Let’s Talk Therapy

I’m thankful for the therapy I’ve had that’s helped me navigate some of life’s toughest waters. I think we could all use a little help re-wiring some of the destructive habits we’ve acquired in our formative years.

I’ve had my fair share of therapy over the years. It started when my first husband and I hit a very rough patch in our marriage and one of the advisors for the team, my ex was a pro-baseball player, suggested therapy to help us work through it. I was very open to it but I have to admit it felt weird to be in a room with your partner and a stranger with the expectation of airing all of your dirty laundry for them to sort out for you. Nobody wants to look bad so it can take time for the truth of any situation to get unpacked. This was also in my people-pleasing heyday so it made me cringe to actually share my real feelings with her about my husband at the time. How hurt I felt, how embarrassed, how angry, how spiteful. If I shared the truth it would make him look bad. If I shared the truth I would have to acknowledge that I had played a part in his poor treatment of me. To say that the couple’s therapy didn’t go well that first time around would be an understatement. My ex got tired of sitting in a room with two women asking him to change so he stopped showing up. I kept going by myself and finally was able to work through some of my childhood demons that had been chasing me for so many years. 

I remember one of my homework assignments was to go home and call each of my parents and ask them why they had gotten divorced. That was fun. 20 years after the fact and I was still blaming myself. I used to reason with the belief that I totally understood why they split. They were different, they wanted different things and since they had met and married new people that they were very compatible with and were very happy, it made sense to me that they weren’t together. There were times when I couldn’t even see how my parents had ever been together, they were so different by that point. But the little 7-year-old me did not understand that….AT ALL. Nobody sat her down and said, “This has nothing to do with you, we both love you.” I went to stay with my grandparents over a summer and when I got home, home was different and Dad didn’t live there anymore. She turned all of those unanswered questions into stories she told herself about why she wasn’t lovable. And subsequently made some really bad choices about how to be loved. I also vowed that I would never get divorced myself. Famous last words that came back to bite me when I stayed longer than I should have in a marriage that was clearly not healthy. I’m nothing if not stubborn and thankfully the therapy was a good start to unraveling some untruths and giving me some tools for better navigating relationships. 

I spent probably a year in therapy and then got to a point where I felt like I was using my newfound insights and wasn’t necessarily getting any new revelations out of my weekly sessions. I wasn’t ready to get divorced so I sat in therapy talking about the fact that I was changing but my husband was not and that started to rub. So I quit going. I didn’t need to keep paying $150 an hour when I wasn’t willing to make the changes she was suggesting. I believe we all come to our own breaking points and while she wasn’t telling me what to do, she wasn’t shy about showing me all the ways I was being mistreated and I just wasn’t ready to do anything about it. I still carried that incredibly naive view that if I just loved him more, differently, better, he would realize how great we were together and turn into the person I knew he could be. 

Yeah, that never happened. But I did reach a breaking point and I was thankful for the tools my first therapist had taught me so that I didn’t completely unravel when I asked Mike for a divorce. Not that it wasn’t arduous and awful and messy and all the things divorcing someone is, but by asking me to unpack my past and showing me how I had survived other difficult situations, she instilled a belief in me that I would get through this too. Learning that was worth every penny and every tear. 

I started with another therapist while I was going through my divorce and dipping my toe back into the dating pool. Randi was one of my personal training clients and I adored chatting with her during our sessions. I didn’t share a lot but she knew some of the surface details and some of the dynamics I was dealing with so when I went into full meltdown mode, I asked her if I could see her professionally. It felt easier than going back to my old therapist and having to fill her in on all that had transpired over the years, where I felt Randi already knew some of it. I had been separated for years, I had finally filed for divorce, I had been set up by friends, and said friends were worried that I was tempted to reconcile with my ex. Although I assured them I was not, they were not listening and when people don’t listen to you but instead keep telling you how you feel and what you’re doing, you start to feel a bit like you’re losing your mind. 

I saw Randi for about a year and she was invaluable in helping me maneuver through a divorce and creating a new life for myself full of possibilities. I cannot recommend therapy enough. It may take time to find someone you click with, but ultimately you want someone who hears you and guides you to make the best choices for yourself. A therapist should not, in my opinion, tell you what to do. There is no agency in that, and if a situation goes awry there can be the potential to blame the therapist and not take personal responsibility for your own actions and your own life. 

Scott and I talk a lot about therapy. We have both seen the benefit and have no aversion to talking to a professional when your toolbox runs low. He’s had his fair share, although it sounds like most of his couple’s therapy was tailored to managing his ex-wife’s trauma and emotions. I joked recently that maybe he should research a good therapist and schedule some solo sessions to work through some of his own lingering resentments and family dynamics. None of us have it all figured out and a quality, professional therapist can give you insight and means to work through the emotions and habit patterns we have created to keep us safe that may not be working for us anymore. None of us were given a manual on how to navigate all the unsettling circumstances life gives us over the years, we all get to chart our own course. Therapy can fill in the spots on the map that were left out by our upbringing.