He Said/She Said
DISCLAIMER: The following column is a composite of several different experiences I have had with clients. It does not depict a specific encounter. This story is not about you!
Not every couple that comes in for therapy has a remarkable story to tell. Often, couples come for a few sessions to prevent the snowballing of minor annoyances into major catastrophes. Sometimes they are looking for a kind of reset since they feel their behavior may have gotten a little sloppy. Other times they are looking for reminders of why they fell so madly in love with each other in the first place. Occasionally, it’s just a matter of voicing their feelings to an objective third party to know whether they are being reasonable or not in their expectations.
In the case of Barry and Anita, they were both sensing an increasing distance growing between them. Work, kids, personal and community responses were taking a toll on them and neither was happy with the lack of connection that was growing between them in recent months. They were both basically happy, but neither knew what to do to nip this lack of connection in the bud and correct course.
{He Said
Barry was nearing forty and worked in finance in a stressful job that he was not fond of, but he was committed to it because of the need to bring in a large income. Barry also shared that no sooner did he receive a raise or bonus at work than their household expenses also concurrently grew. He felt an enormous burden on his shoulders and was rarely able to relax.
He claimed that he desperately needed his weekends to decompress. He needed to enter his own “zone” where no one made demands of him so he could relax and restore himself in order to face Monday.
Upon further questioning, Barry admitted that he was always an introvert, preferring his own company to that of others, although he did claim that he had always found Anita interesting and preferred her company to anyone else’s. Regarding their two children, the older son was a lot like him and seemed happiest pursuing his own interests. Their younger daughter was outgoing like Anita and a joy to be around.
The problem that Barry was confronting was figuring out a way to juggle his busy schedule between his job, his down time (which involved reading and learning), and family time. Barry was stressed out as a result, which led to him coming across as defensive anytime Anita brought up the subject.
I asked Barry whether he missed spending more time with Anita and the kids or whether that wasn’t particularly on his radar. “I often feel as though I don’t have time to come up for air,” he responded. “But if I take a moment to breathe and think, the fact is I miss them terribly. I just don’t have the time to go there very often.”
Anita was a stay-at-home mother who enjoyed and appreciated her luxurious lifestyle. Though she grew up middle-class at best, it wasn’t hard for her to learn to enjoy the better things in life. Over the years, her tastes became more extravagant as did her lifestyle. She spent time with like-minded women and was no different from them in that regard.
“Honestly, I miss those early years,” she said. “When Barry and I lived in a small apartment, budgeted, and made do with very little, but somehow felt more connected. We used to talk a lot about our future and how we envisioned it playing out. We were cautious about spending, and felt proud when we found a piece of furniture left out on the street that we spent time refurbishing. We were a team back then. I’m not sure how we got to where we are now. As we pursued our dreams, we seem to have lost each other.”
Anita pressed on, trying to reconstruct exactly how and when they started drifting apart. “I do know that when Barry started taking on more and more responsibility at work, I tried to pin him down so we could spend some time alone or as a family doing something fun. But I was usually rejected—or worse, reprimanded for not understanding the pressure he was under. After a while, I couldn’t take the rejection and his general attitude and I just gave up. Don’t get me wrong, all the perks I enjoy are great. And I would never want to go back to that tiny apartment counting pennies. But I could definitely do with less if it meant being a wholesome, close-knit family again.”
When I agreed with Anita that you can’t have it all, I asked her whether she could envision any particular change that might help them return to their earlier bond. “Not really,” Anita responded. “But I’m open to suggestions.”
It was time to pull Barry back into the conversation. “Are you surprised to hear your wife welcoming suggestions that might suggest a sort of downsizing of your lifestyle?” Barry’s response surprised me a bit, but it just goes to show that sometimes the most obvious solutions staring people in the face are often overlooked or ignored completely. “I always thought Anita adored her lifestyle and would never entertain the thought of going backwards, not even for a minute,” Barry responded. “So, that’s news to me.” Anita replied, “Until I said those words, I didn’t know myself just how much I wanted you back in my life fully, and how much I am willing to sacrifice to achieve it. So, I kind of surprised myself as well.”
Our lives can sometimes run away from us, when we’re not paying attention. Like it or not, life happens. It’s easy to become hyper-focused on one area of life without realizing we have neglected other areas of life that are equally, if not more, important. Such was the case with Barry and Anita.
Our work involved going back to the drawing board. Initially, the three of us brainstormed to see if there was a way for Barry and Anita to find their way back to one another without having to drastically change his work status. That would have been ideal, because no one really likes going backwards financially even though they both admitted there was plenty of wiggle room. But that idea turned out to be less than sustainable.
I helped them get the ball rolling, but they didn’t really need my help to figure out the logistics of how Barry could unload some of his job responsibilities and revise his job description so he could put in less hours at work. Anita worked hard to figure out where she could cut her personal spending. Though they didn’t need to continue seeing me, I did receive an occasional text from Anita keeping me posted on their amazing progress. Her final text went something like this: “It feels like the good old days again. We’re working together, playing together, making things work together, and definitely in sync with each other.”
And that’s what I love to hear!
