital problems for nine years. But you guys will hear about it a little later, when I get into those telltale signs that Dr Gottman talks about. That tells us when couples would benefit from seeing a professional, from going to couples counseling, because we saw some of those telltale signs in the beginning. Again, because you didn't have those conversations in premarital counseling for some that didn't even go to premarital counseling or you didn't have those discussions before getting married. So you begin to see those signs, for whatever reason, which we're gonna talk about as well you didn't think you needed to see a professional. You didn't go see a professional, you didn't get that outside help. You thought you could do it on your own, you could figure it out. So you put it off. And then here you are years later and things got worse or things stayed the same, they didn't get better, and now you finally go see someone. So this was definitely the case for me. So I totally understand this. So this may be you. You may be at the point where you've hit your six year mark, or it may be even longer for you that is listening to this right now and maybe you haven't seen anyone yet. Maybe you've been contemplating seeing someone. Maybe you're on offense about seeing someone. Maybe your partner in your spouse has maybe brought it up in conversation. They've maybe kind of asked you about it, encouraged. You told you guys shouldn't see someone, don't put it off. It could be very beneficial to you and, speaking from experience myself, it could definitely be very beneficial to you. Things won't get better on their own, but we're gonna talk about it a little bit more. Let's get into this of why these percentages are so low, on why people don't seek counseling or don't seek therapy or outside professional help. They say part of this is the stigma against couples therapy, and let's read some of the examples that they gave. Some say thinking that going to couples therapy means that we as a couple are not strong enough to work through issues on our own, that there is something inherently wrong in our marriage. It's a shame game. So for this first example, shame can keep you away from seeing a professional, from going to couples therapy, because why can't we figure this out on our own? Why are we not strong enough as a couple? And this could definitely be a perception of what we see around us society, our community, our village, our family, especially if you are part of the community or the people of color Because we didn't go to therapy that we are just now getting to a place in our generation where we're talking about mental health and therapy and counseling and those things, but before therapy. You got to be. Something has to be wrong with you. What else you going to therapy for? We just pray about it. If we had issues in our marriages or in our relationships or in our home, you didn't tell anybody about it. What happens in our home stays in our home. But, lord, I pray we get to a place as a community, especially a people of color I really want this for everybody, but especially as a people of color where we throw that mess out the window, where we just get rid of that, because if we need help, I hope we get the help that we need. I was talking to a friend about this a few weeks ago and we were talking about mental health issues and getting to a place where it's okay. If we need to take a pill, we take a pill. It is totally okay Because if we were talking to anybody and they were having, if they were having medical issues, if they were having heart problems or lung problems or if they broke a bone in their body I mean, I deal with chronic migraines and I have to take medication every single night and if I forget to take this medication, my body is going to remind me with a chronic migraine I'm talking about. It's gonna kick my butt and you think I'm gonna forget to take my medication. No, I am not. I need that pill and it helps me and it makes me feel better. So why would we treat our mental health any differently If it's going to help me to feel better, to show up as the best version of myself? Because y'all know what, when I have a chronic migraine, I cannot show up as the best version of myself. I cannot be in bright lights. There cannot be any loud noise. I have three children. There has to be loud noise. I work from home. There needs to be light. So I can't show up as the best version of myself when I have a chronic migraine. So I need to take my medication so I can show up as the best version of myself. So it's just like our mental health, but for some our reason. We've been told that we can take care of every other part of us but not our mental health. So I really hope we get to a place where we don't care about what other people say, what other people think I'm going to take care of me If I need to go see my therapist or my counselor, I want to go see my therapist and my counselor If I need to take a pill. If it ever got to a place where I needed to take a pill to be good and show up as the best version of me, for whatever reason I needed to take a pill, I'm going to happily take my pill and, lord, I hope I never forget it. So I really hope we can get to that place as a society. The second reason here is pretending the issues don't exist and avoiding admitting and confronting problems that peek out of the closet in a relationship. Examples include nasty fights, emotional disconnection or an affair. Yeah, I don't like pretending the issues don't exist. If you heard the episode a few weeks ago with my step-sister, kirsten, and we talked about toxic family behaviors, that was one of them. Pretending things that didn't happen. That's one of those I just cannot do. I just cannot do it. We're going to talk about it. We're going to deal with it. It may be hard, it may be uncomfortable, but we're going to have to deal with it. We're going to have to deal with it. So this is one of those things that can keep us from going to seek that outside help, going to see that therapist or that counselor. We just continue to pretend like these things in our relationship or our marriage are not happening. We pretend these issues don't exist, even though we all see the elephant in the room. But we're just going to keep on smiling, keep on pretending that we don't see this fire, this small little fire over here. But every year is getting bigger and bigger, and bigger and bigger, until we get to the point where we're going to have to address it, and then we may go see someone or we end up walking away from the relationship either. Or the next one says, convincing ourselves that the real problem is our partner. This is a good one. So why go to therapy when they are the reason this marriage sucks? And the last one here says believe in the myth that if love takes work, then it wasn't meant to be. A no effort relationship