Marital Therapy
Couple 1:
A few years ago a young woman came to me for help as a family therapist. She told me that she was absolutely heartbroken because she felt like she was forced to leave her husband for infidelity....they had been having difficulties for the last while and he had gone out and found another woman to have sex with.
Both of these young people had grown up in very dysfunctional homes and we looked at the patterns from the past that they were following in their marriage. Her mother left whenever things got rough and had never been able to hold a relationship together for more than a couple of years, in spite of being married many times. His father, on the other hand, spent the husband's childhood in one affair after another outside the home. When I told her that BOTH of the couple were following the patterns they had learned as children, she was able to see her husband's misdemeanor in another light but she was still unable to forgive him. For more information on this topic and how important it is to couples therapy, you might want to check out my book In Search of Self.
She fully believes in the SCIO and wondered if it could help. At that point I had only done the couples therapy program on the SCIO with clients who were in the office with me but this was not going to be possible in this case, as they lived an hour away from me and both had jobs as well as 3 children to care for. I offered to run an experiment with them - working on the couples panel with them every day for 33 days....in the office when they were able to come in, but through subspace when they couldn't. I also asked them to make the effort and look into each others eyes while I was running the program on the weekends, as that was the only time they would be able to do this because of the jobs they held. They agreed. I alternated the person who was on the SCIO each day, and only did the couples therapy which took me about 15 - 20 minutes a day.
At one point they were able to come in to office during this process which gave me the opportunity to do it when she was directly hooked up to the SCIO and he was looking into her eyes. At that point I asked them if they had felt anything happening since we started and both of them said "no". The husband admitted that he thought that this was all hogwash, but he was willing to go through it because she wanted to try. He needed her to forgive him. In the meantime, the children, who were with them at the time, told me that the parents were wrong. It was working. They were not fighting as much any more. All 3 children urged us to continue.
At the end of the 33 days, the couple again told me that they didn't think it had helped at all. A week later he packed his bags and left the home. I was so disappointed.
However, he was not gone long. 6 weeks later he came back and the couple has been rebuilding their relationship ever since. Both of them have become very aware of their tendencies to use the patterns they learned from their parents when stressed and are making the conscious choice not to follow through with these behaviours. It is not easy at times, as they often happen unconsciously, but now that they are aware how their partner reacts, they both find themselves looking for solutions to their problems that don't involve leaving or triangulating.
I am writing this today because they are in Vegas right now, and all week I have been getting photos from them as they share their trip with friends and family via facebook. The joy in their faces is absolutely incredible to see.........and I know, as they also do, that this would never have happened for them if we had not done our experiment! I would love to share a photo with you so you can see the joy, but since computers can now find people using face recognition programs, I will not. In the midst of this - I do hope you all realize that this is a powerful tool you all have access to.