is not a great relationship, it's a doomed one. Dr John Gottman says every relationship demands an effort to keep it on the right track. There's constant tension between forces that hold you together and those that tear you apart. Okay, so now we're getting to the part that you've been waiting for. They give a list of 15 telltale signs that signal you and your partner could benefit from couples counseling. These include, number one escalating conflict and nasty communication habits. Two emotional distance and loneliness. Three falling out of love. For example, if one of you have ever said to each other, I love you but I'm not in love with you. Four trust and commitment issues, such as difficulty relying on a partner or not putting each partner's well being on par with each other. Five attachment and securities that are grounded in feelings of low self-worth and fears of abandonment. This can include extreme dependence, which leads to intrusive behaviors, but it can also include extreme independence, which can make a partner feel like they're not a priority. Six sexual intimacy is practically nonexistent. There's a lack of desire and or is rarely talked about. Seven difficulties within laws, friendships, work or life stressors, including health issues. Eight differences in parenting styles that lead to conflict. Nine mismanagement and disagreement on finances. 10, things feeling unfair in a division of household chores. 11, mismanagement and disagreement on finances. 12, things feeling unfair in a division of household chores. 13, untreated anxiety and depression. Issues that complicate things in a relationship. 15, unequal decision making. And 15, difficult childhood upbringings that have emotionally wounded partners and make it difficult to trust your partner or stay engaged when conflict arises. You guys. I don't know about you, but this is some real life stuff. People are going through and facing these things, because these are some things that people go through and face all of the time and I hope that you hear these and don't get discouraged. That is really my prayer for you. My hope and my desire for you is. I'm reading these off because when I first saw this, I was only going to read a few of these. I only was going to read a few of these, but I might know Somebody, even if it's just one person, somebody on the other end of these. They need to hear these and know that they are not alone. That is one of my heart's desires for this podcast, for other couples. It's for you to know that you are not alone. Can I be honest with y'all for just a moment? Sometimes I struggle with told in the lie. Sometimes I really struggle because I have conversations with God concerning the podcast and social media and the platform and demo with Mo. Sometimes I really struggle because I'm open but I'm private space. Raise your seas. Grass is your body. Grass is your body. Grass is your soul. Grass is your soul To always believe in and always believe in the people of your peers in their identities, in their tortilla, still In order for everyone to discover each one of themselves In order. I really told the line in my prayer time when it comes to this podcast, because this is a ministry for me and I know there are so many podcasts around where it can be clickbait. It can be. Let's talk about what's going on in the news, what's going on in the world, what's going on with social media, like the hot topic right now is Jada Pinkett and her book and all of the things she's sharing. And if you follow me, if you know me, that's nothing that I'm ever going to talk about. Like that's just that's not who I am, and no judgment to anybody that's doing it. Like I don't have anything negative to say about that. If that's your thing, if that's your lane, that's your lane. I'm gonna stay in my lane and my lane is ministry is my lane is to glorify God. That's my lane. I'm not going to ever try to do something that God is not calling me to do. That's just not who I am. That's not what I'm about. But sometimes I told the lane because sometimes I want to be really not dancing, but some things I want to keep for myself. I hope I'm making sense in what I'm saying. So I always try to talk to God about Lord. I don't want to give too much, I don't want to share too much, I don't want to say too much, but I also want them to see you. I also want them to see the authenticity. I also want them to know that they are not alone. I also want them to see what you did in my life and in my marriage and to know who you are and what you can do is real. Like this is not. This is not some generalization, this is not some thing I just talk about. Like you are real. So I always told the line with what I want to share and what I want to keep for myself. So I really hope you guys understand what I'm sharing and what I'm opening my life to you in a real way, even though I keep a lot for my husband and I and our family, and I give what God tells me to give and I share what God tells me to share. And I want you guys to know that you are not alone. So I share all of these telltale signs that Dr Godman talks about because I don't want you to be discouraged when you hear these and you may feel like I have all 15 of these, or I have at least 10 of these, and you think that there is no hope for your relationship or there is no hope for your marriage. No, there is hope. There is hope and you can go talk to someone and see someone and, man, you can go from 15 to 10, you can go from 10 to five, you can go from five to two and you can be like man. How did we get here? Like what I thought? Our relationship and our marriage would always be this way. We would always stand as negative, toxic cycle. We would always be arguing and having conflict about the same things, and you may even still struggle with one or two things and still feel like you're having a hard time or disagreement about these things. But, man, if you just look and realize, man, I remember there was a time when we always argued about how we were raising the kids. We don't have that argument anymore. Yeah, we may still argue about our finances, but, man, we don't argue about our kids anymore. We don't want a chord about how we want to raise our kids when we used to always argue about how we wanted to raise our kids. So I know that there is hope that we'll get to a place where we won't be arguing about our finances anymore If we continue to do the work. So I'm saying all this to say, man, there is hope. There is hope when we get to the place where we want to do the work, but you don't have to do the work by yourself. That was the whole point of this episode today Seeing someone who is trained, who is not biased, who will be invested in the well-being of your relationship or your marriage. That will give you the tools and resources you need to communicate effective, resolve conflict address underlying issues, help you both be heard and feel seen, can be so beneficial to your relationship. And I promise you I'm talking from experience. I'm not just talking to you from something I heard, something from something I read. I'm talking to you from first hand experience. My husband and I both love our marriage therapist. After a lot of couples working seeing our therapist for years, we realized that we both needed to begin individual therapy as well and started to do some self-work. But we wouldn't have never learned that if we had not chose to invest and do the hard work in our marriage and that started over four years ago and we still see our marriage favorites consistently. So we're doing couples therapy as well as individual work. And I know for a lot of people they won't openly say that Some people go to therapists and they don't share that they go to therapy. But I have no issue openly saying that I jokingly say but I mean it's. You know, I jokingly say this but I mean it's from the bottom of my heart. I love my therapist and I love Jesus. I need them both. I need them both and both of my therapists, cause we have our marriage therapist and I have my individual therapist. And both of my therapists are Christian therapists, meaning their work is grounded with biblical sound advice, but they are clinical therapists. So it's not only just biblical advice but they give me clinical knowledge. It's will, so it's tied in together. That's just what I personally wanted for myself because I am a Christian. So I don't want anything that's going to point me from or give me anything that's pointing me away from God. But don't get me wrong. I don't tell people, not even Christians, that they should see someone or not see someone if they're not Christian therapists. No, I would never tell anyone that, because I know Christians who see therapists that aren't necessarily Christian therapists and they are great therapists. That was just my own personal preference in my individual therapist which, when I looked for her, she specialized in things that I actually wanted for my own individual therapy, which worked out that she was a Christian therapist. But I was looking for specific things that I desired to do in my individual therapy which God is just beautiful and awesome and amazing that way. He knew my heart's desire. But she specialized in specific things that I was purposefully looking for, that I wanted to do in my individual therapy work, which only a few therapists in Mississippi here do and she happened to be a Christian therapist. But for our couples therapy we specifically looked for Christian therapists because we are Christians in our marriage and we wanted our marriage therapist to be. We wanted her to be grounded in it when it came to our marriage. So again, I'm not telling you what to do and what to look for. I'm just telling you what myself and my husband and I wanted for our, what we desired, what we wanted. But I just encourage you to speak with your spouse or your partner to kind of talk about if you guys do decide to go the route. If you had some of these telltale signs, that signal you guys may benefit from therapy have a conversation with your partner or spouse, not in a heated argument or conflict, but maybe when you guys, I would encourage you try it on a date night when things are calm and you're having a good time. Maybe I'm a date night girl, I love a good date night but just when things are not heated, when you're not having any conflict, kind of encourage couples therapy. Say something you kind of open to, you wanna try out. Maybe even encourage them listening to this podcast episode, maybe send them the link. Just some great ways to kind of put the bug in their ear. But talk about, even before reaching out to someone, because me and my husband had to be on one accord about what we wanted, because even before choosing a therapist and going to start therapists, I had to get my husband on board about therapy because he was not open to therapy in the beginning. I will have him on for episodes so we can even talk about all of that. I will definitely have him back for a second part of this so we can kind of talk about how we even agreed to that because I was not going to do therapy if he was not going to be 100% on board and wanted to do it. Because, I will tell you, for couples therapy to work, both partners have to wanna do the work. You have to wanna do the work. So before we even started to look for someone, I wanted to be sure that it would be somebody that he would go in and he would trust and that it would be something that he would be on board with. So we kind of had to begin being agreement. If we wanted to see a man or a woman and do we wanna see a Christian therapist, all of those things, we kind of sat down and had a discussion about what he wanted, what I wanted. We put that list together and found out what we wanted and then we went down and sat with this person, loved them offhand first session. But that's not everyone's experience and I'm trying to give you guys kind of all of the tips here because that's not everyone's experience. Everyone does not see their first therapist and, like them well, they're not always a good fit. That does not mean that the person is not a good therapist. They just may not be a good therapist for you. They may not be a good fit for you, so don't get discouraged if that happens. You may like the therapist, your partner may not. Your partner may love the therapist and you may not. If both of you guys are not in love or not satisfied and they usually encourage you to give it at least two to three sessions, because the first one may be, you guys may be uncomfortable, you may not feel like opening up, so it may then go well. They usually encourage you to give it two to three sessions, but if you guys both are not on board, give it up. So if you fall in love and you steady trying to push your partner and spouse to like this person and they don't do that, just give it up and find someone else until you both really like the counselor or the therapist, because that's going to make it even better. When both partners are on board and really enjoy the therapist or the counselor, that's going to help you guys and make it even more beneficial, because my husband and I both love my therapist. He can't wait to talk and I can't wait to talk and it just it makes it a more fulfilling experience. It just does. So I really hope this episode has encouraged you guys on today. I really hope it was beneficial. As Dr Giamme said, as always, know that I love you, but God loves you so much more and I'll see you guys next week. Bye, I hope you guys have enjoyed. Follow me on Facebook at demo with Moe. If you have any questions you would like answered here live on my podcast, email them to me at demo with Moe at gmailcom. That's D-E-M-O-W-I-T-H-M-O-E-G-M-L-D-C-O-M.